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Chapter Text

I: The Bedchamber.

The facial hair had to go. 

Before the accident, the rightful heir to the Iron Throne had sported a wispy mustache. He’d never minded what the court fools said, court fools were the mouthpieces for his grasping sister. The only man he had to resemble was his father, for this was a land where resemblance meant everything. 

Until that sister decided it didn’t, and their father ruled in her favor. For better, and for so much worse , the big-bellied man of laughs and tourneys and feasts was king. 

Weeks of recovery saw patches of silver-gold hair sprout on my sides and under my chin. Given a few more months, it’d be a fully-fledged beard. Mother loved it, “Your father’s beard made him look like a glutton, that was why he had it shorn. Yours is the fullness of Uthor and the hardness of Aegon.” 

I wasn’t mother. I didn’t need to play the game. 

I hated my hair. The silver-gold always shined in just the right way to make my face look paler than it was. Sure, next to the average smallfolk and their muddy hair, maybe we were the heirs to gods. 

No, not gods. These were mortals whose dragons forged an empire built on slavery and supremacy. 

I couldn’t take one look at myself in the mirror without being reminded of it. Amethyst eyes were always going to gaze back. 

I had to keep the hair on top of my head uncovered and undyed, mother said. “In this day of strong boys, the realm needs true princes.” 

She never insisted I had to keep the facial hair. 

“Cut it all,” I told Beric. 

“Yes, Your Grace.” 

Beric was a stormlander from Nightsong. In recent years, father’s household was being filled with stormlanders. One of grandfather’s plots.

Seventy five year old Boremund was the antler poised to plunge into our groin. Steadfast and resolute and one of the closest friends to the grasper on Driftmark. 

The Great Council should have ended her plots, they only inflamed them further. 

“We must strengthen the marcher presence at court,” grandfather said with that cool timbre of his, when I had dared to loose my tongue. “Men must be reminded of the benefits of service, and no men have served us better than the marchers.” 

Yeah, right. The Baratheons were not the Stormlands, not yet. Boremund was half a Velayron. None of his vassals were. He was swayed by the gold and glory he received from the slaughter on the Stepstones. His vassals had greater concerns, raids from Dorne, raids from those same Stepstones, raids from the Three Daughters, and border disputes. 

None had a greater disdain for the stag in Storm’s End than the Carons of Nightsong. 

They and the Tarlys had been fighting a border war for the better part of a century. This wasn’t some permanent affair, whenever the Vulture Kings would rear their long necks, the two sides would set aside their differences to go hunting… only for the wounds to reopen afterwards. 

Boremund had married his son Borros to Lord Caron’s daughter. The maesters said it showcased a unity in the Stormlands. 

Grandfather, as ever, disagreed. 

“Boremund fears Royce’s influence. He sought to temper it with the vows of marriage. Boremund cannot give Royce what he wants. The crown can, and the crown will, and Lord Caron shall remember.” 

It was rude to jump to conclusions in his presence. I owed him everything. “And what does Lord Royce want?”

He laid his hands together. “The same thing most men want, my prince. Power. The ability to sit on a dais while lesser men do your bidding. Boremund threw his lot in with the whores, and enforced it with his banners. Oaths made as lands are taken are not like to be maintained.”

“Will the Stormlands answer his call?”

“The question you should be asking, my prince, is what will make them?” 

“What will make them answer his call?” 

“The right course.” 

“What course is that?”

“That is for you to decide. What is the right course?” 

Mother turned to regard me for the first time during the lunch. It was moments like those that worried me. The moments that hinted at what was coming. “A war that protects their rights as lords.” 

His face was unshifted. “Return to your studies, my prince. We will speak further.” 

Wrong answer. I rose five octaves. “A war that protects their rights in succession!”

“And what rights may those be?”

“A younger son must come before an older daughter.”

His eyes scanned me. “You are too emotional. Return to your studies, my prince.” 

“It’s the injury,” mother said lowly, almost a whisper. 

He turned to her and said “It is unbecoming, and it will cease.” 

If grandfather bade the sun and moon to cease their spinning, they would freeze in place.

As the Nightsonger worked, Arrec of Blackhaven, one of the court bards, played a ballad on a lute. It helped grandfather that I liked marchers. Next to the latest silk fashions spiraling out of the Black Walls of Volantis, they wore practical linens. As courtiers, those ‘practical’ linens were still going to be finely threaded and decorated with red dragons.

I couldn’t wear marcher surcoats unless I or mother could convince father to shift the trends. I might have, had mother not reminded me of my place. “You will not be outdone by boys of great strength.” 

When they finished, there was a knock at the door. “Princess Helaena is without, Your Grace.” That was Ser Criston Cole’s disciplined baritone. 

Helaena, ahh… her eyes weren’t amethysts, they were soft purples, the color of her orchid garden. Her hair wasn’t gold, it was a cream yellow, like the pastries she herself made for the children. Her face wasn’t pale and ghastly, it was rosy, even when she wept. She had all of father’s softened corners without his cowardice. 

Mother never forbade me from smiling, least of all within the royal apartments. No person alive won as many from me as her, save when she and the children were together. 

“She may enter.” I waved at the door, then looked around the room. “Give us the room.” 

The Princess entered, the men bowed, the women curtseyed. Only at the motion of her hand did they rise, and finally take their leave. 

The Princess was dressed in a grass-green nightgown trimmed with gold, done in the Oldtown style. Her hair was freshly brushed, kept in a loose braid. 

The court fool mocked her for being fat, or so I was told by mother. I believed it. Father found Mushroom most amusing, and believed all that he said was in jest. 

His was the first head I would be taking. Even the whore on Dragonstone had more decency. She managed a castle and all its fiefs. She had to be commended for her plotting skills. What did he manage, other than his throbbing ego? What was he capable of, other than boasting of who he had bedded? 

In her youth, Helaena was shorter and stouter than the rest of father’s known children. Two births, the first of which she was far, far too young, had indeed left her plump. 

She took my hand and gave it a gentle kiss. “Aegon.” Only then did she realize what I was missing. “The beard… you cut the beard…” 

I didn’t ask her. I should have, as a courtesy. I read that in one of the books on marriage somewhere. I’d been given it to help with my marriage and read a few pages before putting it aside when I remembered who I was married to. I shoved that thought aside to take her hand in mine. “Did you like it?” 

When she didn’t answer, scrunched up in thought, I took her hand and rubbed a circle into her wrist. “You may speak plainly.” 

“I… yes, why, yes, I prefer this.” 

There was that smile of hers. The one where her cheeks puff up. 

The smile that made the coming Dance all the harder. The smile that kept me tethered when I was first thrown into this world not six months past. Or has it been six months? 

I gestured to the pitcher. “A soft Arbor. May I get you anything else?” Before she could answer, I was to my feet, at the pitcher, and back with two goblets. “What brings you this late?” 

“I…” she took the chair. “I just put Jaehaerys and Jaehaera to sleep. They wanted to hear the full story of King Lymond X Hightower.”

You two little adorable bundles kept her up, did you? Why, someone’s going to have to tickle you awake tomorrow. Helaena has a busy busy day, because of you, she’ll be working while tired. “They sleep soundly?” 

“They do.” 

I tipped my goblet at her. “And you?” 

“I thought… the maesters have said I am hale enough…” she turned as red as one of the tomatoes she liked to carve. 

“Hale enough? To ride Dreamfyre again?” 

“To bear another babe,” she whispered, looking at my feet. 

To think, this was the same woman that helped run the household of the Red Keep, who spent her days organizing tournaments and girls’ educations, and had given birth to the three most beautiful of babies, here, sheepishly shy at the mention of children. 

There was a problem with that. “I won’t do it. I’m not laying with you.” 

Her voice stalled in her throat. “Aegon?” 

It was then I thought of the implications, and felt it prudent to clarify. “Or any other. You are my sister, and they are not my wife.” 

She raised her eyes from the floor to look me over. A minute passed while she did so. She broke the silence by crossing over to me, taking my hands in her, and gazing into my eyes. “Are you well?” 

Better than ever. “I’m not bedding you.” I didn’t break the handholding, even if it went counter to the point I was making. “It is no fault of yours. You are ten times the beauty of any other. It is because you are my sister. The Faith says brother shall not lay with sister.”

“We are not like others. The Doctrine-” I cut her monotone off. 

“Helaena,” I cut deep. 

“My love?” Same monotone. 

“To the hells with the Doctrine.”

“I want to bear another perfect prince or princess.”

No, you don’t. I let go of her, I couldn’t let her instincts take over, and backed into my bed. I sat down on it while she stood still, frozen in place. “Do you, truly? Or-” I mouthed the rest of the words, “-has mother demanded it? I am not mother. I will not tell her.”  

At that, her features softened, she stepped over to me, and practically clung to me when she sat down. “She has,” she said lowly, eyes far away. 

“Mother cannot make you lay with anyone.” 

“You used to-” I didn’t need to stop her thoughts, she did them herself. 

“When was the last time I visited your bed?” 

“Eight moons past.” 

And this marks the first time since the accident. “Do you think I shun your bed willfully?”

“I do not know, Aegon. We used to lay together and talk of the day. You have not done so since… it. Yes-” she found some courage in there, “-yes, yes, I thought so.” 

I squeezed her hand. I couldn’t just shove her in a septa’s robe. Little steps. “I will not do what mother wants of us. We have three beauties of our own now. That is enough.” Not to mention, she’d only given birth six months ago. 

“I want a sister for Maelor!” she shouted, exhausted. 

No, you don’t. “Mother wants a sister for Maelor. What do you want?” 

At that, she turned to face me. “What do you want?” she asked, half-worried, half-distant. 

Perhaps she didn’t believe me, perhaps she was tired from a day of work, perhaps this was the depression that came with living a life as a pawn in a giant board. If nothing else, she wasn’t lustful, if I refused her, I sensed she’d honor it. That was all I needed. For her to honor it. I’m not bedding my sister. I don’t care what the other Targaryens did, have done, or will do. It’s immoral. It’s wrong. “I want to sleep easily.” 

“Oh…” she exhaled slowly, then laid a chubby hand on my shoulder. “What worries you?” 

“Him.” 

“Him…” she tasted the word on her lips, then she found the taste, “oh, oh, him.” She gave my cheek a chaste kiss. “He cannot get to us here.” 

A chill fell upon me. “He can get to us anywhere.” 

“He will not. I won’t let him.” 

No. NO. I gripped her hands tightly and stared into her purple pearls. “No, you will never say that. No, he will kill you. He will kill you. He will.”

She took a deep, steadying, breath. “Let him come. Let him come now. I am waiting.” She hitched up her gown, there, around her inner thigh, sat a short scabbard. A Valyrian steel Myrish stiletto. 

“I cannot sleep,” I finally admitted. It was why I ended up staring at my patches of hair to begin with. 

“Let me help you,” she bade, taking my head in her hands. “Lay down, I’ll be gentle. Chest first?” 

“Back,” the request was second nature by this point. 

I went to the bed, shed my shirts, and laid down on my chest.

She began massaging my back. 

When I first found out who I was, my days turned to a waking nightmare. I never said anything of what I knew nor did I reveal who I was.

The more I lived and breathed, the more I thought of them. The whore on Dragonstone would break the Great Council, but she was only half of it. 

It was him.

Him. 

I could not sleep for days. His face appeared every time I closed my eyes. 

I pictured the knife slowly cutting open my boy’s throat. 

I pictured the newborn crushed in a mob. 

I pictured Helaena, used by his thugs. I saw them in the Keep. I saw the way they looked at her. 

I pictured my girl, broken, surrounded by men that wanted her dead and men that were supposed to be loyal to her. One of them disposed of her. 

All of it, with him smirking in the background. 

The maesters thought I was going to be raving forever. Grandfather wanted me on the poppy. Mother wanted me locked up in a room until I stopped tossing and turning. Father wept, embraced me, told me I’d be better one day, and was pulled away by mother’s soft touch. The twins were too young to understand. The only ones who crossed the lines, who dared to appear, who defied mother and father and the maesters and the septons, were her and my second brother. 

Aemond offered comfort, as much as a broody teenager could have. “Tell me who haunts your dreams, brother, and I will bring you his head.” 

Even he bent his head when Helaena appeared. She was to be his queen one day.

I don’t remember how, I couldn’t, seeing her brought back the images of what would be done to her. One moment she was in front of me, the next, she was behind me, massaging my shoulder blades. 

She spoke in a tongue I did not understand then. High Valyrian. The language of the royal court, the language that Viserys was trying to make the official language of all Lord Paramounts. 

She massaged me from shoulder to heel, and for the first time since I was thrown into Westeros, I fell asleep. 

Every day after, for weeks, she would give me those massages. Her fingers never strayed from their chaste path. 

Women, mother warned, would use nakedness to achieve their wants. “Beware whores. Use them for your pleasure, but do not talk to them.”I believed her, it was how she became pregnant with all of us. 

Not Helaena. She was pure and innocent. 

Her delicate touch set my mind to thinking of her showing me her garden in the godswood. “Helaena, how is the garden?” 

“It is wondrous. Did you know we had a few feathered visitors today?” 

“Who? The white ravens?”

“Four golden cranes. Orwyle says they are migrating. Wait!” 

I froze involuntarily. “What?” 

Her hands went back to softly kneading circles into my upper back. “You should have seen Jaehaera feed them.”

“What do cranes eat?”

“Greenberries. She ran down to the kitchen, demanded a pouch of greenberries, came back, and tossed them in the air! The cranes went wild!” 

The two of us started laughing. 

I saw it in my mind’s eye, the tiny four year old chasing a crane around the garden, tossing little green berries at the massive golden cranes. If they were the same birds I’d seen from time to time, they were eight feet tall and walked with elegance… and between them comes running a four year old.

“Where was our little prince?”

“Playing with Osmera.” 

Osmera Blount, Lord Bennard’s sister, here, like so many others, to wait on the Queen and the future Queen. As she liked throwing silvers to the smallfolk, she joined the future Queen’s retinue. 

Helaena grazed a nerve on my lower back. I yelped and saw my grandfather again. All of this for Boremund. 

She soothed the nerve, and my nerves, with a few deft touches around the nerve. 

“Helly, can I confide in you?” 

She sighed happily. “Of course, my love.” 

“What do you think of Lord Boremund?” 

“He is unyielding and quick to anger,” she answered, carefully weaving around the nerve. 

“As one of them.” 

“Oh,” she clicked her tongue, understanding, “you mean them. I think, when we are fit, we should fly to Storm’s End to meet his son Borros.” 

So we’re on the same page. Curious. “Why?”

“Borros will be Lord soon. He likes feasts. He likes when his bannermen come and…”

“Suck his cock?” 

“Tsk, tsk… mother would be upset. How could you utter such foul words with your wife?” she shrilled, matching mother’s tone and temper. 

“You can tell her if you wish. You came here to bed me, I believe a cock is part of the requirement.” 

Her hands shuddered. 

Right, right. “My apologies. I did not mean to remind you of… the fool.” 

She patted my back. “I don’t fear the fool. After your… after it… I began to dream of him, of him and Dreamfyre.” 

“Then who?” 

“No-one,” she lied through her teeth, “I was thinking of what mother said.” 

I wasn’t the only one getting my nerves lowered. “What did mother say?”

“She had offered to buy… if I do not satisfy you… no, I shouldn’t tell you, it is not becoming of a knight.” 

“May I loose an arrow into the dark?”

“Must you?” 

Ah, but this is mother. “She wanted to reintroduce me to the Street of Silk.” I laughed into the pillow. 

Her lack of an answer was an answer in it of itself. 

I continued. “I believe I have discerned why. Before the accident, I used to enjoy them. Prince Aegon must have his serving girls to be Prince Aegon.” 

“Yes…” she said, meekly, “you did.”  

“No longer. The only touch I want is this,” I reached back and squeezed her fingers as they rested on my back. “This and no further.” 

“About Boremund,” she was down by my right side, pressing and pressing, “the Stormlands are as strong as their storm lord. If you worry about him and them, I do not see reason to fear. Borros is more Caron than Elenda.” 

“What if her aunt goes?” 

“Then they may renew their oaths. Traitor’s oaths.” 

“What do you advise?” 

“As I said,” she reached up and ran her hands through my hair, “we should fly to Storm’s End. If Boremund can feast his banners into fealty and win their love with the blood of the Boneway, why not we?” 

“You would fly into battle?” I didn’t believe it, I had to ask anyway. 

“Never. You wouldn’t let me.” 

I chuckled, and soon enough, so did she. 

“I would go to Storm’s End, call a council of the banners, and help them attack the Boneway.” 

“By helping them, you mean… give them gold.” 

“I see it now, father removing himself from the throne to do it himself,” she stated, very, very seriously and not at all dripping with sarcasm. 

“The chair’s too small for him,” I murmured. 

The two of us snickered like teenagers, which, I was a few months no longer, twenty, and she still was, being eighteen. Before Westeros, I was but a few years older. Instead of flying dragons, I was driving tanks. 

She used her royal voice to command me to roll onto my back. And so I did. She moved to the front side of my shoulders, careful to ignore my neck. 

“Borros’ blood runs hotter than dragonflame. It would do us well to earn his friendship before…” 

We shared a look. Him. 

“By friendship, you imply his support,” I put forth, as she switched from my right shoulder to my left.  

She shook her head. “No, friendship. He is a great fighter. We need more fighters and less readers.” 

I nodded. 

“You don’t wish to speak more of it,” she said, giving a reassuring cheek pinch. 

No, not really. 

Thinking of Boremund reminded me of another of them. “Jeyne Arryn,” I began, to see where she would take it. 

“There is fighting in the Vale.” 

“She has finally died?” I’d have heard of that. 

“Mountain clansmen coming down to attack Heart’s Home.” 

Cracks appeared on the egg known as the inside of my head. I didn’t know it then. “The High Septon…” 

“Has remained silent,” she filled in for me. 

“Has Lady Arryn put for a call for the Faithful?” 

“To appear weak?” She turned her nose up, much like her mother did. “She is too honorable.” 

A thought began brimming to the surface in my head. The Faith of the Seven. “Why don’t we send support?” 

“Mother would never-” 

“To the Others with mother.” I laced my fingers through her thicker ones. “We are dragonriders, we can fight.” 

“I don’t know…” she said, tentatively, “...mother wants me to…” 

“Bed me, yes, I know.” I didn’t put two and two together, that was why her nightgown cut so low. Her usual nightgowns were high-collared, with the little square of skin beneath her collar reserved for one of her gold-and-emerald necklaces. 

I didn’t understand why the prince would ever stray from her, birth gave her a fullness in the chest that no smallfolk woman would ever have; what with all of them eating poorly and she eating like a princess. No wait, I knew why. Her chest permanently sagged and she had vein-like stretch marks crossing her lower stomach, both the product of having her get pregnant at thirteen and giving birth at fourteen. 

I distanced myself from the thoughts of mother’s next plan in motion by returning to Helaena’s thick warm fingers. “But you won’t bed me, so no seed will quicken, so you will not be on bedrest for seven moons.” 

The Queen was very keen on making sure her daughter had healthy terms and births. Considering we hadn’t had any miscarriages or stillbirths, she did well. On the other hand, she’d say there were only three children -two births- in four years of marriage, two of them twins. Maelor was around, Helaena was alive, and I wasn’t impotent. 

“What is your plan?” she inquired as she kneaded my abdomen. 

This was where months of reading paid off. “Go to the Gulltown Sept, receive the septon’s blessing to lead a campaign against the clans, lead a campaign against the clans. Do it all in the name of the Seven and holy Andalos…” 

Andalos...

The egg made itself apparent by cracking open. 

I may have sounded like the whore on Dragonstone trying to play up appearances to obfuscate her strong boys, but I did genuinely love the Seven.  

Next to Helaena and Aemond, Eustace was the one who helped me most through my recovery. 

The Faith of the Seven was the religion of fighting for justice, of protecting the innocent, the women, and the weak; and of donations to feed and build housing for the poor. Septs maintained hundreds of years of records, and were hives of intellectual discourse. Motherhouses were a shelter that welcomed anyone at all times.

All men were equal beneath the Seven’s eyes. 

Even I, a descendant of tyrannical slavers, could amend. 

I couldn’t tell Eustace that I hated the Valyrian pureblood supremacy, or dreamt of a world where there were no dragons and that all men were equal. Sunfyre was wonderful, but I didn’t deserve him. As the Smith would say, men earned what they worked. What work did I, let alone the prince, do to earn a nigh-immortal flying deathbringer? 

I couldn’t tell him I’d have the Swords and Stars brought back in a heartbeat.

I could and did tell him I, just as the Seven taught, believed in the rights of commoners and lords. “The Great Council protected the rights of our bannermen. In a just world, my father would call Great Councils for all matters. What right do we have to make demands of them, when it is their sons who bleed for our wars?”

Septon Eustace, seeing something of a rising star in his midst, took me aside for half-day periods to educate me on the deeper theology of the Seven. 

Theology I ate up. 

When the Andals came, Oldtown, Gulltown, Lannisport, Storm’s End, Rosby, Tarth, and the Sandship all had their own High Septons. Each one took his own interpretation of the Seven-Pointed Star.  

In addition to those we would now call the traditional High Septons, sects and heresies blossomed:

Many combined the old gods and Seven to form the Seven Gods, who had the Seven’s septons and the old gods’ decentralized structure. 

Followers ‘sworn to the Stranger’ arose, swearing to root out all corruption. 

Those who followed the Cult of the Mother viewed her as a primary aspect in a small pantheon, and tried to install their own High Septas. 

Followers of the Smith would burn their material goods and live lives of poverty, claiming it brought them closer to the true tenants. 

With the rise of the Seven great Kingdoms, the High Septons waned until only Gulltown and Oldtown remained.

The two High Septons would go on to spend centuries fighting -oftentimes brutal- religious wars with one another. 

As legends went, the Gardener wife of an Arryn King invited the two High Septons to a theological debate, to mend the schism. Oldtown won, and with that, all the lands south of the Neck barring the tree-huggers in Blackwood Vale would follow the lead of Oldtown. 

Andalos. 

Why, it was all so clear. 

I sat up, grabbed her, and pulled her into a hug. A tight hug befitting a wonderful companion. 

“Helaena, thank you.” 

“What did I do?” she muffled into my shoulder, not all too bothered by the smothering. In fact, based on her tenor, she seemed to like it.

“I know how we will defeat them.” I let her free of the embrace, so that I could gaze into her orchids.

She took my hands in hers, I let her. “How? How? I thought… them.” 

“I will do the one thing they never thought of, and it’s all thanks to you. A septon-blessed war.” 

He'd already done his warring on the Stepstones, and gotten away with it.

I would do him better.

A crusade.

A crusade for Andalos. 

Chapter Text

II: The Young King

2nd day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.2.127AC)

2nd day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.2.1590AV)

Once I was deemed fit enough by Grand Maester Orwyle, and mother and grandfather, but that part doesn’t make it into the histories, I returned to my duties as a Prince of the realm. 

It was easy to see why Viserys’ reign was considered the high water mark of Targaryen rule. Not only did the Targaryens have more dragons and riders than at any point before, but it was an age of long summers and short winters, which, for the uninitiated, meant it was a nonstop population boom. 

In addition, it’d been more than a century since the Conquest, long enough for multiple generations to grow up as part of the new Targaryen machine. Jaehaerys was many things, but stupid he was not. Patience would do what Aegon and Maegor could not, and see a whole generation rise and fall knowing a Targaryen on the Iron Throne with a dozen more waiting down the line of succession. 

My father was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. Even he saw the sense in centralization. 

One of Viserys’ many edicts was to make High Valyrian the official court language of the capital plus all Lord Paramount seats. They could hardly stop him when he could call upon a fleet of dragons. In a single stroke, all the important officials in the empire, for that’s what it was, an empire, an empire of nine culturally and religiously distinct regions, were mandated to learn the ancestral tongue of the Valyrians. 

I couldn’t walk five feet in the Red Keep without hearing some lord greet me in it. 

I hated High Valyrian, but mother made us master it, like everything else, to defeat the boys of renowned strength. Practically speaking, that meant I had to relearn my father’s tongue within a few months. 

I wasn’t much of a student in my past life, I got into tank school through a girlfriend whose friend was the head of the school. I did get into driving tanks based on merit, but it didn’t take much merit to press a button and watch someone go up in a puff of smoke. 

Suffice to say, I didn’t relearn High Valyrian. I could understand words, I couldn’t connect them in coherent sentences, and when I did, they’d come out something along the lines of ‘Day is good, lord freeholder, I go to emperor-throne-hall,’ instead of ‘Good day, my lord, I am on my way to the Iron Throne.’ 

On this, my sister had my back, Seven bless her. Languages and tongues came to her naturally, or so mother said. Mother may have also been lying; all of us had dozens of maesters from the Citadel each to tutor us as children. 

In addition to High Valyrian, we mastered the Oldtown dialect of Common, which had been falling out of favor in the past hundred years, and was now reserved for the clergy and those from in or around Oldtown. Said dialect was how most of us greens communicated with one another. Oldtown was low-pitched, even-toned, rhythmless, and easily flowing. It was the tongue of poets and artists, of courtly love, of chivalric knights and fair maidens. The rest of the Seven Kingdoms sounded like angry growls by comparison. 

There were another eighty-something dialects of Common, grouped into the major regions of the Seven Kingdoms. One advantage to being royalty, among many many many many others, we didn’t need to learn Dreadfort, Karhold, Rill, or Barrow Common; Winterfell Common was the court Common of the North, all northern nobles had to learn it. 

One disadvantage, when I walked down the cavernous halls, I wouldn’t understand most of my subjects unless I knew their dialect. In the case of that morning, I saw a herd of Marbrand lords here on some business or another. Even though they were a banner of Casterly Rock, I had only a vague notion of what they were saying in their localized dialect. They weren’t speaking one of the Paramount dialects, or a dialect from the Reach. They could’ve been discussing the intimate details of my non-bedding last night for all I understood them. 

Another of mother’s lessons came to mind, “do not go simpering for the common lords, it is they who owe you homage.” I wasn’t drunk or Aemond enough to stop and ask these Marbrands to talk like civilized court officials. Seeing as they controlled one of the largest territories in the Westerlands, it wasn’t worth it even if I was drunk. 

Westeros, where every single lord is waiting to take offense. 

Being Prince didn’t mean I had a free pass to sit on my favorite cushioned chair. One of my first nights with my sister, not like that, saw her drop a stack of papers on my desk. “The Wendwater needs its lord.”

“Is that not the land of House Bywater?”

“It is your land. Father gave it to you.” 

I was Lord of the Wendwater, my seat the large castle of Drakebridge. Another of the King’s brilliant ideas, giving his second wife’s children seats of their own. I had a large estate along the Wendwater, larger than the Gates of the Moon, all built by the prosperity of the Old King. Like its name implied, it was a castle built adjacent to a bridge, the main bridge across the Wendwater for fifty leagues in either direction. Drakebridge was a strategic imperative for any attacker or defender to take. Control it and control the Wendwater. Helaena had blushingly hinted that we made Maelor in its private apartments the last time I had visited the seat to administrate from it. 

The One-Eye was Lord of the Kingswood and Lord of Hunterford, a large castle in the middle of a forest. Not the best idea with firebreathing dragons, but trying to argue with my father about throwing money at big castles had as much of a chance at succeeding as convincing him to strip her of Dragonstone and send him to the Wall. 

I had signed off on papers that would see our youngest brother, thirteen year old Daeron, be given a title and castle of his own; Lord of the Rush, Lord of Drakesdwelling. He wanted to name it Tessarionhome, after his pet dragon, until someone -grandfather- had pointed out that dragons were mortal, titles were not. The once in a blue moon I agreed with my grandfather was then, I don’t think I could’ve looked him in the eye ever if he called his castle Tessarionhome. 

I was one to talk. I hadn’t visited Drakebridge since before the accident. 

A man named Durran kept addressing himself as castellan of Drakebridge. There wasn’t much in the way of problems; castles tended to run themselves in times of peace. Durran’s family had their own land next to the castle, they weren’t just our tools to be thrown about like jacks. 

It took a visit from mother to educate me on what I was supposed to have known. “When you are hale, you should fly to Drakebridge to rule.” 

“Shouldn’t I be in the Red Keep… with my children?” 

“If you wish to bring your children with you, that is a choice to be deliberated on between you and the Princess. I would advise letting them stay here, so that they may be tutored in a proper court.” 

What kind of tutoring is there for a pair of four year olds and a half-year old baby? That was one of the issues with mother and the Seven Kingdoms in general, I couldn’t raise these moral and philosophical questions. Well, no, I could have, but it would have been pointless at best and getting me on the poppy at worst. Children weren’t children, they were young nobles. 

The longer I spent recovering, the longer I saw sense in her words. With dozens of dialects and almost two thousand years of history, not counting all the other subjects, it was understandable why they’d start young. Two thousand, not eight thousand. 

The Andals came less than two thousand years ago. The Andals brought a comprehensive written language, what would now be Oldtown Common, and the spoken tongue ‘Common,’ before it spread out across thousands of leagues. Their septs brought a centralized form of recordkeeping. The maesters had existed for thousands of years more, it was true, but they spent those millenia in the Reach. Literate septons? Every septry had one, and he’d be writing and transcribing his whole life. 

Maybe if my mother was the ruler in her own right, her sons would be off learning to govern and rule. Maybe if the prince before me had taken an interest in visiting his keep more than a few times a year, there would have been a precedent for me to return there. Maybe if my father could come up with any use for his spares besides glorified hangers-on, the first two sons of the Queen would have been securing Targaryen power in the Crownlands. Maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe… No, I was the first son of the Young King, and may the Seven save us all, my place was at court. 

A man in red dragon livery came to summon me to the small council chambers. Had he worn green, I would have had equal parts confidence and fear; mother would never do anything against my interests. No, he wore scarlet red, so he was father’s. 

I donned layer after layer of wear, all of it the richest textiles in the Seven Kingdoms, all of it lathered in the faction I was born to rule. A deep green undershirt embroidered with swirling golden dragons and tall white towers. Hose, parti-colored green and white, vertically divided by golden thread. A bright green doublet, two-sizes too tight, belted with rubies and emeralds. Even the long-pointed shoes, visually similar to knight’s sabatons, were black with small gold pattern work. 

Over all this pomposity went the most elaborate dress of all: a fur-lined surcoat and skirt, quartering the white Hightower on steel with the gold dragon on black, divided and demarcated by interwoven green and gold thread. 

To show my support for the Stormland Greens, I picked out a few Marcher-style rings, thin gold bands with small emeralds inlaid in their faces, intended to be worn under a mailed gauntlet, and one of those silver pendants depicting the Stormlands’ icon of the Warrior, supposedly meant to look like Durran Godbreaker, realistically meant to look like an angry man with a thick mustache. Whichever of the hundred different Durrans this one was, there wasn’t a chance in hell the whore on Dragonstone would have thought of wearing it first. 

Plus, if I was about to go try and drum up support for a holy war, the first of its kind since the last Holy Expedition, I’d need every symbol of the Warrior I could get my hands on. Today it might be the Stormlands’s Durran the Godbreaker. Once the need for Stormlands placation was over, I’d move on to Artys Arryn, Argos Sevenstar, and Armistad Vance. 

My very faction was itself rooted in those holy wars. Green for the Gardener Kings, the ardent defenders of the High Septons from Oldtown. Green for the Knights of the Green Hand, the finest chivalry that ever lived. Green for the Gardener Kings and their Hightower Queens. 

Through my mother, I could trace myself to eight thousand years of House Gardener. Lord Manfred wed a daughter of Mern IX. In a world where my father pulled his head out of the ghost of his first wife, his children by way of his second wife would be the heirs to the Kingdom of the Reach. Only the Florents could preach a stronger claim, and they were the Florents.

Ironically, his current heir was herself an heiress to the Kingdom of Mountain and Vale. Even she, who adores her blood of the dragon, had to concede a piece of her sigil to those ancestors of hers who predated the Targaryens.

Gardener and Arryn. Hightower and Grafton.

The holy wars ended long ago. Their feud lives on.

It was entertaining, in a morbid, history-is-a-wheel, way.

“His Grace, Prince Aegon Targaryen” announced the court herald, Addam, originally herald for Lord Grandison.  

The small council chambers were curiously devoid of said small council, even the Hand. Even the Queen.

Sat at the head of the table was the Young King himself, fifty going on ninety. He was in one of his ruby moods, an expression coined by the Queen. Unlike the rest of us who chose to dress based on who we were, he chose to dress based on how he felt. Today it was one of those knee-length doublets that made anything more than a shuffle difficult, with patterns plucked out in rubies of differing sizes. Not that he’d have the chance to do anything more than a shuffle, he was getting too wide for his own small council chairs. 

Yet, for all I denigrated his appearance, he wore the sword of kings with elegance. Blackfyre went with him everywhere, up and down the throne. Whenever the black-and-purple blade was drawn from its sheath, he looked like his portrait from twenty five years past. 

This wasn’t one of those times. There weren’t any courtiers around accusing Dragonstone of brimming with strong boys and men who would kill their wives and their wives’ brothers to get a chance to marry the niece that got them banished from the Seven Kingdoms to begin with. 

Like the prince before me, I was nobody’s fool. He shared my amethyst eyes and my silver-gold hair, and based on my old portraits, I was a smaller portly version of him, but that was where it ended. 

This man was going to cause a war with the largest death toll in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, all because he couldn’t tell that his court was dressing differently from him. 

I didn’t need to face him alone. Helaena was there, and with her came the reserved smile of court. She came in one of her usual high-collared puffy-sleeved flared-dresses, green and gold from head to heel. Keeping with mother’s precedent, she adorned herself with jewels; a gold-trimmed green veil crowned with a coronet depicting swirling dragons, a matching gold collar-necklace featuring two dragons ‘holding’ the emerald in the middle, gold earrings made to resemble coiled dragons, and a ring for each finger. 

“Your Grace,” I went to one knee. I should’ve been watching my father, but my eyes, as much as I could look with a bent head, were on my sister. 

Heavy footfalls. The King had found the strength to rise. “Arise, my boy,” he warmly welcomed, “let us have a look at you.” 

I presented myself, straight and tall, taller than the rest of my siblings, not as tall as my king. 

He laid a heated hand on my cheek, examining. “You cut the beard! You should have kept it!” He exclaimed, playfully. “Why didn’t you keep it?” 

Keep it? What, and look like a homeless man? “I wanted it removed.” Because it looked too much like you. Because it made me look pale as death. 

His smile sank. “Truly? I could have sent you my dresser.” 

Sensing the awkwardness of trying to explain personal agency to a man with the personality of a corpse, my sister cleared her throat and intervened. “I wanted it gone. He looks much finer without it.” 

My father took one step back and stroked one of his chins. “Hmm. You are right.” 

I sent him -and her, over his shoulder- a quizzical look. “Was I summoned to discuss beards, father?” 

He clapped me on the shoulder, knocking the wind out of me. “You were both summoned for a feast!” 

A feast. I saw my sister’s face curdle and die in the background. Had I been closer or her less courteous, I’d have heard her groaning with it. This is what we need, a feast. 

“Father, we threw a feast last week,” I tried not to sound pouty. I really tried.  

“That was last week!” he boomed. “This is this week! We will have a feast on the eighth!” 

This ingenuity was the sort of decision making that saw tens of thousands slaughtered and hundreds of noble lines put to the torch and sword. 

It was the second of the Seventh Moon of the 127th year after Aegon’s Conquest. The last feast we had was eight days ago, I hadn’t the slightest memory of who or what it was about. Such was the product of rampant expenditure. 

“Yes, father” was all I said, slipping on the happy prince that went with the merry king. Helaena saw what I was doing, and went with one of those preens that didn’t reach her eyes, the happy princess.

The King backed up further, his scabbard saving him from the table. I imagine it’d have been unkingly of him to back into the table. We’d need a new table. And a new king. 

The two of us were bade to join him at the table, to discuss feast preparations. We sat down next to one another on the end of the table, while he took his place at the head. What he didn’t think of, or more likely didn’t know, was us sitting as far from him as possible while together allowed us to hold hands under the table. The gesture was necessary, the two of us were a few seconds away from losing the one mind we shared thanks to the shared hobby of getting imbibed frequently, itself a reaction to the nonstop court gossip and feasts. 

He explained the feast’s basis. “Next week marks the anniversary of the founding of the Blackwater Confederation. I want the court to celebrate this, to know what a united kingdom is, a kingdom that allows its lords to speak.” 

“Father,” interrupted Helaena. 

He lit up with happiness at the interruption. “Yes, sweetling?”

She clinked her rings on the table. “Is it wise to commemorate one of the few times in recorded history that a group of lords came together and defeated kingdoms much larger than them?”

He threw his hands up. “Yes! May we all aspire to the High Council of the Blackwater!”

“Father,” interrupted I.

Once more, he lit up with happiness. “Yes, my strong boy?” 

“You do understand that you are the…” how do I put this politely… Helaena squeezed my wrist, is that a ‘be quiet’ or a ‘I’m with you?’... 

“Dragon caught your tongue?” his jowls shook with his jape. 

No, amazingly, he’d yet to take my tongue for uttering the words ‘strong’ and ‘boy.’ He could do it as much as he wanted. 

“Rosby, Stokeworth, and Archer were common petty kings. They held off the Durrandons, Gardeners, and Darklyns. Would reminding your vassals that they can band together into coalitions and then defeat armies ten times their size…” ah… damn, I don’t know how to be nice about this. 

Helaena patted my hand, I know that, that’s ‘I got this.’ Sure enough, she did. “Father,” she intoned so sweetly, like she was half her age, “unity is when all the lords of the realm do you homage. A feast like this would remind them that they can go make their own little kingdoms and defeat you.” 

He turned red with wroth. “Defeat me? Nonsense!” 

“You have the sun-and-spear on your necklace, yet Dorne remains unbowed, unbent, and most certainly unbroken.” 

“We will defeat them in time,” he said, sounding competent only to himself. 

“When is in time?” Heleana pondered, leaning forward. “We have more dragons now than ever. Why not fly down to the High Septon, pick up the rainbow cloak, and go break them?” 

“Dorne are good trading partners,” he explained, going from her to me and back to her.

I was starting to catch on to my sister’s tangent. “A feast for the Blackwater Confederation might encourage more rebellion. After-all, most of those same lines are now our leal lords. We wouldn’t want to help them remember the Battle of Bourney.” 

The Storm King and the King in Highgarden came together with an army to cut the Blackwater Confederation in two. At Bourney, First Speaker Rosby’s five thousand defeated thirty thousand. 

She patted my hand. ‘Precisely,’ she said with her eyes. 

“I love you both, but you’re both wrong. The Blackwater Confederation was a council of lords who came together to elect a leader from them. A man who would be good and just and keep the peace. A man who would bring a century of tourneys and feasts.”

The two of us turned to one another. Father, we mouthed as one. 

I took up the reins. “Father, the Blackwater were all equal lords. You… were not.” 

“I was. Any number of men or women could have been picked to bear the weight of that mountainous seat of swords.” As he spoke, his eyes lowered to the table and his three-fingered left hand curled around the pommel of Blackfyre. “They chose me, and I have given them the peace and joy they wanted. War takes sons from their fathers and grain from the commoners. If a lord feels inclined to rebel, then let him. The dragon does not forget.”

His eyes rose to meet mine, the two amethysts flared. “You will not encourage war with Dorne, no more than you will encourage me to hold off on a feast. We need more Blackwater Confederations, not less. I should have a statue of Triston Rosby built to commemorate it.” 

Those eyes silenced me. Not so much my sister. “Father… Triston bent the knee.” 

“To who?” He sputtered. 

“The Queen of the Rivers and Hills, Catelyn Bracken. It was a personal union. She saved them from the Lord Marshal of the Northwoods, and he agreed to bend the knee to her kingdom.” 

He waved that justifiable complaint aside. “And how is that any different? So the Blackwater met its end, not by Durrandon hammer or Gardener steel, but by a wedding.”

Oh yes, let’s bring in the Riverlands to this. That’ll go smoothly. “Father, the Trident is not a matter we wish to walk into.”

“And why is that? Do you fear them, my boy?” I think he was supposed to be reassuring. He came off as ignorant. 

“I love the Brackens as much as you love feasts. That does not mean I want to stir the seventh hell found at the confluence of the three Forks. Bracken means Blackwood, both Vance branches, the Pipers, the Strongs, the Darrys, the Freys, the Mallisters, and the Rygers all need to be given equal representation. Not to mention the Rootes of Harroway’s Town or the Mootons of Maidenpool, and with them all the other lords dreaming of town charters-” 

“Then see it done!” he shouted. “You have the royal bank and the royal coffers, take all that you need to see them given places of honor.” 

Why, that’s easy. I’ll just send a raven to every house between the Neck and the God’s Eye and go ‘morning my lords and ladies of the yellowest of mud, can you all stop killing one another to come down to King’s Landing and kiss my royal arse? My sister’s too busy licking my royal manhood to greet you, you sons and daughters named in the light of the Seven.’ My sister was not, in fact, too busy being incestuous to greet me. She was busy downing a cup of wine and wincing. 

I reached up and rubbed little circles into her temple. She had migraines thanks to father. We all had migraines thanks to father, except mother; she just nodded along while he blathered about how we needed to throw fifty feasts to celebrate every name day of Lord Jon Lake or Lady Jeyne Woods.

I took charge, or rather, tried not to blunder. “How are we supposed to have a feast ready within a week for… how many lords? All the Crownlands?”

“I had summons sent this morning. The Crownlands south of Rook’s Rest. There will be no restrictions. Any lords and ladies in the capital may attend. I have asked the Father that they see this as a renewal of my pledge to them, and the Crone to guide my actions.” He swept the three-fingered hand at us. “The two of you are the Crone’s lantern, I see-”

I had a headache. Yes, great, thanks, don’t ask anyone else first. “Father,” I cut him off, not bothered by his weak-lipped frown, “will we be charged to prepare this feast? I had thought to fly to the Wendwater, to-”

He cut me off in return. “No, you are not going to the Wendwater! The Mother blessed you with health, I will not have you suffer for it! The Wendwater ran itself before, it will continue to. No, you-” he smiled at Helaena, half-keeled-over from the migraine, “-and you will be here to enjoy the prosperity. I summoned you to give you positions, positions best suited to your loves.” He rose and lumbered down the room. 

In an instant, the two of us were on our feet. 

Blackfyre was out and pointing at us. 

“Aegon Targaryen,” the King’s voice boomed off the walls, “I name you Master of the Hunt. Helaena Targaryen, I name you Mistress of the Hunt. Do you accept these posts?” 

“I do,” we said simultaneously.

The sword vanished into the scabbard. “Excellent. By the Seventh, I expect lists submitted to either myself, my queen, the Lord Hand, or the Master of Laws.” 

“Father, has the current Mistress of the Hunt begun preparations?” 

“Yes. I expect her to continue.”

Alerie Hightower, wife to Lord Runcel Redwyne, was one of grandfather’s appointments. Like most of his appointments, she was well-suited to the position. I wasn’t. I wondered if this was done without grandfather’s assent. I could hear his timbre in my ear. ‘A king’s decree cannot be undone while the king lives, no matter how poorly written.’ 

“Will you want us to take charge of the post now?” asked Helaena, slightly, just slightly trembling. 

“The both of you will do as you see fit.” He plodded over to us and laid a hand on our shoulders. “All I ask of you, do not toil yourselves to exhaustion. Men know their places. Experience hunters are disciplined, aspiring ones will not be made less ambitious by your warning. Hunt that which the Seven have blessed us with.” 

In less confused rambling, if all they had were some deer and boar, common staples of the kingswood, that would be what we hunted. 

He was making this too easy, a loud voice in my head was yelling. ‘Welcome to the reign of the Young King, may we ever be at ease. Ignore the two visible factions dominating the court and the animosity between daughter and son.’ 

Think of the demon, and the demon is mentioned. 

He let go and stepped back to look us both over at the same time. “I have sent a raven to Dragonstone. If the weather holds, Rhaenyra and her sons will attend. It is past time she has come to court to offer her counsel. I will not have your immature feud rear itself before the crownlords.” 

Helaena quivered. “Father, Prince D-” 

“HELAENA, I HAVE MADE MY DECISION,” the King thundered. “You will behave yourselves, or I will have you sent away.” 

“Yes, father,” I said with a lowered head. I looped my arm through my sister’s. “Forgive Helaena, she is… saddened, and tired, and needs to rest. It has been six months since the birth.” 

“Orwyle said she is fit.” 

I met his eyes with mine. “Father, may we have your leave?” I asked, every bit the demure princeling. 

He waved his head. “You may.” Part of him regretted his outburst then, he reached over. “Forgive me, I was-” 

She raised a weak hand. “You are forgiven, father.” 

I escorted her out, arm through arm, fingers entwined. 

Out in the hall, I broke my act, one she appreciated. We walked side by side. It gave the same message to the red-liveried courtiers that hailed us, bowed, and curtseyed, without any touches. 

Had she wanted me to walk hand-in-hand with her, I would have. I hated the incest. Handholding wasn’t incest, even if the court implication was that we were frequently in the marital bed. 

Gods above. Fourteen and thirteen. Pregnant at thirteen. A brother and sister that’d known one another their whole lives. I didn’t let my disgust show. Anyone that saw it would have taken it the way they wanted. I’d save my nausea for somewhere private, which meant my bedchamber; for it was full of green courtiers. 

Helaena was the one to break the uneasy quiet. “I need to pick out dresses for the feast.”

Small talk, I like this, I can do this. “Pick out? Not fitted?” 

“I have a closet of Darklyns. I might have some Rosbys.” 

I hadn’t thought of styles. Men had to obey the fashion rules just as much as women. I, Aemond, and Daeron didn’t apply to those rules. Neither does Helaena. “Would we, you and me, not dress for… Oldtown?”

She sighed. “Father wants us to celebrate the Blackwater, I’ll celebrate the Blackwater.” She stopped to cast a questioning look at me. “Would you like to come and help me choose them?” 

“I’m terrible at picking out styles,” I laughed. 

“No, you’re brilliant!” she giggled.

Her cheerfulness was music to my ears. “I am bad at it,” I glanced up the hall, a gaggle of lords and ladies were there, had seen us, and were watching. I raised my voice. “You look the same in all your dresses, my princess!” 

I took her by her hand and did a little dance to spin her around so that she could see them, too. “And how do I look, my prince?” she asked, every bit the innocent maiden. 

When in doubt, quote the Good Queen. “Sunfyre could fly me to Asshai and back, you would remain my queen of love and beauty.” I leaned down and kissed her neck. 

She kept her spotless composure by watching the lords and ladies make their cheering and swooning noises. 

She slipped out of my grasp, spun around, and took my head in her hands. “And you, my knight and champion,” she crooned as she got up on her tip-toes and pecked my lips. 

During the second we were in one another’s face, I saw the laughter in her little orchids. We were made for acting. The two of us let the kiss deepen for long enough to set the crowds to immature levels of happiness, then set off down the hall like nothing had happened. 

Would that we hadn’t made them so thrilled, we wouldn’t have attracted attention. 

The crowd had formed for just any reason. They had been formed around someone. 

Three feet tall and dressed in purple motley. 

“Your Graces! Why, I didn’t see you up there!” He tumbled through the crowd, got to his feet, then fell to his knees some twenty feet from us. 

Twenty feet was too close. He should’ve been twenty thousand. 

“Jester,” Helaena regarded, “do make way.” 

“You look down, why don’t you listen to the latest jape from Flea Bottom?” 

Go fuck yourself, my sister said with her eyes. 

He made his voice flutey, and said something in High Valyrian. 

The only word I could make out was ‘milk.’ 

Peals of laughter erupted from the lords and ladies. 

Helaena didn’t say anything. For a few seconds her eyes were off in the distance. At last, she inclined her head, laid a feather-light hand on my shoulder, and said “We are late for my dressing.” 

Instinct saw me lock stride with her as we walked up to and past Mushroom.

Only on closer inspection did I notice the lords. 

Black thread wove its way along the trims of their surcoats, complemented the patterns on their dresses, even reared itself in their hats, veils, and hose. 

Valemen. Not just any Valemen, but the white arrows on brown of Hunter and red castle on white of Redfort. I couldn’t put any faces to names, nor did I stop and try to. 

Mother gave the faction a name. “Jeyne’s favorites.” Jeyne had given their lords positions of prestige in the Eyrie’s court. Mother said they couldn’t be swayed. Corbray could be counted in their ranks. 

Grandfather objected. “All men have a price, it is up to you to find it, my prince.” 

The holy sites in Heart’s Home faced threat from mountain clansmen. Corbray could swear allegiance to Jeyne all he wanted, unless she could pull a dragon out of Jessamyn Redfort, she would look weak. If Dragonstone didn’t answer, we could. I could.  

I was thinking of Heart’s Home and the factions of the Vale when we returned to the princess’ bedchamber. 

The ladies and serving girls curtseyed and showered Helaena with compliments. 

Thirteen year old Johanne Lannister began pouring a drink. 

Her sister, the eleven year old Lucia, started undoing Helaena’s laces. 

The Princess raised her voice. “Leave us. All of you.”  

The ladies, used to the swings of her temper by now, took their leaves. 

Leave us. I held my ground. I’d rather face her anger than be gone. 

The door shut.  

She stumbled onto the bed, collapsed onto it, and began to wail into the pillow. 

She’d learned to not weep too loudly, and to muffle it. One of the many lessons of the Red Keep. 

“Helly,” I sat down next to her and stroked her hair, “I’m here.” 

“You… didn’t… hear… what he said?” she sobbed into the pillow. 

“Mushroom. What? What did he say?” I could imagine Aemond here, the fool’s head would be on her nightstand before she could answer the question. 

She rolled onto her back and sat up. She rubbed the tears off her eyes with her expensive silk sleeves. 

“‘I heard this jape from a man in Flea Bottom, ‘I met this beautiful mother with hair like the sun itself, and her teats. Why, the teats were swollen, larger than my head. She’d leaned over to look at my hardness. I slipped my hand up her green lace to see if the stories were true. They were. I pulled once, and had milk for the rest of the year.’’”

The two of us shared a look. The woman was Helaena. 

There were many paths I could have taken. 

Pull an Aemond and promise his head. 

Pull a mother and tell her that she should not let his comments take root, for he is a jealous little lecher who dreams of what he will never have. Then she’d add that Helaena and her three children were healthy, which was more important than any man’s comments. 

Pull a grandfather and send him his family’s body parts, promising that they’d die swiftly if he confessed to the court that he invented all his tales and that he groped mother’s serving girls. Once he confessed, have him chopped into seven pieces for each gate of King’s Landing. 

Pull a father and tell her that his japes are well-meaning, and that commoners and lords alike enjoy bawdiness. 

I wasn’t any of them. I wrapped my hands around her and pulled her into an embrace. An embrace so tight the emerald in her neck was pressing into my chest. 

I wasn’t going to let her cry in silence either. No, I held her and hummed melodies to her as I slowly rocked her back and forth. Not songs, for songs required lyrics, and I was not a lyricist. Melodies. Melodies were universal. 

Silence haunted those dreams of hers, dreams she had had since she was a little girl, dreams that no maester or potion could cure. She made them go away with food and drink and children. They were still there, she’d told me when I showed interest in them, “When you fell from Sunfyre’s saddle, I thought the dream came true. You would fall from the saddle, you would never come out of the poppy, then he would come…” 

Shortly after I returned, my own fears made her reveal hers; she had dreams of men holding her down and having their way with her. Men wearing his gold cloaks. Men sent by him. I didn’t know how much she had told mother, but whatever she had told, it was enough to have all men, barring the Kingsguard, grandfather, father, Aemond, Daeron, and I from entering her wing of the apartments, including the nursery. 

Those dreams were still there, and sometimes, sometimes, she’d admit, quietly, after a day of mother and father and grandfather throwing problem after problem on the two of us, and whenever they brought up him, she thought of making those dreams end permanently. 

I wasn’t the only one who needed our three babes. While I sat there holding her, I thought of Jaehaerys and Jaehaera’s laughter and Maelor’s burblings. 

“Would you like me to send for the babes?” 

“No, they shouldn’t see their mother like this,” she murmured into my shoulder, tightening her grip on my back. 

I disagreed with her, but I understood where she was coming from. Her hair was a tangled mess, her face was puffy and covered in tears, and her clothes were wrinkled. This wasn’t the look of a princess. 

“Is there anything I can do for you, besides preparing to bring you his head?” His head, for the fool was his mouth, just as the cloaks were his fingers. 

A thin weary smile blossomed on her lips. “Get these silks off me, for a start. Mother will erupt like the Dragonmont if she saw my silks this ruined.” 

I tossed myself off the bed, stood up, and gave the best, deepest bow, imaginary-hat-doffing included, I could spontaneously do. “You know me, Helly, I’m the master of disrobing, laying in bed, and doing nothing.” 

Disrobing, lying in bed, and doing nothing was exactly what we went and did. I didn’t need to think for long to figure out why my wife’s bedchamber would have a closet full of clothes made specifically for my latest measurements. 

I was feeling fashionable -I’m rich and a member of a family of demigods, when would I not be feeling fashionable- so I picked out matching clothes for both of us. A large dress made for her to nurse Maelor in her solar while retaining her modesty; a shirt and trousers made for swimming for me. 

Neither of us liked the Lysene equivalent of lingerie the Queen had so courteously filled one of her closets with. The first time I saw it, by accident no less!, I went and examined it -a scandal among Helaena’s ladies- and discovered all of it had the same scratchy texture. It was only when Helaena appeared that I realized why: “The courtesan’s clothes are not supposed to be worn for long.” 

On the other hand, her breastfeeding dresses were the softest textures imaginable. Softer than anything I had in any of my collections. They were some rare kind of cotton that came from one of White Harbor’s banners. Mermen Cotton. Suffice to say, after a day of wearing heavy clothing, I wanted something soft to rest on. 

I tried to find other materials, but it was nearly impossible without going through any of my family, or the small council. It wouldn’t be kingly to go up to, say, the Tailor’s Guild of King’s Landing, and rate their materials based on how close they felt to the Princess’ breastfeeding clothing. 

Something knocked on my head. Someone, rather. 

I looked up at her. “Yes, Helly? How may I be of lazy service? Want a drink? Foot rub? Find someone else.” 

I drank in that snickering of hers. “What reveries and revelries had confounded you?” she poked me.

Your wordplay’s confounding me. “I was thinking about the last time I went to the street of silk. In the back of my head, I’d been wondering if I could find something as soft as your… this dress.” I tapped said dress with my knuckle.

Her eyebrows flew up her forehead. “Did you now? What did you find?”

“Nothing. It’s hard to say to someone ‘Why, yes, your wool is soft, but my sister’s breastfeeding dress is softer.’”

She scrunched up her face in thought. “Why didn’t you try the street of sisters?” 

I barked out a single laugh. “Sister? What sisters are you affiliating with?”

She used her foot to point at the window. “You’ve never seen what septas wear around their lady’s places.” 

“No…” you’re making keeping my composure very hard, “...no, I haven’t. Do you think I go up to septas and ask them to hike up their dresses?” 

“I did not. I was just curious. I used to wonder what boys wore, what with their… lord’s parts.” There was something in her little orchids besides amusement. 

I cut right through it. “Did I used to bed a septa?” 

Her look said more than she could. 

I gripped her hand with mine. “I swore a vow, Helly. I’m not touching any other women.”

“And not me either,” she finished, flat, if slightly confused.  

“I will not bed my sister. The Star says incest is an abomination.”

She slipped her fingers into my hair. “Would you say the Jaes are abominations? What about Mae?” There was fear somewhere, deep inside that sardonicism. 

“No.”

“Had you… seen the Father before… you would not have had them?”

Why, that was the trade-off, wasn’t it? Without her, I wouldn’t have had them. But I would, or she would. “One of us would. Motherhood suits you better than fatherhood for me.”

She blushed. “I would never have wed another.”

“Then I would have had them, and if you wanted to tell them stories and kiss them good-night, you could have.” Then her words sank in, and I felt bad. “I would not have bedded you right after you flowered.” 

She shook her head to herself. “Father made us wed. There was nothing we could do.”

“I never had to touch you that night. Or any night after.” Or, if the Seven were good, ever, and I could set you aside when we both came of age, and live out our lives like normal people. 

“You…” her words hollowed, “...you don’t remember it, do you?” 

In an instant, she was on the verge of weeping. 

I had her soft hand in mine, kneading circles into the finger joints.“No, I don’t. The acc- it made me forget.” We all learned not to refer to it as an ‘accident’ around her, it would scare her. I and Aemond were the only ones who knew why. It was the same reason she told him to never fly up to the God’s Eye, for she dreamed of him killing Aemond. 

“They watched. The High Septon blessed us, then they watched.”

“Father?” That would have been terrifying enough, but the way she spoke, I imagined he was the least of it. 

“Father and mother and her and…” her throat gave out. 

No, it couldn’t be. “Him.” 

She nodded slowly, as if not yet processing it. 

I squeezed her hand. She needed it. “Why?” I asked the ceiling.

“Ask father and him. Mother and father had a secret quarrel for months after. She went and begged her forgiveness from me the next day while I was in the bathtub, as the maids scrubbed the blood from between my legs.” 

“Did you forgive her?”

Those orchids darkened. 

The answer’s worse than ‘no.’ “What… did you do?”

“I… went at her and broke her wrist.” 

“That’s…” you’ve got some real stones, Helaena. Were you not my sister, I’d say you would make a good sister. 

“Madness?” She curled her hands into my hair. It was painful, but I wasn’t upset. “I’d already seen her by then!” 

In her dreams. “In your dreams?”

“That night, I dreamt of her watching me after I was stripped bare, but it was at the throne.” 

Of the future. Of when the city is captured. Even though this was about her, the dam had burst, and the guilt came flooding out. “I’m so… sorry for it.” I leaned off her, rolled onto my chest, and crawled up the bed to look at her straight. “I’m sorry for all of it, and for the adultery, and the whores, and all of it.” 

Her eyes went back to their usual hue. “The Seven know of our sins. Making others forgive you for them wipes them away. Fight for justice, defend the weak and the innocent, work to better the lives of others; you shall not ask for a copper for these, for these are what is right.” 

I recognized his words anywhere. “Eustace’s speech from the Feast of the Father.” 

“I have the right to decide when you have done your penance. I say your continued mindfulness is penance.” 

The Book of the Mother. It made sense, she had eighteen years to memorize it, being the most common and most famous piece of writing in the Seven Kingdoms. “I’m not stopping it. I’m not bedding you either.” 

“That is your choice. Know this-” she laid her hand on my shoulder, “-even if you had… been faithful in your youth, I would never have been unfaithful. I would rather…” she quivered with rage “...die alone and childless than sire a bastard of renowned strength.” 

Alone and childless. The dreams. Those dreams weren’t chronological, and from the best of how she explained it, they were incoherent and incomprehensible. “You will never be alone, and you are not childless.” 

It was not an oath I could swear upon. 

For the Dance is coming. 

And the seventh hell with it. 

She playfully shoved me onto my side. “I have a question.”

“Anything, Helly,” I sat on my side, resting on my elbow, looking across at her. 

“You say you will never touch me.” 

I nodded. “I will not.”

She tap-tap-tapped her arm. “What about what you were doing?”

“What was I doing?”

She took a deep breath to make herself sound angrier than she could be. “Sleeping on my breasts.”

Oh. Well, damn. “I…”  

“I understand. You really love Woolfield Wool, is that it?” 

“Yes, yes I-” 

“Aegon. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?”

Where is she going with this? I entertained the notion, throwing my head back to spy the little mirror of hers on the nightstand. “I have, why?”

“You have this… wonderful red blush when you tell the truth. It makes you look like an apple. Shall I start calling you Apple? Apple Targaryen?” 

“No, please,” I said, mock-horrified.

“I think I will,” she shoved her hair out of being a tangled ruin of knots, and into a tangled ruin of knots behind her head. “Apple, First of His Name, King of-” 

The way her confusing horror of creamy hair framed her head looked like one of those crowns from the maesters’ history books. “All Andals,” I said, thinking of that crown and how good a pair of them would fit us. 

I’d dreamt of it the night before. 

‘Aegon and Helaena, King and Queen of All Andals.’ I saw us in the history books. ‘They ruled together, as it was in the days when the Seven walked in the hills of Andalos. He took the vows of the Noble and Puissant Order of the Warrior's Sons, she took the vows of the Poor Fellows.’ 

She tapped my head. “Did you say ‘All Andals?’” 

“All Andals. I shall be King of All Andals.” 

“Like Qarlon the Great?” 

“Like Qarlon the Great.” Would my reign end the same, in fire and blood? If I do nothing, yes. 

She snickered, unaware. “Very well, Apple, King of All Andals and true King of the Seven Kingdoms. Don’t let my humble humility stop you, you may use my thick woolen dress as a pillow.”

“Two pillows,” I clarified wistfully.  

She wagged her finger while putting on mock annoyance. “Ah, ah. You cannot. My other babe needs a place to rest when he gets fussy.” 

“Am I competing with Maelor over sleeping space?”

“You are. And he goes first.”

I threw my head back and groaned, trying my best to sound like one of the little ladies mother picked for her handmaidens. “Why? That’s unfaaaaaaaaaaair!” 

“He is a babe, and you are a bigger babe.”

“But you have a nursery.” 

“Do you remember when the twins went through their biting months, before their teeth?”

No, no I don’t. “Yes,” I lied, and she knew I lied, but she allowed it all the same as we were feeling too whimsical to go back to thinking of the accident. 

“Maelor has started biting his handmaidens. If you wish to tell him to get off his pillow-” she patted said pillow, “-may the Seven save you.” 

“He…” wait, “...he understands Common?”

“We want him to learn the ten tongues.”

Oldtown, King’s Landing, Eyrie, Casterly Rock, Storm’s End, Highgarden, Riverrun, Winterfell, Pyke, and High Valyrian. That’s nine. “Ten?” Eight of them weren’t technically tongues.

“He may wish to visit Sunspear one day.”

Of course. “In peace.”

“Only in peace. You and I should bear the blood, so that they may know the joys of peace.” 

“I agree.” I couldn’t keep up this seriousness. I had enough of it most days. “Now, do I have my princess’ leave to return to sleeping?”

She pouted her lips. “Say it correctly.” 

“Do I have your permission to nuzzle your saggy teats?” 

The chuckling was making her ‘royal’ tone all the harder to pull off. “Yes, I grant this boon.”

The two of us laughed ourselves to sleep. I didn’t end up doing as I japed. I took a real pillow, put it on her torso, and rested on it instead. 

I didn’t like the incest. I was repulsed by the incest. Would I have been able to fight the king that fortuitous night? Had I not been bogged down in teenage hormones, I would have come up with something. Pig’s blood, perhaps. 

That said, I wouldn’t refuse to comfort her in one of the ways that we had since I first had the accident: I’d lie on a pillow on her torso, specifically positioned in such a way that I could look ‘up’ at her from the pillow. As many times as I used her as a mattress, she did the same with me. 

What resulted was many mornings where we woke up, each of us ‘upside down’ to the other. For all those mornings, there were a few nights when one of us would wake up, cold, shivering, and afraid. It was those nights that made her upside-down smile priceless. 

It was in those nights, when the two of us were lit with a single candle, that we helped forge our alliance, the alliance deeper than a marriage of lust or politics. 

For her, my eyes, whether above her gazing down protectively, or below her always watching, were reminders that she was never alone. Her ladies in waiting would come and go with grandfather’s appointments, not me. The babes were a few rooms over, under the watch of mother’s and grandfather’s loyal servants. They were close enough to be heard, close enough to visit, far enough to give her privacy, to let her sleep ‘peacefully,’ without a cavalcade of wet nurses and servants coming and going. 

 For me, her orchids above and below meant the same; she was there, she was alive, the fight was going. Did I see him when I blinked, even with her? Yes, yes I did. Even then, six months after the accident, I saw him every few minutes. However, when she was there, especially late at night, I knew that all was well. Those orchids were a stronger reassurance than any of father or mother’s words. Unlike them, those orchids saw and knew and understood. 

The looks we shared were born those late nights, when our eyes were all that reflected off the one candle’s light. 

All good moments had to come to an end, and ours came with some Oldtowner yelling “Her Grace, the Queen!” 

The two of us sprung awake. 

The Queen’s handmaidens were already here, waiting for her arrival. They’d learned to be quiet enough to walk without waking the babes. 

I rolled off her as nobly as a husband rolling off his wife’s breasts could be done, and sat up. She shoved her mess of tangles out of her face and sat up. 

Since I came to the Seven Kingdoms, I was of the opinion that there never lived or would live a woman as strikingly regal, as unabashedly gorgeous, as Queen Alicent Hightower.

Thirty nine years old, she could still pass for nineteen. She kept to the same styles as my sister, as it was my sister who copied hers; with the difference being that the Queen flaunted her form. 

A low-cut neckline, a palm-sized emerald winked at us from the top of her chest. A tight-fitting waist, the curves weren’t added, they were real. To describe these two details on their own made her sound no different from most ladies of the court. That was the difference, most ladies wore modest dresses. 

The Queen was not most ladies.

She was the Queen. All the Seven Kingdoms bent the knee to her, except her husband and children, who had to bow our heads. 

I recalled her meeting the two of us one time while we were being fitted for new clothes.  

“When you stand in my place, Helaena, I will have my tailors find the finest thread to fit your luminous form.” 

My sister rightfully pointed out that she was not the Queen, to which our mother said “You are not the queen yet.”

At that, my sister countered, “None are as pretty as you.”

To which our mother kissed her lips and said “You are prettier than them all, the Mother made flesh. Alysanne, may the gods give her rest, would have been enthralled by you. Make them all jealous.”  

Was it the best advice? Most of the time, no. When my sister was embarrassed while ladies she barely knew -all of whom with ‘prettier’ forms- took measurements of her, yes, yes it was. 

And to me, she kissed my forehead and said “You have the fierceness and tenacity of your warrior king namesake. Do not be him, be better than him, for you will inherit a realm of peace and prosperity, and can finish his conquest. Stand atop your mount, and make the whole realm know, the second Aegon lives!” 

Having her ladies take my measurements -for her ladies were accurate, and most of all loyal- made me almost as embarrassed as Helaena. I wouldn’t say her advice was badly timed, that advice could have been told at any time and I would have been most appreciative. And I was. 

The Queen who entered now was not the Queen of fitting day. There was an anger simmering in her eyes. Few alive could match that anger. 

“Give us the room,” she said calmly, waving them away with her ring-covered hand. 

The ladies left. 

The door shut. 

She took a chair and sat down on it. Something as uncomplicated as taking a seat she did with style, picking up the her dress lightly, sitting down in such a fashion that her legs remained together, then letting the dress fall to billow out on the floor, making her look like a pillar of green, with every little gold and silver swirl curated to shine in their fullness at the same time. Just like her, there was not a single wrinkle on her dress.  

“Aegon, Helaena. Did I infringe on your marital bed?” Only the Queen could ask such a personal question with such laid-back refinement it made us forget we were supposed to be embarrassed. 

We both turned to one another, turned back to her, and said “No,” all in lockstep. While the question should have been obvious, no we weren’t, we had duties to one another. I doubted Helaena took ‘platonic bed-sharing’ as ‘lustful bedding,’ but it was still right to make sure of it. We had to be a united front, and fewer places required more unity than the marital bed. 

“Good. I have heard a most scandalous rumor this day, first spread by the wife of a knight of Heart’s Home, who had in turn heard it from a scullion, who heard it from a chambermaid.” 

‘How do you know all this,’ I may have asked, back when I was ignorant.

She’s the Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, the Red Keep is her home. Every single person wearing green answers to her by default, and everyone else is legally required to answer to her on pain of criminal punishment. 

“What was it?” Helaena asked as she retrieved a silk green chemise. I instinctively looked away, the Queen did not. 

She’d taught us -and me a second time, after the accident- that we were to not fear our modesties with her. We’d taken communal baths with her even in our adulthood. 

More than once she strolled into my large bathing chamber, undid her bathing gown, and sank in across from me. We’d discuss the day, the court gossip, how my recovery was going, the babes, and most frequently, the current heir’s husband’s path to the chopping block and my path to kingship 

I quickly grasped that no, she wasn’t some sick pervert; it was because bathing chambers were one of the few places of true privacy in the Red Keep. If she had any reservations about holding her tongue anywhere else -and she rarely did- she let them go there. 

One of those days saw her confess to a rumor that she made me swear to secrecy, “until your dying breath.” 

He had taken her maidenhead, then he had taken her many times more. Grandfather could not kill a blood royal, and grandfather’s accusations would see her killed by his thugs, so he put him to work. 

It happened when she was young. “He had all the strengths Viserys lacked. It was a mummer’s trick, to wear the face of the dashing prince, to hide… him. Your father is weak, but he is good and kind. I have been fortunate to know and be wed to a weak-hearted man who loves his children. Your sister is the latest in a long line of his prey. He covets what lies between their legs until a smoother untouched one comes along. She did not listen to me. More’s the pity for her. We could have been friends. We still could, if she would only give me his head.” 

The Queen had been chosen because she learned from the Old King himself, she would later affirm. That the Lord of Flea Bottom had despoiled her was of little significance; noblewomen lost their maidenheads to the saddle often. So long as none could prove she lost it to him -and none could- she went to her marriage bed as untouched as the next.

The Queen set her gaze on Helaena and spoke. “Last night, Aegon shunned your presence and took himself in hand with his smallclothes.” 

“Mother-” 

Her cold eyes cut Helaena short. “Aegon, tell it true. Did you touch her last night?” 

“I did not.”

Her eyes rotated to Helaena, now bare. “Helaena, tell it true, did you not come to him for the marital bed?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I did. I told him I was able to bear another child.”

“Aegon, are you aware that she is virile? My ladies from Oldtown conducted the examination. It has been one week since her moonblood.” 

I don’t need that kind of graphicness about my sister. I felt the bile in my throat and leaned over to avoid throwing up all over her pretty dress. 

“Yes, he knew,” Helaena gritted out, covering herself with her chemise. 

The Queen waved her fan at her. “Cease this childishness. These details are not tracked for any one’s pleasure, I assure you, and if I should find that any-one, be they my handmaiden or the Grand Maester, has compiled some perverse little list, by the Seven I swear to you they will be flayed alive within the Gate of the Gods.” 

I swallowed the bile. “Mother, we aren’t… bedding.” 

“Why?” She spun around to Helaena, who was trying to tuck herself into a corner and die, and looked at her. “Helaena, what did you do?”

I couldn’t stand listening to my mother, if adoptive and she didn’t know it, discuss personal details. I could stand her going after my sister less. “Mother, enough.” She turned to me. “Helly-” the woman in question peeked out of the chemise, “-has done no wrong. The fault lays with me. All of it.”

“I was assured that you were potent. Need I bring back Orwyle and ask him a few sharp questions?” 

“No, he…” why that’s a memory I shoved in a box somewhere and threw into the ocean, “...yes, I am potent.” 

It’s not that he did anything, it’s that he made me drop my smallclothes to show that I did in fact have a hard member. If there was anything conceivably decent about what amounted to a personally violating experience, he didn’t make me demonstrate how I reached that hardness, and once he saw it for a split second, he never asked for it again. 

Had he asked, I would have had to give a complicated list of reasons. 

First and foremost, it only came about on mornings that I wasn’t cuddling with my sister. She was my sister, damn the Targaryens and their holier-than-thou ‘traditions’ all to maintain pure blood so they could maintain their hegemony over the lesser peoples. Even aside from all of this incest and our marriage being based on efforts to maintain special bloodlines, she was special. I had true friends in my past life, princes don’t have true friends. I had no friends, fullstop, except her and Aemond. Aemond I would consider a good friend, and her a true friend. Just as I wouldn’t bed a longtime friend in my past life, I wouldn’t bed the one person who tethered me in this one. 

Second, I saw his face every few minutes, and with his face came attached a memento, ‘I’m going to have your whole family executed so I can sit on the throne,’ and ‘I’m going to pass your sister around my gold cloaks every day while I am in King’s Landing, and have orders for her to be disposed of once her whore’s bastard starts to appear.’ 

Third, I lived in the same castle as Mushroom, the same Mushroom that would use my hardness as the source of some cruel statement that’d send my sister into a panic attack like all the other panic attacks he put her in. If she somehow overcame his harassment, he’d still find ways to tarnish me. In King’s Landing, dignity was everything, I couldn’t go buy some pleasure for a single night without it -as sure as he is hunting me- coming back to bite me in half on the next. 

Fourth, I had a giant target on my back, and was going to die a little more than two and a half years from now, one of which was a war that would see all I loved and cared for turned to ash. And what was I doing to throw it off? Trying to keep father alive and telling mother of turncloaks like Largent and Beesbury. When I found out that the maesters treating him included the previous Archmaester of healing, Orwyle, my fears weren’t mitigated, they were compounded. As for the turncloaks, I couldn’t just make up nonsensical claims, she had to investigate them all. The gold cloaks were rife with corruption, but Ironrod preferred corruption to stainless reputation. Beesbury was ‘a good man,’ and left alone, as ‘I will not deny your sister a counselor, let her have the slot that doubles our incomes, not hers.’

This made going back to ‘fit’ condition, as mother and grandfather would not allow me to be deemed ‘healthy’ until I could prove I was capable of siring yet more children. It took many days to derive a strategy: spend a night in my bedchambers, the second I wake up, don’t even bother changing out of nightclothes, rush off to Orwyle in his tower. It was a victory, if pyrrhic. I tripped and sprained my ankle on the way out in my haste to get back before the rest of the castle woke up, and ended up sitting in his room for half a day. One would think my mother had seen me get murdered the way she entered, angry at everyone, as a thousand accusations had sprung up when I sprained my leg, all attributing it to anything and everything from ghosts to girls. By the day’s end, long-dead masons were cursed, everyone else was spared, and I finally went back to my chambers. 

“If you are potent, why did you not lay with her?” 

Welcome to the Red Keep and welcome to House Targaryen as a whole, where a mother can ask why her son isn’t ‘what are you doing, step-sister’-ing his biological sister, and is expected to get an answer akin to ‘she’s not my preferred sort of eye candy.’ 

I spared my sister the misery of trying to explain the unexplainable, by explaining the unexplained. “After the… event, I… believe I was saved from dying by the Seven themselves.” To say ‘I received visions,’ no, that was a line too far. Why, if my sister was in actuality receiving visions? I didn’t need that target on my back to expand. Being saved was hard to legally dispute, gods tended not to care for the laws of men except when some Targaryen bedding his sister came along and said they did. To my credit, the fall cracked my skull. Targaryens have died from less. 

The Queen filled in the words for me. “You are taking a vow of chastity and celibacy as gratitude.” 

I couldn’t have said it better. “That is my intention.” 

Helaena was in the middle of slipping her green-and-yellow kirtle on, and was spared the Queen’s intense glare. “Helaena, have you consented to this vow?” 

“I suggested it,” she lied, procrastinating putting on the kirtle as cover. “He responds to my touch, and enjoys my form. Last night, we sat and spoke of marriage and the babes, and I discovered he was feeling… incomplete, a hole inside him where there was none before… it. It was, and is, a hole only I can see. No potion can cure it, mother. He needs the vow to fill the hole.” 

When she was done, I spoke up, my voice weaker than usual from amazement. “Helaena is my better half, mother.” 

“Bah-” Helaena swatted at both of us, “-Aegon is my better half, mother. He is my tenacious half. Without him, I would be infirm.” 

The Queen went back and forth to either of us, then nodded and rose. “So long as your decisions are made with both your consents, I will lend it what support I may. I warn you, the Lord Hand does wish for another child.”

Helaena looked fit to burst with tears of joy. Approval was approval. 

“Why not Aemond?” I put forth. 

“Aemond is being saved for Gulltown or Lannisport. Eldrane Grafton is five-and-ten, Jason’s oldest Johanne is three-and-ten. I would rather Daeron be betrothed first, so that Aemond has more time to mature.” She glanced across the room at Helaena, who had finished donning the kirtle. “Helaena, what counsel do you provide?” 

“I have raised the matter with Johanne. She is yet a girl at heart. I was three-and-ten and ready to be a queen.” Helaena’s response was half-monotone and all-uncomfortable. 

The Queen tipped her head to my sister, then to me. “What vows you take, Aegon, they end at the door of the bedchamber. Out there-” she waved the fan at the window, “-the realm needs to see their future king and queen.” 

I was at a loss for sentence structure. Nouns verb adjective nouns. “What do I do?” 

She spoke to Helaena while looking at me. “Helaena, do you assent to receiving Aegon’s lustful touches outside?”

“No. If he swore a vow, he will keep it, else, what is the worth of his word?” 

“Helaena, what do you assent to outside?” 

“Isn’t this between him and I?” She spat out in annoyance as she retrieved her riding leathers. A knee-length leather jacket, long fur-trimmed leather gloves, and leather breeches; both dyed a forest-green, with buckles and clasps of gold. She would still wear necklaces, rings under the gloves, and a coronet to distinguish her status. 

“It should be. I must know so I know what tales are Mushroom and what are truth.” 

The Queen was looking at me while she was, which allowed me to see her eyelashes fluttering out something along the lines of ‘Where’s the wine when I need it?’ In that same vein and mood, she said “He may kiss me for as long as he wishes, touch me any-where barring my immodest places, hold my hands as long as he wishes, and sweep me into his arms and carry me. I will do the same to him.” 

“Aegon, do you agree to her terms?”

“I do, I wonder though… why? Why must she set them and I agree? Why not a mutual setting of terms?” Why am I discussing kissing my sister like it’s a goddamned trading contract? Wait, that's marriage, isn't it?  

“Helaena has remained faithful to you since the day you were wed. You have not. It is only just that she be rewarded for her service-” she was speaking, but it was her father that was here, hence the chilly eyes “-by setting the agreement. You will obey it, as is your duty as her lawful husband.”

“What if she forbade all affection?” 

“Then I would insist the two of you hold hands and share chaste kisses.” She flung her hands out to embrace us, or pretend to embrace us. “But the two of you are better players than I could be.” 

The two of us offered our thanks to her. 

She rose. “I am off to hold court with your father. I may be late as of now, alas, I would not miss my sons, and my daughter, and my three Seven-blessed grandchildren, for all the Seven Kingdoms.” 

She went up to me first and laid a silk-soft hand on my cheek. “My Aegon, nothing brings me more joy than to see you hale. May the Mother give strength to your heart, to hold to your vows. May the Crone light your way, so you do not let these vows harm those you love and those who love you.” 

She went to Helaena second, having finished lacing up her breeches. “My princess. Not a day goes by that I do not stand vigil to the Mother for keeping you with us. My comeliness makes me a whore, I know what they whisper of me. Your comeliness makes you a queen, the rightful queen, the true queen, a better queen than I could ever be, for you have all the fortitude of your father and none of my weaknesses. May the Father keep your wits sharp as a Valyrian steel, and may the Crone grant you the wisdom that which you seek.” 

She stopped at the door, turning to both of us. “Be mindful, my children, of your limited time in this mortal realm, and of your duties to it. May the Stranger take Lord Flea Bottom.” 

“May the Stranger take him,” we both echoed, each syllable intended. 

When she was gone, I turned to Helaena and asked “Why are you in your riding leathers? Hawking?”

“I mean to go visit Dreamfyre. Mayhaps even take the old girl for a flight. Would you like to join?”

“Helaena, if you asked me to fly around the world for you, I would. Yes-” I gave her one of those knight’s chase kisses to the cheek, “-I would love to join you. It is past time to take the Golden for a flight.” 

She squealed with delight. “We shall be like Jaehaerys and Alysanne of old!”

No, we will be better.

Visenya made the Seven Kingdoms, Alysanne solidified them. Under you, my little Helly, they will flourish. 

Chapter Text

III: Sunfyre and Dreamfyre

3rd day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.2.127AC) 

3rd day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.2.1590AV)

Before we could go off on our vacation of indeterminable time concocted to help the two of us escape the nonstop anxiety known as King’s Landing, we had to pay a visit to someone. Three special someones. 

The royal nursery wasn’t guarded by Kingsguard. Rickard Thorne and Willis Fell were with us, the Cargylls were with the King, I hadn’t the slightest inclination where the rest were. 

No, guarding the three babes were mother’s new sworn swords. In hindsight, all Helaena had to do was mention the man she feared, we feared, and mother would have bought the Unsullied for her. She went many steps further, and mentioned the gold cloaks, courtiers she suspected of being hers, and the White Wyrm. 

Today, the door was guarded by Maris Roxton and Tenda Oakheart. Maris Roxton was thirty-five; she’d never wed, she’d led knights of the Ring against Lord Edric Dayne’s raiders for ten years when mother summoned her to court. Tenda Oakheart was sixteen, but the Princess -both, Helaena and little Jaehaera- had taken a liking to her. I took a liking to her being six feet tall. Both wore short swords and daggers. 

Did Helaena or I truly think they’d defeat a mob of attackers? No. Maris tended to fight from the back of a horse while Tenda was young and lacked the musculature of someone in their twenties. Would they put up a fight? Yes, a fight they might even win. No matter if they won or lost, they would buy enough time for the children to escape through the secret passages, passages that the Clubfoot had shown to mother upon being reminded of Harwin’s suspicious death. 

Mother had solved one of grandfather’s riddles in a single stroke. She brought a number of Reach, Westerlands, and Stormlands ladies to court to wait on -and become hostages of- the Greens. A majority of them found their way to the households of my mother or my sister. Their fates were to be betrothed to fellow Green supporters and to rule Green castles. A select few had grown up in castles along the borders with Dorne, or had shown exceptional martial prowess in their youths. If they impressed Ser Davos Baratheon -Lord Boremund’s second son and our master-at-arms- they were allowed to take up posts at the royal nursery. Like that, fifty fell to a dozen. 

Who was I to question a Baratheon’s perception of skill? I was new to the Seven Kingdoms and fighting with swords, so I kept to a mace. Meanwhile, Helaena was into grappling, not swordsmanship, one of those traditions passed down from Visenya. It was very entertaining to watch her and Aemond go at it, he won eight times out of ten in a fair fight and lost ten times out of ten in an unfair one. Unfair being Helaena trying to poke his eye, him reflexively shutting it, and her taking him and throwing him over her shoulders. 

‘I do not fight fairly, I fight to win,’ she had said once after a victory. 

‘Wonderful, then you won’t see this coming,’ I answered, then the two of us double-teamed her and forced her to confess to her cheating under penalty of being tickled. 

She refused to confess, so she was tickled. 

As I was the victor, so decided by Aemond, I decided we’d go play ‘hare, hare, hart,’ the Westerosi equivalent of ‘duck, duck, goose.’ In this, the One-Eye tended to win, he was fitter and faster than the two of us.

I liked to imagine the reactions of the average men and women in the Seven Kingdoms upon learning that three demigods, all in their late teens, passed their short bursts of free time with these games. 

“Your Graces,” the two ladies said as one, bowing their heads. 

“How are the little dragons?” Helaena asked. 

“The twins are awake and playing,” said Maris, and Tenda said “Maelor is feeding.” 

“Don’t tell them we’re here,” I said, and Helaena nodded. 

The two ladies smiled, they knew what was about to happen, and it made the hours of guard duty worth it. 

The twins were nearly identical in appearance. They had their mother’s cream hair and their mother’s soft orchid eyes, and my face. We’d yet to cut their hair, the two of us individually agreeing they looked far better unshorn. 

Jaehaerys was born with a ‘curse,’ as the jester said, six fingers on his left hand, six toes on each foot. Jaehaerys’ monthly physicals always came with the suggestion by the Grand Maester to have the finger and toes cut off, citing appearances, and each time, the two of us refused. His sixth finger and both his additional toes were fully functioning. He had excellent dexterity with his left hand, and balance equal to that of a boy twice his age. 

Jaehaera was not born with a curse, yet she was granted one by the jester. More knew of ‘the Simple,’ or ‘Aegon’s simple daughter,’ than knew her name. What foul deed warranted this? She learned to walk and talk a year after her brother, she doesn’t talk much, she doesn’t like reading, she prefers to be left alone, and she’s got more energy than her handmaidens. Helaena, and the prince before me, had mitigated this by finding handmaidens for her who were compassionate and listened, ones who would let her take charge, not impose their curfews and dinner times on her. 

Maelor? Maelor was a six month old little bundle of energy who found everything amusing. 

The twins wore miniature simplified versions of our clothes. The prince wore a green surcoat slashed with black and gold. Around his neck dangled a pendant of a little green three-headed dragon, both in honor of his grandmother’s party and his dragon Shrykos. The princess wore a green dress identical to one of her mother’s, black and gold threaded pattern work. Like her brother, she had a pendant, a gray-white dragon for the one being in the Seven Kingdoms that can hold her attention, Morghul. Even Maelor fit with our faction, his swaddling was a drab green. 

Jaehaerys was curled up next to a book almost as large as him. I would have gambled all the gold in my salary that he wouldn’t have noticed us unless we picked him up… or told him Shrykos was flying by the window. 

Maelor would have seen us immediately, but he was feeding. Lynesse Hightower, Ormund’s second daughter, was his wet nurse. She gave birth six months earlier. Like every other woman in the room, she was a political appointment; it just happened to be that this political appointment had a touch of kindness to sweeten it as Lynesse was our second cousin. Lynesse was wed to Regenard Buckler, fourth in line to Bronzegate, first in line if his female cousin Brienne and her two daughters were disqualified on account of not being Lord Barristan’s. Could any of us prove Lady Sarya had been giving him horns with one of her household knights, Lester the Long? Not yet. If we could, Regenard would be most thankful, and Regenard’s half-Hightower son Kennald would succeed him one day. Kennald and Maelor would never grow to know they were milk brothers if we stopped fighting. 

This left our one and only daughter to notice we were here. How did she notice us? 

“I am Que-en Jae-ha-era!” said small child screeched as she ran right into Helaena’s leg with her wooden ‘dragon,’ painted gray to be like Morghul. 

Helaena pretended to stumble, allowing me to reach over and scoop the little girl into my arms. 

“Good morrow, my queen,” I said, matching her eyes with mine so she’d know I was holding her, then I kissed her on both cheeks. 

She squealed something and peppered me with kisses. 

I adjusted her tiny golden coronet, my gift for her and the prince on their nameday, and set her down. “No kisses for your mother? You must kiss your mother.”

“Mama? Mama dragon?” she looked up at me, as if the woman was there. 

I pointed at said individual. 

Jaehaera spun around so fast she fell over, I caught her and helped her to her feet, facing the right way. 

A few feet over, Helaena knelt and waved at her. 

Jaehaera ran right into her arms and assailed her with kisses. 

Maelor was the next to be aware of us, having leaned his head all the way back, spotted us, and jabbed his chubby little fist at us and yelled “Jae!”

‘Jae’ was his first word. According to Helaena ‘Jae’ was many things: him calling out his brother and sister, him calling for his sister who liked fussing over him, him calling out to either of us, him saying he was finished nursing and wanted to go to sleep, and him declaring that he liked the toy he was being presented with. 

“We just changed him, Your Grace,” Lynesse said, closing her dress. “He was eating.”

“Was eating. Let’s find out whether Maelor wants food or father,” I offered my hands, Lynesse deposited him in them. I easily held him up with one hand and rubbed his nose with the pinky of the other. 

What was my reward for this? He snatched my finger and refused to let go. Not just that, when I yelped from how strong his grip was, he yelled “Jae! Jae! Jae!”

“Maelor likes his new toy,” Helaena remarked from a few feet over, having somehow, somewhen, put Jaehaera on her right shoulder without pestering the girl and her sensitivity to being off the ground. 

“I think Jaehaera likes her new toy more,” I countered, and strode over to the two of them. “Why, my sweet Jae, don’t you want to go for a flight?” 

Jaehaera’s little orchids lit up. “Fly! Yes! Fly mama, fly fly!” She clapped her hands into Helaena’s head. 

Helaena ran around the room. 

“Father, mother. You are going flying.” Jaehaerys said that with his grown up voice, which he thought was how we adults spoke. Now as then, the handmaidens giggled and Helaena cooed.

“Jae, Jae, Jae?” Maelor inquired, no longer latched onto my finger, now waving his little fist at the boy standing up.

“He wants his brother Jae,” Helaena called out as she raced behind me, off to do the room circuit. I barely heard her over Jaehaera’s delightfully ear-piercing screeching. 

Grown ups kneel to the prince and princess. He wore his coronet while he slept, as that’s what grown ups did. I didn’t know which, Helaena and I took ours off -and I didn’t wear mine all the time to begin with- while sleeping, but that was beside the point. See, he was a grown up. That’s why he fell to one knee and bent his head. “Your Grace!” he called about a hundred decibels too loud, yet still quieter than his sister’s squeals. 

It wasn’t nice to roll my eyes at my son, so I didn’t. “You may rise,” I boomed, pretending to be father. 

He rose and fell into stance. 

“He has a better posture than you, Aegon,” Helaena noted as she came running past. 

Of course you’d side with- then I looked at him and sighed. Show-off. He did. 

I knelt next to him and held out Maelor. “Here, have your baby brother.”

All that grown up stuff melted away. Jaehaerys wrinkled his nose. “Ew, he bites, and he smelled before.”

Helaena stopped what she was doing, set down Jaehaera, and marched right up to us. “So did you.” 

“Not any more,” the prince crossed his arms, mimicking either Helaena or I, I couldn’t tell.

She ruffled his hair. “No, only when you don’t take your baths.” 

I was interrupted by a hand tugging at my belt. “Maelly? I want Maelly. Maelly now.” 

I handed Maelor to Jaehaera, who took him and hugged him to her chest, getting all his drool over her previously clean dress. 

As she did, she locked eyes with me. She’s about to demand something, isn’t she? “Fa-ther.” 

I smiled, and knew I was going on a quest. “My sweet?” 

“I want sister.” 

“You want a sister?” I asked, like it was the most serious question of my life. 

She bobbed her head up and down. “Maelly is for Jaeey. I want sister.” In spite of her proclamation, she continued rubbing him into her chest and pecking his forehead with kisses. 

“We have held a council, and we want a sister,” Jaehaerys stated, stomping the floor with his foot. 

Helaena and I stared at one another, right on the verge of combusting into laughter, saved only by the grown up stern look that the grown up Jaehaerys was giving us. 

I inclined my head, pretending to consider this. “A council?”

“Jaehaera and I agreed to have a sister. We want one now!” 

I glanced at Helaena, she took over with the questions. “Oh, now, you want one now?” 

“Yes, mother, we want one now.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Why?”

“Because we want one now!” was his excellently worded counter-argument. 

“You will not get one until you finish your tongues.” 

“But that won’t be for months. We want one now.” 

Helaena and I both shared the same thought and turned to our daughter. 

Proving my theory on her not being simple, but in need of focus, she listened to every word we said, stared up at Helaena, and shouted “Her name, Mae-lor-a!” 

Maelora. Maelora for Maelor. I didn’t know what Helaena said to Jaehaera, it was in High Valyrian; but judging by Jaehaera’s pouty face, I imagined it was a similar restriction. 

“You are going flying. Where?” Jaehaerys and his grown up voice were asking.

I peered around the room. Where are we going? I hadn’t thought about that. Helaena’s proposition was music to my ears. I changed into my own riding leathers, undershirts and undertrousers, jacket, breeches, gloves, gold dragon surcoat, rings, more rings, and followed her out. 

One glance at her orchid eyes and all was resolved. “Stokeworth,” I told him. “We are flying to Stokeworth.” 

The King wanted to throw a feast for the Blackwater Confederation. Stokeworth would allow us to show our support for the history the King was representing, it was a founding member of the Confederation and its second strongest behind the Rosbys, while also giving us the chance to stick a knife in Dragonstone. 

Lord Donnel Stokeworth and Lord Mathar Rosby were in a quarrel. Tanda, Donnel’s elder sister, was betrothed to Mathar. Mathar broke the betrothal -if the rumors were true, not without taking her maidenhead first- and went off to wed Alysanne Harte, of the Hartes of Brindlewood, bannermen to the Darklyns. 

Lord Denys Staunton had no wife, and was capable of looking past a woman’s lack of maidenhead. He wed Tanda and she proved fertile, three children within the first four years of marriage. Lord Mathar Rosby, meanwhile, has two in ten years. Lord Donnel, who had wed one of his landed knights’ daughters, has had only the one, a three-year old girl named Falena. 

This alone would be enough to set most houses to a blood feud, but it got worse. The Hartes were closer to the Darrys than Rosby or Stokeworth in terms of culture, while the Stauntons were equivalent to cousins. Blackwatermen wore the latest Free Cities fashions, considered feminine by Darrymen, while Blackwatermen would claim Darrymen dressed like brutal savages in their filthy linens. 

Something as innocuous as a painting style; Darrymen favored what one might consider flat depictions, Blackwatermen thanks to the Free Cities patronizing paintings that attempt to portray the third dimension. From bad to worse, Blackwatermen were being influenced by Braavos. Since the Doom of Valyria, Braavos had slowly spread its radical ideas. Where they failed to take root in R’hllor ruled Pentos, they found their way into secret cabinets and dressers of many a man on both sides of the Narrow Sea. 

With the Conciliator’s trade, those ideas flowed into the Blackwater. 

Lord Gunthor Darklyn had sent me a painting of one of his Shadow King ancestors, Damon the somethingith, being crowned alongside his wife Jeyne. There was a caveat: the King and Queen were naked, but for their crowns. Not naked in a ‘you need to look very hard to find it,’ naked as in ‘I can make out every little hair framing the woman’s privates.’ If that wasn’t bad enough, their eyes followed me around the room. 

Mother and Helaena had the misfortune of visiting at the same time. The two combusted when they saw the painting. I was all too happy to get rid of it. I had nothing against nudity, but I didn’t need a ten foot tall intricately-detailed painting where the man’s sword and the woman’s sheath were painted in too-accurate accuracy hanging above my bed every night. 

There was more detail on the member depicted in the painting than on the member dangling between my legs. Perhaps I needed glasses.

That my wife nearly breathed fire at seeing Lord Darklyn’s gift. That Lord Darklyn’s gift was considered lecherous. That the High Septon -for once, he and I could come to an agreement on something, the pacifist could give father a run for his weakness- was decrying this as immodest, and threatening to excommunicate any lords who kept such ‘art’ in public places. That I would rather see these Braavosi customs return to the Narrow Sea. 

All of that was besides the point. Stokeworth and Rosby were almost at arms, and now, with the lords of Westeros set to gossiping about the Blackwater Confederation, was an excellent time to take advantage of it. 

All of these details were understood between Helaena and I with that single look as she ruffled Jaehaera’s hair. 

How could I be so overconfident? Her own words. 

“Aye, we are going to Stokeworth. We will let Lord Donnel lay any slights before us. My brother has been thinking of commissioning a statue of Queen Rhaenys, done in Braavosi style.” 

I absolutely wasn’t. In fact, I, or rather the prince before me, had been doing renovations to Princess Helaena’s Sept. Outside the front stood a statue of her and the newborn twins. Within the prince’s own journal, he made mention that she was disappointed in a lack of any quote on the statue’s base. He had commissioned the finest masons to add the last line of the “Song of the Seven.”  

‘Just close your eyes, you shall not fall, they see you, little children.’ 

I wasn’t content, so I went and came up with renovations of my own. I settled on a stained glass window. The current ones featured the Hightower lords and Targaryen kings from Manfred and Aegon until the present, with the window at the far end being the seven pointed star. By my decree, the window at the far end would be replaced with one that featured Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, knelt, their heads turned up at said star. 

I hadn’t told her yet. 

She must have figured it out and knew better than to ask me. 

She was in the saddle every other day. She made it a point of attending services in a different sept each day, from the richest vaulted-ceiling sept with milk-hued walls, to a sept made out of the ground floor of a Flea Bottom hovel. The gold cloaks’ leers never stopped her. 

‘A dragon does not fear a swarm of gnats,’ I recalled her saying while deep in her cups. 

No, the dragon doesn’t fear gnats, but the dragon must drink to make their barbs and bites go away. 

That day, I learned later that night while she threw up into a pail, saw some gold cloaks ‘confuse’ her for a whore while she visited the Street of Silk to hold one of her womens’ councils. The gold cloaks who had taken such liberties with their hands and her smallclothes couldn’t be found. The maesters would say the uniformity helped them with law, she and I would say it made them indisguistable. 

The King had many flaws, and his mouth ran; but in events like these, he was the youth of twenty five years past. He would have ridden out to the captains personally and taken their heads, were it not for his waning health. Investigations were conducted, men were questioned and questioned… and it was all for the nonce; as no gold cloak would admit while sober that he saw another gold cloak shoving his hand down a princess’ chest. Unless we went after every last one, which we couldn’t. By the time the investigation coughed up names, it’d happened again, Helaena visited a backalley in Flea Bottom to pray at a sept there.

By Ser Hightower’s own reports, almost every drunk gold cloak could be found boasting of what he did or dreamt of doing to my sisters. 

Sisters, not sister, for she, much as she was going to get us all killed, faced the exact same issues when she was in King’s Landing, according to one of mother’s bath meetings.

‘Little did she know, it was a ploy by their Commander. He told them to touch her, which made her flee into his arms. That way, in one red stroke, he would dispose of men he did not need, and win her heart.’

Grandfather had more sense than the King, now doesn’t that just apply all the time? Instead of trying to acquire the heads of shades and sink Helaena’s reputation yet further, he brought up his own guard. Gray cloaks, the city guard of Oldtown, the best trained guards outside of the Lord Paramount seats. They became our escorts through the city. 

Jaehaerys was told of his duties, Jaehaera was promised to visit her dragon when we returned; and both were eventually convinced -and relieved- when we told them we were but one raven away and could be back within an hour. When I said an hour, I meant it, and based on Helaena’s look, so did she. It had the potential to hamstring our swaying of the Stokeworths, but so what? The twins and Maelor were more important than all the Seven Kingdoms put together. 

Maelor was Maelor. 

I handed him to Lynesse, whose dress was already opened. I turned away out of respect for her appearance, -Seven know Helaena had been just as shy before her milk dried up- and made for the door. 

Only for Maelor to begin wailing. 

I peered back, and the little babe was pawing at me and screaming. 

Sometimes, I just can’t explain what went wrong. 

Helaena and I glanced back and forth, us, Lynesse’s futile attempts to make him stop, Jaehaerys telling him to stop, Jaehaera curled up in a ball, covering her ears, and lastly one another. 

We both went for him at the same time. I stopped and let her get to him. 

She took him and rocked him while singing to him in High Valyrian. That string of words I could make out, even if the words themselves I didn’t understand. It was the “Song of the Seven.” 

By the last stanza, Maelor was asleep. 

Helaena lightly brushed his hair and laid a gentle kiss on his forehead.

She passed him to one of the handmaidens while dropping her voice down low. “He’ll need to be changed. He’ll wake up having made water.” 

‘How do you-’ a mother’s intuition. That was the answer. 

Thorne and Fell escorted us across the massive Red Keep. Members of both factions paid the same formal courtesy to us, kneeling and curtseying. I left the Blacks to my sister while I honed in on the Greens. I made note of Lannister, Crakehall, Reyne, Westerling, Kayce, and Tarbeck from the Westerlands, Fossoway, Peake, Redwyne, Crane, Grimm, and Serry from the Reach, and Caron, Swann, Toyne and Trant from the Stormlands. I didn’t recognize any of their respective lords or heirs, which didn’t mean they weren’t represented, just that I had difficulty remembering hundreds and hundreds of nearly identical faces. 

With one exception. 

On our way down to the stables, we came upon a lone man exiting the royal sept. He wore a sable fur cloak over an orange surcoat bearing three night-black castles.

The red-haired lord went to one knee. “Your Graces.” 

“Marshal,” I bade him rise. 

Months past, grandfather summoned mother and I for a meeting on bringing order to the Reach Marches. We had a long list of candidates. They wanted my opinion, so I favored those of proven loyalty to the Queen; as the last thing we needed was someone sworn to Dragonstone throwing away Queen’s men in the name of getting even. Roxton already held his honors serving Hightower, so he was out. That left Ashford, Graceford, and Peake. Robert Ashford was not a commander by nature and George Graceford preferred mutilating men to fighting them. This left one man. 

Unwin Peake, Lord of Starpike, Lord of Dunstonbury, Lord of Whitegrove, and Marshal of the Iron Throne. 

“How may I serve Your Graces?” he asked with a lowered head. 

We were so close to leaving this nest of daggers with legs, this sort of blatant arse-kissing was preferable to ‘oh your grace you are as beautiful as the rising sun of spring now please notice my daughter she’s your new handmaiden.’ Besides, Peake had already made a reputation for himself by getting into the Tarly-Caron feud on the side of Caron. 

When I first arrived in the Seven Kingdoms I thought he was the type of man to throw my daughter out a window. After meeting him a few times, I gained the notion that he was nothing more than an overly zealous Green with a temper. What I did surmise was that the hot-haired hot-headed Lord of Starpike would die before he laid a finger on any of the Queen’s blood. 

Then I found out about Helaena’s dream of a man wearing a seahorse surcoat pushing Jaehaera to her death. While I wasn’t going to put all my eggs in dragon dreams, Targaryens did, that way laid madness; the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the Velaryons gained the most out of it. 

“The Vulture King. What tidings do you bring?” 

“His supporters have been seen in the Pass, Your Grace.” 

“And the King’s retinue?” 

“My brother Mervyn Flowers leads the knights to Nightsong, to await His Grace’s bidding.” 

You’re talking to His Grace. Who do you think got you this job, my father? He still thinks Dickon Tarly rules Horn Hill. Would that were a jape; just two weeks past he wrote a letter addressed to ‘Dicky,’ as the two were childhood friends, ‘Dicky’ and ‘Vis,’ summoning ‘Dicky’ to come to court for a hunt. Grandfather had to remind him that ‘Dicky’ died seventeen years ago of wholly legitimate circumstances. 

Dicky was like a big brother to him. Thirteen years wasn’t much to me, my competitor was ten years my elder. 

I felt bad for father sometimes, most of his friends were dead for a decade, if not two. For him, life was simpler when half the lords of the Seven Kingdoms knew him from his wandering days. Sometimes. He was still blinding himself to the wildfire being thrown over the empire-sized kingdom. Nor were any of us hiding it. 

How many are left? Lord Orbert Caswell, Lord Otho Butterwell, Lord Alyn Hayford, Lord Bennard Sunglass, Lord Harys Harte, and… that’s it. That’s it. That’s the old guard. The last embers.

“The construction of Sevensbridge?” Helaena asked him. 

“We are expected to finish by the start of the new year, Your Grace.” 

Sevensbridge was a fortress along the Reach-Stormlands border, with the intention of providing a rallying point and staging ground for counterattacks should anyone come pouring out of the Prince’s Pass. It’d been in progress for… possibly longer than my father was king. Neither the Tyrells nor the Baratheons wanted to throw gold at a castle too far from their seats, which meant lesser lords had to bank it. Said lords couldn’t find the incomes to do so, leaving it in the equivalent of developmental hell. 

Peake wasn’t most lords, Peake had been slowly acquiring more and more lands around him like a large orange tumor. Lands brought incomes, incomes bought lands, lands brought incomes, gold bought construction. 

The seat was to join the long list of House Targaryen’s castle-enclaves across the Seven Kingdoms. Peake would be given the equivalent of a castellanship over it, to hold it in the king’s name, while all its incomes went to the capital. In this way, grandfather bought an ally who’d continue generating loyalty; he wanted to rule over a castle, he wouldn’t be keeping that castle if he failed, if he was charged with a mission, he’d see it done. 

Helaena used her soft voice. “A question, Marshal.” 

“Anything, Your Grace.” 

Anything? I was half, just half, tempted to ask him to do a handstand. 

She produced her little throne room smile, the one with the darkened orchids. “You have a brother, yes? A legitimate brother, not a baseborn cur that dishonors the binds of marriage and soils the vows made in the eyes of the Seven.” 

He gulped, suddenly terrified that all those rumors Mushroom had been spreading about Helaena being a witch that bathed in the moonblood of maidens were hinting at something. Little does he know, she’s afraid of blood! Ha! 

 “I do, Your Grace,” he bobbed his head. “Ser Armen, Ser of Galadonhall. He is married to Leonette Fosso-” 

“I would like him to come to court. Bring his wife and his children.” 

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“You have a daughter, do you not? Myrielle?”

“I do, Your Grace.”

“Why does she not wait on me?” 

“Your Grace, your mother-”

Her hand rose and his lips fused shut. “My husband has Titus for a squire, why can I not have Myrielle for a lady-in-waiting? I have heard naught but praise for your skills at hunting outlaws.” 

He saw an opportunity. “How… how is my Titus, Your Grace?” 

Fourteen year old Titus Peake, heir to all those lands and titles, was a brave and proud boy. Grandfather made him and Edgerran Roxton my squires, though they spent more time with Lord Commander Cole than I. 

In peace, I would rather be left alone. As I dreamt of Andalos and of a war on the horizon, I saw the two bearing my banners and my arms for me. They both would fit their roles as squires perfectly, even if one had the personality of a boiled lobster and the other was obsessively particular about his particular obsessions. 

I wasn’t going to lie to the boy’s father. Whatever I previously thought of Lord Unwin, over his tenure as Lord of Starpike, he’d given hundreds of followers of the Vulture over to the vultures. The Peakes had to be doing something right when they weren’t doing everything else wrong. 

“Titus wears the pride of House Peake on his breast, my lord marshal ser. Every step of his is calculated and planned. Even when he is off his post, he marches with one foot in front of the other. Where most boys are… boys, he presents his blade like a man-at-arms on drill. And to hear his singing voice, there is no boy whose voice is half as stern. I would be honored to consider him a brother.” 

‘Well done,’ Helaena’s orchids said as the lord simpered. 

‘I did not lie to him,’ I returned. 

The two of us departed him soon after. He had his duties under grandfather, and we had dragons. 

I threw the question out there. “Carriage or horse?” 

“Carriage. I lack the vigor for hand-waving this noon. I trust you-”

I cut her off with a laugh. “I do, I do.” 

Helaena sent a platoon of grandfather’s gray cloaks ahead to have the two dragons saddled. Ser Thorne helped her into the carriage, for that she gave him the slightest little chaste kiss on the cheek. 

“Thank you, my knight of flails,” she said to him.

“No, my little princess, it is you I must thank. A princess’ kiss is a knight’s blessing.”

Ser Rickard Thorne was twenty four, the youngest of the white cloaks, the next youngest being Ser Willis Fell at thirty-one. He had known her since she was born and he was a page at court. Squire, knight, white cloak, he was there through it all. 

Needless to say, he’d been there for all her most embarrassing moments from her birth until the present. He had the white cloak during both her pregnancies and had been there during the worst of her morning sicknesses and late night emergency privy visits. Many such morning and late night times, ‘I didn’t want to go to the maester and I didn’t want you to find out or you’d drag me to the maester, I wanted to stay there, so he stayed with me until I felt better.’ 

That noon, I was more intrigued by her recent political play than her adoration of a knight, even her knight of flails. 

Inside the carriage, she cast aside some -most- of the regality to undo the laces of her breeches and scratch her legs. “I love these leathers, but… they make me sweat like our sister in a sept. If you are feeling charitable, lean over and help me with these laces. I promise, on my honor as grandfather’s granddaughter, I won’t stab you in the back until the toll of the next bell.” 

The bells tolled off the change in the hours. 

“Why did you give that command to Unwin?”

She kept the same lackadaisical tone as a moment earlier. “You must be more detailed than that, my love. I gave many commands of that little whoreson.” 

I blinked. “You don’t like him?” I asked straight.

Same tone. “As potential Marshals, Marshals who won’t take our armies and disappear into Dragonstone with them, I’d rather him than George the Gravefiller, Robert the Rotund, Pykewood the Patient, or Moryn the Mindless.” 

On the one hand, I was glad we agreed that the other candidates were bad. There was no other hand. 

“What makes you dislike him?”

“His name is Unwin,” she finished getting off her breeches, and set about scratching herself. “Does Unwin sound like the name of a man that will win?” 

You know, Helaena, that’s a piece of sound reasoning. “Is that it?” 

She exhaled slowly. “Do you know who his first wife was?” 

If she’s asking, I should. “Some lady of the Reach?” 

“Cousin Leyla. She died a moon before you were born. Of stress.”

She left it there, so I would as well.   “Why are we bringing his brother here?” 

“So that if he breaks the King’s Peace I have someone to hang from the gatehouse.” 

“You wouldn’t…”

“Myrielle?” She clicked her tongue. “I trust the girl is a girl like any other girl. Armen? If he is a good knight, he can help us cleanse the city of his influence.”

“I know nothing of Armen.” 

“Nor I. The more Greens in the city, the better. We need to prepare for him to make his next move.”

  “What is his next move?” I countered, curious. His next move? The King dies. Then… 

Jaehaerys, his neck slowly opened.

Maelor, ripped apart. 

Aemond, sword through the eye.

Helaena, pressed onto her back, used by the gold cloaks nightly until she gets with child, then… removed, so that none can know she was with child.

Daeron, burned alive. 

Alicent, locked in Maegor’s Holdfast, surrounded by her enemies, a cold death to the fever.  

Jaehaera, thrown out of the window by a seahorse. 

And then there was me. 

A target laid on my back, and he was watching. 

He was watching. 

He is watching. 

He is watching. 

“Aegon.” She’d moved across the carriage and was next to me, gripping my hands in hers. 

“What?” I snapped back, not meaning it. 

She ran her fingers over my hands. “You… you did it again.”

“Did what?”

“When you look into the distance and all the life drains from your soft skin.” 

Oh. That. I closed my eyes. 

“Don’t explain it. It’s him.” 

I didn’t say anything. She understood. 

She wrapped her arms around me in a loose hug. “It won’t happen. We won’t let it happen,” she whispered. 

“I don’t know,” my voice was hollow. “When father dies… he will make his move.” 

Her grip tightened on my back. “Then we will defeat him. I will go to Dragonstone, let him feel up my skirt, and mislay this knife in him.”

“We went over this. You can’t.” 

“We have dragons!” she shouted loud enough to make my ears ring. 

Then it hit me. 

They have dragons. They don’t have the dragonseeds. 

I reciprocated the hug with a tighter hug, then elbowed her in the stomach. “Helly, you’re brilliant. They have wild dragons on Dragonstone. All we need to do is tame them.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Tame them? All of us barring Maelor have dragons, and he is six moons old.”

“No,” I grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “On Dragonstone, there are these lowborns, they’re descendants of Targaryen bastards. We can offer them gold to tame dragons.”

Her orchids studied me for a good long minute. Did I think she would believe me mad? No. Princess Helaena thinks. 

She took a deep steadying breath, and sat back next to me. “Why would I ever allow a bastard to ride a dragon?”

“They are not bastards. They are lowborn.”  

She groaned through her hand. “Aegon, let us say, let us say Barth’s writings are right, and that any man with Valyrian blood may ride a dragon so long as he is bonded. Why would I allow a lowborn who knows nothing beyond the village of his birth to ride them?”

“So that they are ours before he gets them.”

“H… h… h… how…” she stammered and stumbled, “...how would we go about this? Lead a group up to the Dragonmont and tame the dragons?”

“Yes.” 

“Why do we know that they would succeed?” 

“Men will try and men will die.” 

A second long minute of her staring at me passed. “No. I won’t do it. If he wishes to allow any lowborn to mount a dragon, then the lowborn will turn on him.” 

That… that… that sounds… that sounds… that can’t be. “Did you dream of that?” I asked plainly. 

“No,” she answered, just as plainly. “To bond with a dragon is not to bond with a horse. To give a lowborn man a dragon, a man with no training, would be like giving a lowborn man rule over the Seven Kingdoms. It makes no matter if he is the Smith reborn. You, I, Aemond, Daeron, even our sister, we were raised to learn laws and tongues and war. We were raised to bond with our dragons. A lowborn will only chase his ambitions.” 

“That won’t stop him. He may still attain his dragons.” 

Her lips curled upwards. “There are other ways to win a war than a dragon.” 

“Other ways? Poisons?” 

“A crossbow bolt. A knife. A poison. A whore. A pot of wildfire. Aegon-” she reached to my shoulders and pressed on them, as if she was massaging them, “-you are too fearful of him. He can be killed. He will be killed. We will have him killed. We will do this, together.” 

“I don’t-”

“Quiet,” she pecked my cheek, “he will die. Now, let us live.” She beamed like the sun itself. “Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, the mount for a king and the mount of a queen.” 

Sunfyre. I don’t know how to ride a dragon. “Helly…” I crooned, sounding like Jaehaerys, begging to stay up for just a few more minutes… only to find a way to stay up the rest of the night. 

She ran her hands into my hair and smiled. “Yes, Aegon?” 

Might as well admit it here. “I… forgot how to ride a dragon.” 

She looked, looked, looked… and burst into laughter. 

“No, I-”

She held up her hand and continued laughing. 

“Helaena, I am not japing with you!” 

She lowered the hand and looked me clear in the eye. “I never thought you were,” she said, panting for breath. “My knight, you always think more than you need. How do you ride a dragon? How can a girl of one-and-ten ride a dragon?” 

“How?”

“Are you bonded with Sunfyre?” 

“Am I?” 

She made this snarl-growl noise that might’ve been her pretending to be a dragon. “Yes, Aegon, you are bonded with Sunfyre. He loves you almost as much as I do.” 

“Oh… then how do I do it?” 

‘Have you lost your entire mind?’ her eyeballs were quizzing me. She was nice enough to not push that further. “You climb on his saddle and tell him what to do.”

“But… I can’t… High Valyrian.”

“Dragons are smarter than men. If you are bonded with him, shout the word, and he will listen.” 

“So if I say ‘fly up,’ he will fly up?”

She rocked her head side to side. “No, no, I said they are smarter than men. When I’m about to throw up and you help me to the privy, do I need to tell you to help me to the privy? Don’t answer that, I don’t. Sunfyre does not need to be told what to do. You and he are like this,” she interlaced her fingers. 

“How?” Why, that’s clear enough. “How does he understand?” 

“He’s your dragon. Do not think of yourself as two, a man and his mount, think of yourself as one. You and he-” she wriggled her fingers, “-one. Not two. One.” 

“What about Dreamfyre?”

“Oh Dreamfyre,” she let out this girlish little sigh, “she is five-and-ninety this year. Only Vhagar and Meleys are older. The Cannibal might be. Even here, now, as we bump over these ruts, I can feel Dreamfyre in here,” she patted her chest, “she’s a fire that never goes out. Her emotions… she can feel mine, too.” 

What in the hell? ““How… how far away can you be from Dreamfyre to… feel her?” 

“Anywhere. She and I are bound for life. You cannot separate a dragon from their rider.” At that, her head tilted. “Have you not read Barth’s translations?” 

I’d heard of Septon Barth in my past life, and I’d been confronted with his portrait in every other hallway in this one. I never cared for Unnatural History for a simple reason; I am repulsed by blood magic. “Why would I read Barth?” 

“He gives an insightful perspective into how riders and dragons bond. During his life, dragons went through multiple riders. If not that, why not go to the Citadel? There are hundreds of Valyrian texts there on how men and dragons interact.” 

“I can’t read Valyrian.”

“I can. If you’re so interested, I’ll be happy to translate.” 

I had a migraine all of a sudden. “All I have to do to fly Sunfyre is yell ‘Fly, Sunfyre!’”

What I expected was more discussion about the nuances of dragon riding. 

What I didn’t expect was her tossing herself at me and breaking down into sobs. Sobs I muffled with my shoulder. 

There wasn’t anything else to be said on that. She needed me to hold her, so I held her. She didn’t want me to talk, so I didn’t talk. Whatever she was saying in High Valyrian I didn’t understand, but I didn’t try to ask. She needed to lie there and murmur incoherently. I’d let her murmur incoherently. 

A few minutes later, she pulled off and gathered her breaths.  “Thank the Seven you are alive, Aegon. Every day until my last. They…” she sniffled, “...they gave you back to us.”

What did I miss? For lack of wanting to cause more harm, I just smiled at her and waited. 

“You used to be a master of flying Sunfyre. That you would forget…” 

Oh. Oh. I laid a hand on hers. “I did, yes.” I was reminded of words she’d said not half an hour earlier. “Do not be so… fearful, Helly. We will do this together. How many princesses can say they taught their older brothers to fly a dragon?” I prodded her bright pink cheek. “Not many. You might be the first one, Helly, did you know that?” 

“Yes I may,” she murmured as she rested her head on my shoulder.  

That was how we remained for most of the ride across the city, her using my shoulder as a pillow, I slipping my fingers around the back of her neck to massage those tense tense nerves of hers. 

As ever, it came to an end. 

Not as ever, the end was a happy one. 

A deafening roar cut through everything. 

I wasn’t new to the sounds of dragons. Living in King’s Landing, I’d hear dragons multiple times a day. Ride near the Dragonpit and it’s almost minutely. Dragons have a system of communication, just like birds and horses. 

Only one dragon I’d ever heard had such a deep ground-shaking bellow. 

Helaena forgot she was a princess for a second and became a little girl. “Aemond’s back!” 

Vhagar’s roar of return set the rest of the dragons in the Dragonpit to their own screeches. 

The Dragonpit was a building like no other. ‘Massive’ and ‘gargantuan’ applied to everything in it. I wasn’t a man for measurements, but I’d believe some illiterate Westerosi if he told me it was a mile long and a mile wide. In actuality it may have been closer to a thousand feet in diameter. 

The pit proper was a stadium straight out of Rome, sized up to the tenth degree. Eighty thousand people could sit in it, and I could see eighty thousand people wanting to sit in it. There were dragons about. 

The stables were a giant cavern, pitch black but for the tiny human-sized torches on the hundred foot-high walls, and, of course, the fire emanating from the mouths of the dragons. No, I don’t know what the rest of the stables looked like. Orwyle had given me a book by maesters on the Dragonpit that featured all these spectacular mosaics on the walls. Despite being there next to said walls, I’d never know, and never find out; as the walls were massive, and I was not. 

Then there were the dragons. 

Each dragon stayed behind a giant portcullis-like door, the three-headed dragon of our house wrought into the metal. 

One consistency between all the dragons, for when they were seen, was their appearance. No matter their color, their scales looked sickly, as if in a constant state of melting. There was no softness in their bodies, no ‘clean’ edges, they were made of thousands of jagged points. The only other thing that could match their sickliness in appearance was the deathly pale skin of the Valyrian purebloods. 

The dragons were heard before they’re seen, always heard before they’re seen. Each one has a different sound, a different intonation, a different response. 

The unnamed hatchlings, dragons born of the pit, wailed and screeched at high pitches. ‘Hatchling’ was a terrible name for them; their wingspans were forty feet across, their talons as long as short-swords. 

Shyrkos and Morghul were ‘hatchlings,’ three years of age, already forty feet across, with bodies as large as carts. 

Sunfyre was the next youngest, forty by the dragonkeepers’ reckoning. A pit dragon by birth, he was thrice their size, and promised to still be growing. Had Tessarion been here and not in Oldtown, he would have been the same size. 

Next up from him by age, Dreamfyre. Ninety-five and content, she was about twice Sunfyre’s size. 

Kept in the largest cavern, Vhagar, the last living creature from the Conquest. One hundred and seventy years of age. Just one of her bright green eyes was half my height. Nevermind width in carts, men in full plate could ride their destriers right into her jaws… as an Osgrey had done at the Field of Fire, thinking himself Davos the Dragonslayer. 

Speaking of full plate. 

Prince Aemond Targaryen stormed out of his mount’s den, head-to-heel clad in full plate, black with only the slightest hint of golden accents. He stopped a fair distance away, took off his horned greathelm, and fell to one knee, setting it down next to him. Said greathelm was half as obnoxious as he was, two massive horns and a mane of golden horsehair. 

The dragonkeepers were ours. That didn’t mean we’d breach courtesy. 

The two of us approached him as one. I waved him up. 

He kissed each of our signet rings, murmuring pleasantries about our tenacity as he did. 

Helaena half-tackled him with a hug. She kicked at me with her foot, so I joined in. So ended the courtesies.

“Going riding at last, Aegon!” he tried to sound tough and imposing and heroic, which he couldn’t, and didn’t, as he was squeezed between the two of us, night black plate armor be damned. 

“Helly convinced me to take Sunfyre for a flight.”

“I did, and we are.” 

“It’s a beautiful day to go flying, though not as beautiful as my princess.” 

Across from me, Helaena rolled her eyes. It would be unbecoming of a prince to snicker, so I bit my lip and suppressed my snickering. 

I was the first to break the embracing. Aemond tried, but as he and I had unfortunately learned many times, it was very hard to break a Helaena hug when she was feeling energetic. Which she was, as we were going flying!

“Where have you been?”

“I went over to visit Daena.” 

Daena? Helaena and I shared the same perturbed look and simultaneously said “Who is Daena?” 

“She’s the wife of a household knight. She recently gave birth to her sixth child, but she needed some company in the marriage bed while her husband was off killing pirates.” 

Heleana broke off, took three steps back, and observed the prince wholly. 

This wasn’t new. 

Almost every time the prince disappeared, he’d come back boasting of some married maiden he was comforting. To hear him say it, they all loved him and waited for him nightly. 

I could, in a nonincestuous brotherly way, thanks Doctrine for making me have to clarify that, understand why. 

He had all the austerity of Aegon and Maegor and not of the rotundity of father. Where I, or rather the prince, had kept martial practice to tertiary on my list of hobbies, Aemond had been drilling with Criston Cole his whole life. Him going shirtless was the stuff of fantasies for the ladies of court, which is why he did it as often as he could. The golden eyepatch over the sapphire stone, and his naturalized Oldtown accent, both helped. 

In short, I was the fat prince and he was the handsome prince. Who cares about which of us is fitter, said I, I was made of magic and money. 

Father ‘strongly disliked’ his pastime of plowing our vassals’ daughters in the godswood or in his chambers. Father also ‘strongly disliked’ that his eldest daughter and eldest son were playing a game of color war. 

Personally, as long as he didn’t turn into a certain him and abuse his royal powers to groom people, and as long as I never walked in on my brother’s head between the legs of some courtier, it wasn’t my place to be a parent. It was father’s and mother’s. Father was father, and mother didn’t mind, he and Aemond were nothing alike, he was cruel since birth, Aemond was lustful. 

With all that in mind, I had Farena Lorch branded into my mind for the rest of this life and all the next ones. The straight blond-hair, the orange shift falling over my brother’s head, the little brown eyes that bugged out once she stopped moaning long enough to realize they had company. 

Lord Lorent Lorch never knew what his sister was getting up to. I sure did. 

I tuned back into the discussion in time to hear the prince discussing the household knight’s wife’s… milk. “You have never tasted anything sweeter! And her teats, why, they’re…” he tried waving his hands to improvise a measurement. 

Helaena cleared her throat. 

Aemond froze in place, remembering where he was. He turned to her and bowed his head, bearing a slight resemblance to a guilty Jaehaerys after he steals one of Helaena’s pastries. “I meant no offense, Helaena.”

She smirked, she took revelry in making him simper. We both did. “None taken. I do wonder how every wench of yours can have the ‘sweetest milk.’ Aegon-”

What the hell am I supposed to say? I don’t keep track of his stories either. “Yes, my princess?”

“Is mother’s milk sweet?”

Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. “Yes, mother’s milk is sweet.” I had learned that first hand in this life, it was one of the prescribed treatments for a skull-cracking head injury. Whose mother’s milk? Why, the mother of Maelor, as offered by said mother of Maelor. Embarrassing -and useless- as it was, it did help her soreness. 

“So how can one mother’s milk be sweeter?” She sounded like the Grand Maester giving a speech. “You should bring ink and parchment with you next time, to better organize the scales of sweetness.” 

She was the first to crack down into laughter. We two followed suit immediately thereafter.

“Did you have any other tidings besides your latest lay?” I hoped so, I didn’t need that visualization in my mind. 

The Prince glanced around the stables. The dragonkeepers and our guards kept a respectful distance. 

In an example of bad intrigue, he dropped down to a whisper without covering his mouth. “There is a Velaryon fleet massing off Driftmark.”

Fleet? My metaphorical hackles were up. I wasn’t keen on dramatizations. “What is a fleet? Ten fishing skiffs?” 

“Seventy three warships. The red bitch came up to check my approach. Vhagar’s a good girl, but she’s slow.” 

Helaena perked up. “Did you and she engage?” 

“I told her my bed was always open if she was tired of laying with an old seahorse.” He brandished his knife-grin. “Don’t neither of you think I wouldn’t. I’d love to tug on those black curls.” 

The two of us reacted in our own ways, Helaena sighing into her hand, I slitting my eyes. “Truly?” I asked at last. 

He groaned, annoyed that nobody was taking the bait. “No. We met. She asked me to go back to my craven father and the Hightower whore. I told her to return to her half-roguish granddaughters and her grandsons of esteemed strength.” 

“They know they were watched,” Helaena murmured. 

“They know we know,” I clarified, sent a look of confirmation her way, she tipped her head in agreement. 

Aemond wasn’t in-step with us. “What is it that we must fear?” 

It took ten seconds for me to reach an answer. The Vale. “There’s mountain savages coming down to Heart’s Home.”

Helaena fell into stride. “The cousin will have sent a call for aid. Velaryon hopes to provide it before the crown can.” 

This put Aemond’s lone eye ablaze. “We should provide it!” He turned to me and fell to one knee. “Your Grace, let me take Vhagar and send those goatbedders back to their gods.”

A low rumble emanated from the cavern. Vhagar agreed. 

Unlike Lord Peake, Aemond knew where his service lay. “Would that I could, my prince,” I grabbed his arms and helped him up, “but father has preferred to name us masters of hunts.” 

Behind him, Helaena grabbed her hips. “Knowing father, we will be treating with the clansmen in a fortnight.” 

That was a possibility. He hadn’t done anything that outlandish yet, but he did like inviting the relatives of the Prince of Dorne to come to King’s Landing. Prince Qoren’s younger brother Quentyn occasionally showed his head in the throne room. Seven above know how he felt standing in the hall of the invaders. Had I been anyone other than a Targaryen, I would have agreed. We didn’t belong here. 

The Prince here was another possibility. 

Is there any law legally forbidding us from flying up to help one of the Lord Paramounts? There can’t be. Father would- no, nevermind, he’d pluck the tongues out of anyone that accused a whore of bedding a strongman, or of a demon killing two seahorses so he could get to the girl he’d been grooming for fifteen years. If there was any king that’d pass a law so counter to reality, he was the one. Oh, you fool. Father does not sit the Iron Throne. Grandfather does. 

“Father is throwing a feast,” I remarked, sarcastically, “He would be most wroth if we would ignore it.” 

Helaena snorted. “You do not want to see father when he is wrothful, he slices his hand on the throne.” 

The Prince wasn’t us. For one, he had spent his life with the Kingsguard.“Your Graces, we cannot sit here and do nothing. Innocent smallfolk are being killed.” 

And this is the man who will burn the country down in a year and a half? I learned to stop being surprised. He used to -and still does- take his nephew with him on Vhagar for flights around the Blackwater. 

“He is right, Helaena. Dead commoners are a breaking of our pledges of protection. Lords will…”

“Flock to the side that supports them,” she finished for me, exchanged glances as if to say ‘are we serious about this?’, then threw her head back and groaned. “May the Crone give wisdom to father.”

“Have you agreed?”

Now wasn’t the time or place. We were supposed to be going on vacation. I side-stepped around him and to Helaena and laced my fingers with her. United front. “We are to go up to Stokeworth to heed their disputes.” 

“Stokeworth and Rosby’s feud could reopen itself in this coming feast,” Helaena said, eyes downcast to avoid losing her temper. “We are to celebrate the anniversary of the Blackwater Confederation.”

“Father is throwing hundreds of gold on a feast to celebrate a kingdom of lords that collapsed when we were still bannermen of bannermen?” 

“Yes, he is,” and “Yes.” 

The Targaryens were not some eight thousand year old dynasty of dragonlords. We came into our dragons a few hundred years before the Doom. A Volantene may even go so far as to call us usurpers, having plotted and poisoned our way into the forty families. Lucky for the Conciliator, Volantenes didn’t live in the Seven Kingdoms, else they could contest our deification. 

Forty families and we were one of the weakest. King Qarlon, Prince Garin, and all the Andals and Rhoynar who followed their respective monarchs, had the largest stones in history when they marched against hundreds of dragons. 

“This is…” he gave up trying to talk and started making guttural noises. 

No use letting him make a strong boy out of himself here. “Prince Aemond,” I barked, as the two of us stood there, hands interlaced. 

The Prince’s lone eye blazed at the attention. “Your Grace!” 

“I charge you with guarding my sons and daughter in my absence.” 

“And do make an inquest of mother,” Helaena added, “inform her of the happenings in the Gullet, tell her that Aegon and I know of it, and will wait on her orders.” 

“Else, we intend to return by…” I began…

…and she ended, “...whenever we return. A prince and princess have a right to progress.”

He drew his pompous black-hilted sword and laid it on the floor. “I will not fail Your Graces.” 

The twins loved his sapphire, and we loved our brother. 

Nothing wrong with a little weaponized edgelord. 

The two dragons were saddled and out of their caves when Aemond at last was granted our leave. 

While Dreamfyre played with Helaena, I stood next to Sunfyre and observed him. This wasn’t our first time seeing the other, but it was the first time I was this close to him, hence the aforementioned anxiety. 

Sunfyre carried himself with dignity and reservation even up close. 

I stopped next to his brass-gold eye. Better to try now than later. 

“Can you turn to face me, Sunfyre?” 

A low hiss came through his fangs. He recoiled his long neck to better turn to face me while holding his posture. 

His breath was hot, something akin to an open oven. 

“Lie down,” I softly requested, as I would Jaehaera. 

He returned to his regal repose. Said repose saw him pointing at the large doors. 

He wants to leave. “Spread your wings.” 

His wings unfurled like giant pink banners. 

“Close your wings.” 

He stayed just where he was. 

Oh that’s wonderful. “Helaena-” 

I was cut off by a large hot breath and something pressing into my back.

Dreamfyre’s snout, to be correct. 

Dreamfyre’s growl was undercut by Helaena’s giggling. 

Sunfyre swept over me to go slide under Dreamfyre’s wing and shove her with his snout. 

Dreamfyre reciprocated by hop-jumping away, to spin around and crash into Sunfyre. The two shrieked and roared at one another, neither willing to back down. 

At last, they crashed their skulls into the other, recoiled, and returned to hissing. 

I think I didn’t drink enough milk of the poppy this morning. I’m watching dragons headbutting. 

Helaena caught on fast. “They’re playing around, Aegon.” 

“Then why do they look like they’re fighting?” 

“Dragons fight, it is what they do.” 

Now ain’t that just the nicest simplest summary of the impending apocalypse? 

The two of us eventually wrangled control of our mounts through a few sharp words. Helaena gave me some pointers for flying. Verbal commands are acceptable on their own, ‘go up,’ ‘go down,’ ‘bank left,’ ‘bank right,’ ‘follow Dreamfyre,’ ‘fly through that cloud,’ and so on, as Sunfyre understands my meaning much as Helaena would. Riding whips are used by riders yet to bond closely with their mounts, and by riders who already have treat it as an assistance tool; words may not be heard, whips are felt. 

‘The more you fly Sunfyre the more he will understand you.’ I couldn’t well explain to her that this was my first time flying Sunfyre, so the whip was going to be my preference. 

She consoled my fears without knowing I was suffering said fears: Sunfyre naturally follows Dreamfyre, as the two are ‘friends.’ Apparently all the headbutting is a sign of friendship between dragons. All I have to do is tell him to follow her, and he will. 

No, I most definitely did not have enough milk of the poppy this morning. 

We walked our dragons out of the cave. Saddles on snugly, saddlebags fastened down, prayers sent to the Seven, whip in my hand, more prayers sent to the Seven, and… 

I lashed him across the neck. “Fly, Sunfyre!” 

He spread his wings, roared to the heavens, and took flight. 

Dreamfyre joined us not a moment later. 

The two dragons went about their ascents differently. 

Sunfyre leaned back, slammed the air with his wings, and fired up like an arrow.

Dreamfyre coiled tight circles. Her rider stood out even at a distance, Helaena’s green riding leathers. While I was digging into the spurs, or what could pass for spurs, Dreamfyre’s rider threw her head back and drank in the cold air. 

Dreamfyre stopped with grace and coiled about, gliding down towards the coast.

“After her, Sunfyre! Show her your speed!” I cracked the whip.

Sunfyre roared in delight and took off after her.

We caught up to her by the Red Keep. 

Dreamfyre, like Helaena, was a sore loser. 

Dreamfyre banked, twisted, and slipped right between two of the towers. Sunfyre, too pompous for such peasantile play, pulled back and skimmed the central hall. In such a way did Dreamfyre retake the lead. 

The wind was too strong to make out anyone yelling, and I was too busy murmuring prayers to a being that wasn’t the Seven to peek out down at the Red Keep that was below us. 

When Dreamfyre dove towards the water, and Sunfyre, ever the kingly beast, spread his wings to glide in chase, I spotted ships of the royal fleet. 

Due to threats of the Three Daughters, grandfather had no less than a third of the capital’s defensive fleet in the water at all times. Officially it was the Three Daughters. Unofficially… I would lie if I said mother never mentioned Velaryon.

Because of how we glided, I caught more than a few excellent glimpses at the ships we skimmed by. 

I did hear the horns on the ships sounding, and I did see the red and black ant-people waving. 

The wind slapping my face, Dreamfyre and Sunfyre’s back and forth roars and screeches, I felt like I was going mad. 

Dreamfyre banked left, north, and swirled up towards the clouds. 

Sunfyre banked left and rocketed up after her. 

As we rose, I tried to find something to -pun intended- ground me. The closest experience I’d had in my life, closest by a continent-sized distance, was when I used to visit a friend of mine across the pond. 

He owned a two-seater Fokker, a replica of something used a century past. I always preferred my feet on the ground, might’ve been why he did his service in the jets and I in the tanks. 

The biplane had a deafeningly loud engine that made conversation impossible. While he said it was agile for its day, and he proved his words with sharp banks and long dives, it couldn’t bank or dive more than forty-five degrees else it’d risk a stall. Aerodynamics being complicated was yet another reason I preferred tanks. Go forward, slam a button, watch a house go up in a puff of smoke, no need to rely on the third dimension. And it was slow. 

Sunfyre was silent. In fact, other than the wind and the back-and-forth roars between the dragons, the flight itself was dead quiet. Sunfyre was capable of stunts impossible for biplanes and jets alike; either because his angles would cause a stall, or because he could do it on a -relatively speaking- silver stag. 

That didn’t mean he was some light creature, I felt his weight with every wing beat. Those tricks of his needed to be set up, to be trained, to be prepared. I felt the difficulty in getting him to bank, nor was I confident enough in my own skills -Helaena’s reassurances are nice for a man who has lived in the Seven Kingdoms for two decades- to believe I could pull it off. Dreamfyre was the creature of true agility, she rolled over cloud banks, only to reappear under them, keeping her speed. 

Sunfyre was much, much slower than the biplane. I wasn’t a speedometer, but I had spent more time than was legally permissible  -that is to say, more than one second- on top of my Merky telling Shaul to punch it. We could do more than sixty kilometers -or thirty seven miles, or twelve leagues- an hour on roads, on roads that weren’t those roads, as those roads were terrible. As a result, I’d gotten used to having wind slap my face. 

Sunfyre’s speed, no whip cracking, was similar. I put it at sixty, give or take ten. 

Sunfyre’s back, whip cracking, shouting commands to go faster, was similar to sitting on top of a fully-loaded humvee, which I’d only ever done a few times on a dare. I off-hand knew that to be ninety, since there was the risk of needing to exit said humvee very quickly.

Dreamfyre and her speeds were at a loss to me. 

There was a yearly compendium of all living tamed ridden dragons in the Seven Kingdoms, as the maesters had a hobby of fixating themselves on creating books out of everything. Said book contained illustrations, ages, size comparisons, battle experience, known mates past and present, children hatched from its eggs, and so forth. At no point did I read this compendium, as it was a case of ‘I’ll get to it tonight,’ and then fall asleep before getting to it. 

I didn’t know how high we leveled out, Dreamfyre ahead in a slow beat, Sunfyre behind in a leisurely glide. 

It was high enough that I dared to peek out over the saddle. 

I regretted it immediately. 

Villages disappeared under my fingernails. A whole castle complex vanished under the palm of my hand. 

When we escaped a wall of clouds, the land of Rosby looked like it did on a table, except hyperrealistic. 

Mile upon mile of plains, forests, lakes, and rivers. Hills dotted with ruined castles from before the Andals. Villages, civilization itself, clung to those rivers or the coast. Sure, I had seen more from the window of a transcontinental jetliner. Sunfyre wasn’t a machine, and my qualifications to fly him weren’t years of diligent licenses. 

No, I randomly felt like diving, so I cracked a whip across his neck and ordered him to descend, so he descended towards the Cape of Rosby. Conversely, once we had dropped down near enough to make houses out of the villages, I swung the whip and had him ascend. 

The two dragons leveled out as they had, thousands of feet above the rest of the world. 

Thousands of years of culture and peoples and beliefs, spread out like a map waiting to be conquered beneath us. 

“Mishamayim hibit Adonai raah et kol Bnei Adam.” 

Sunfyre roared in what sounded to be frustration. 

Of course. He cannot understand a tongue he has never heard. Dreamfyre was a mile ahead. 

“You do not understand, my boy, so listen to the story, and I shall tell you.” 

Sunfyre let out a throaty rumble. 

“The Lord looks down from heaven, he beholds all the sons of Adam. 

From the place of His habitation He observes all the inhabitants of the earth. 

He who fashions the hearts of them all, He who discerns of their doings. 

No king may be saved by the size of his host; nor a mighty man by his strength. 

A horse is a vain hope of safety, for even his great power is no means of escape.”

Sunfyre did not answer, aside from flapping his wings. 

“What does all this mean?” I asked his neck, very rhetorically. 

Sunfyre let out a throaty rumble. 

“It is a reminder, my boy, and a warning. This power that lays at my fingers, it is not power I deserve, nor is it power I have any right to. I came from the right man’s loins and the right woman’s womb. All those villagers down there, what makes me better than them? I have the right blood? And so? Am I immune to death or to disease? Am I immune to the weather? Perhaps I am, perhaps the blood really is the key to all of this. And for what? I have a right to burn those villagers’ homes? I have a right to style myself as better than them?”

Sunfyre hissed. 

“Then I shall tell you. The answer is, I do not have such a right. My lamentations were not heard in my past life, I pray they are heard by the One of this. Even if the tales are true, and we live in a godless world, those words I uttered to you remain true; for those words are not a warning of divine punishment, they are a warning of mortality. No matter a man’s arrogance, there awaits his death. No matter his deeds, there awaits judgment. No man may become a god, and all those who try to wind up evil.” 

“A good king I may try to be, but what is a good king? I came from the blood of Viserys and Alicent? That does not make me a good king. Did I prove myself a true knight and defender of the commoners? No. I sat in King’s Landing. My father is the product of it. What did he do to deserve his throne? Nothing. He went from keep to keep and befriended heirs and spares, and now, he takes his power, and names his daughter, him in miniature, as his successor. My mother, I love her, but she is only my mother because my grandfather played the game and won.”

Once more, Sunfyre hissed. 

“I do not expect you to understand, my boy. Were it up to me, I would work towards bringing an end to that iron chair. All the kings of the Seven Kingdoms, how many of them spent even a day as a hedge knight? Twenty years past, the Conciliator was forced to concede one last time, and allow the lords of the land his family conquered to press their votes for which of his two incapable grandchildren deserved to succeed him. One is entitled and arrogant, the other is slothful and passive.” 

Sunfyre growled. I think he understood my mentioning of the two candidates. 

“Alas. Life is not that simple. Divinity has thrown me into this land, into this world, on the eve of a war unlike any other, whose likeness will never be seen again, whose scars will be felt until the end of days. The demon of Dragonstone will stop at nothing to have his crown. I could surrender or abdicate, and he would still have me and all those who bear my mother’s blood killed. Little does his wife know, she is only there to receive the crown. In a day where he wins bloodlessly, her strong sons will still be disposed of, for he is no dullard.” 

“Those first few days, did you know, I thought of taking my own life? The potions were right there, and blades, and the spikes of Maegor’s. I didn’t have the willpower to fight him, to fight this demon creature lording over his island. I could not bear to think of what he would do to my family, to me, to the Seven Kingdoms as a whole.”

Sunfyre roared in anger. 

“That all ended when I first looked into the little purple eyes of my sister Helly, and met her children. I had a duty to them. Protect the weak and the innocent and all women. Are the Seven Kingdoms rightfully mine? That depends on whether my father’s rule was a legal precedent set by the Great Council, whether Dragonstone has committed high treason with bastardry, and a half a hundred other ‘whethers.’ A hammer will fell the dragon in one hundred and fifty years’ time, that hammer’s right was the breaking of oaths and the tyranny on that Iron Throne. I cannot tell you the Seven Kingdoms are mine, my boy, for it is a weight I do not want. I can tell you that they aren’t his. When I looked into their eyes, I knew. I knew my duty.”

Sunfire screeched. Dreamfyre answered with a screech of her own. 

“There is no question. The man will die. Half of him will go to Runestone, for the oath of marriage he broke. Half of him will go to Driftmark, for the woman he groomed until he died, and her brother he had killed so he could get to his true prize. I may die on this quest, Sunfyre, that is just so. He will die, and all those who ally with him will pay. It is time for the Seven Kingdoms, for House Targaryen, to remember, all men are equal, all men must bow to the gods.” 

“Are the Seven-Who-Are-One real? In my heart, I believe they are. Even if they are false, and it is only the red light of Rahloo and the cold darkness of the trees, they are my gods now. When I first came here, my duty was to defeat him. The longer I have lived here, the longer I have seen the infection beneath the surface. The Seven Kingdoms are rife with corruption, with lords who do not earn their lordships, with princes who grasp for kingdoms off their birth alone.” 

“Fear not, Sunfyre, my quest is not in vain. The Seven-Pointed Star had laid out rules. All sins may be forgiven, even high treason; my sister will pay for her crimes. All lords and kings should live a day as a smith every year. All lords and kings must see to it that those under their protection have housing and food. All lords and kings must give charity. All lords and kings must see to it that they do not fall into exuberance. A knight should give his life in defense of others. Most of all, all men, from the king who is heir to an eight thousand year old bloodline to the son of a whore, must give their homage to the Seven.”

The age of the true knight is almost upon us. Can you hear it uncle? No, you cannot, for your greed and ambition have driven you to evil deeds. You shall be humbled. 

I will not stop until the realm has been cleansed of all corruption. It is my duty as a king of the Seven Kingdoms.

Why stop at the realm? For all the lands' flaws, the First Men, Andals, and Rhoynar have cultures and tongues of wonder and beauty.

There lay a far greater threat just beyond Dragonstone.

There, just across the Narrow Sea, men are born into a life of slavery.

The days of the Free Cities are numbered.

The slavers want to threaten a blockade of the Stepstones?

They'd best be ready to meet Vhagar.

Chapter Text

Prologue, IV: Stokeworth

3rd-4th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.3.127AC-7.4.127AC) 

3rd-4th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.3.1590AV-2.4.127AC)

Of all the places in the Seven Kingdoms to have a small seat, the vestiges of thousands of years of warfare, I would have thought Stokeworth to be it. In my mind, in defiance of the maesters’ books in the Red Keep, I imagined Stokeworth to be a small castle atop a cliffside, built to be as defensible as possible, never allowed to expand beyond that due to all the warfare. Oh, how wrong I was. 

Stokeworth was a palace.

The castle grounds spanned some twenty acres, all along the Blackwater, defended by multiple concentric walls. The central ‘castle’ was made of milk-white stone from the Vale, built in the architectural style of Oldtown. And only we dragonriders can appreciate its beauty from the sky. Most of those features were hidden from anyone on the ground. 

I followed Helaena’s lead. We circled it thrice from thousands of feet up. 

On the third circle, I answered my own question. Why was this seat, located in the worst place to live in the Seven Kingdoms -Riverlands are tied- so elaborate and expansive? 

Stokeworth was steadily climbing in wealth since the days of the Hoares. 

Halleck wanted his southern coast guarded, Rosby, Stokeworth, and Duskendale were that coast. Why waste gold on raising new castles when old ones can be given the charter to expand? I for one would hesitate on that, giving more power to major bannermen is a great way at instigating rebellion. Then again, I wasn’t ruling over two and a half regions of the Seven Kingdoms, one and a half of those regions being full of cultures, religions, and laws wholly unlike mine. Had I been, I might have searched for ways to gain my vassals’ support. Halleck must have thought his leniencies would gain the loyalty of his vassals, I reasoned.  

Harren came along and wanted to build his hall. The maesters will debate the details until they and the dragons are both dead, and winter comes for us all. Were Stokeworth loyal bannermen? Did they ‘win’ during Harren’s reign, exploiting quarrels with their neighbors? Did they raise the Hoare chains, sail across the Blackwater, and raid the Wendwater? If only I wasn’t a Prince of the realm with bigger issues to read about, such as the Gulltown-Oldtown religious wars, I might have had these answers. 

No matter how the lamb lords acted during the days of the Hoares, 

Everything changed when the Fire Nation attacked. 

No, that’s wrong. We’re not those dragon-taming fire-obsessing conquerors wearing red and black. We’re the dragon-taming fire-obsessing conquerors wearing red and black who bed their sisters.

Aegon the Dragon changed the borders of the Seven Kingdoms. Within a year, Stokeworth was no longer the border between the seventh hell named the Riverlands and the Kingdom of the Storm, it was one of the direct vassals of the Iron Throne. From inception until present, Stokeworth has seen richness beyond measure thanks to its adjacency to the Iron Throne. Sure, there were a few peasant rebellions and one big religious uprising, but both of those were eighty years past. The Conciliator’s reign was one long period of peace and wealth for Stokeworth. 

Among the many, many benefits of being in the Crownlands -being plowed by every passing army notwithstanding- was that the lords were given lenient rights. Aegon, Aenys, Maegor, Jaehaerys, and Viserys all saw the worth -for different reasons- in letting their crownlords expand. Thus far, these permissions have bought loyalty and safety for the Iron Throne. Little did any of them know, in approximately one and half years from now, the strengthened Crownlands would repay this loyalty by dividing in on itself. 

That was a lie. The court has divided into a game of color war. The King on the Iron Throne ignores it. Then again, that was a better alternative to what he did whenever anyone brought up the high treason Dragonstone had committed. Would he take my head? No, he couldn’t be bothered to take the head of his brother, let alone hold his daughter accountable for her bastardry. Would he put multiple knives in my mother’s faction? Yes, and when he finally grew too fat to live, that brother of his he’d treated so nicely and courteously would repay his kindness by killing everyone with a drop of my mother’s blood, then his step-sons for being boys of renowned strength. 

At the end of the third circle, Dreamfyre went for the largest courtyard. She glided down, no need to be fast, and elegantly swept in. Once she touched down, she threw her head back to roar up at us, as if to say ‘What are you waiting for?’. No, not ‘as if,’ that was Helaena’s dragon, she had Helaena’s patience. 

Minor problem with following Dreamfyre’s lead. I didn’t know how to land a dragon. It’s not a tank. It’s not even attached to the ground. It’s a dragon. 

If this goes wrong, Helaena, I will come back as a ghost and tickle you. “Sunfyre, land next to Dreamfyre!” I lashed him on the head. 

He rumbled, which I prayed meant he comprehended the command. 

I never told Sunfyre to land quickly. 

The dragon swept over Stokeworth one time, roaring as he did. He whirled about around a cloud and came in lower a second, continuing to roar. He banked around a tall watchtower, a watchtower whose roof was higher than us, while I held on for dear life. Only on the third did he stop over the courtyard, flapping his wings as he lowered himself to the ground… 

…right next to Dreamfyre, who hissed at him. 

It was good the population of Castle Stokeworth was on its knees, or they’d have seen me shaking in the saddle. The few of them not to be on their knees, grooms and servants and such, were transfixed by the living breathing dragons in their neck of the woods living and breathing down their necks to notice the petrified princeling. 

Sunfyre hissed back and the two got into a snapping match, just as they had back at the Dragonpit. 

Right then, enough of that before I end up turned into a mop of pale paste by a pair of dragons wrestling with one another. 

I horribly misjudged the height of his saddle, and ended up going for a slide down his wing. Sunfyre had the decency to not fling me off while doing so. It wouldn’t have looked good for a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms to be blasting off into the stratosphere, ne’er to be seen again. 

The two dragons turned docile once I was off. 

Helaena, as I had mentally expected, was already off to the side, near the cluster of knelt nobles, waiting for my arrival. The two of us pretended all of this was normal. I kept up the facade, walking over to her and standing next to her. 

I felt bad for Lord Stokeworth, he’d been in his bath when dragons were sighted over the castle, Green dragons at that. From there, anyone with a drop of noble blood came gathering to a single courtyard, whereupon they had to kneel and wait, for Dreamfyre had arrived, and Sunfyre had not. Anyone, even children, who’d still been in their bedclothes. Only when Sunfyre arrived were they allowed to stop staring at the ground. 

He still smelled like bathing perfume. I knew that perfume. My sister favored that perfume. 

Minute after minute of frantic preparations and waking children from bed led to one line. “Your Graces, Stokeworth is ever at your service.” 

I’m sure you are at someone’s service, just not mine. As this was their home, not the court, they could dress as they wished. In court, Donnel wore black-trimmed clothes, to better delineate his loyalty. Here, his tunic and leggings comically matched our green hues, making him look as Green as Lord Peake. Would that he was as lean as Lord Tarly. I would have complained that this man of twenty two was too portly for the marital culture of the Seven Kingdoms, but I’d seen my old portraits. Head injuries do wonders for weight loss. 

I bade him rise, and he introduced me to the rest of the Stokeworths. His pregnant wife Lyra, originally of some knightly house I forgot immediately. His three year old daughter Falena, that Helaena pinched the cheek of. His teenage sister Maia, who Helaena complemented the beauty of, who to me looked like every other teenage person to ever live being dragged out of bed against their will; that is to say, she wanted to go back to sleep. Even at the sight of terrifying large dragons, she still wanted to go back to sleep. 

A few of his adult cousins, Qarlton, Perkin, Alyssa, Robin, Shirei, and Aemon, rounded out the present Stokeworths. I forgot their sons and daughters, that was Helaena’s place, and by ‘place,’ I meant she stopped at each to pinch their cheeks and pat their heads. I was very thankful he didn’t have all his other Stokeworths show up, it seemed that Stokeworth was just full of lambs waiting to meet the dragons. Even Helaena, who took as great a joy in giving affection as our other sister did in removing tongues, lacked the endurance for such a deluge of irrelevant lordlings. 

The only ones that mattered were Donnel and his direct family. The cadets did matter, insofar as a legal line of succession in the event of a feud or war. A certain Lady Paramount was to thank for making me pay attention to such details. Stokeworth wasn’t too far off; should Donnel die to Lord Mathar today, the land would fall to a three year old girl… unless Lyra’s pregnancy resulted in a boy. After him and her… the Iron Throne would have to figure out how to pass on Stokeworth. His older sister was Lady of Rook’s Rest, his younger sister was an unwed girl of fourteen, and then there were his cousins. 

As of then, those cousins went ignored, for he wasn’t dead yet. I imagined my grandfather’s eyes surveying them. ‘A girl of four-and-ten can be wed to a man of two-and-thirty, both branches will be reunited, the land will pass on to their son.’ I wouldn’t have her wed to a man twice her age, but I wasn’t the king or the Lord Hand. 

In court, Lord Donnel wore black. Out here, we were Targaryens. “We beg Your Graces’ forgiveness, had we known Your Graces were coming, we would have prepared a feast.” 

“We would be honored to sup lunch with you,” I said while Helaena fashioned her court smile. 

“We will require chambers for the night,” she added. 

“It would be my pleasure, Your Graces. Will my chambers be sufficient?” 

And now he’s giving us his room. What next, his sister? Considering the way he was looking at me, and me in specific, I didn’t want to know the answer to that. 

Helaena rejected it demurely, “There shall be no need. We are searching for… quieter chambers.” 

“Quieter?” The lord was horror struck. “My chambers are as silent as a crypt. Your Graces.” 

Helaena did not budge. “We saw riding lands within your estate on our descent. You would have guest quarters there, would you not?”

“They are not becoming of Your Graces,” Lady Stokeworth answered, darting between the two of us. 

“If we needed comeliness, we would not fly. We are dragons, and dragons do not stay behind walls.” She stated it with such a reserved gravitas, despite the line itself sounding cheesier than her favorite cakes. Oh, and I’d never heard her practicing such pompous drivel before. 

I should’ve been taking notes. Sad to say, I wasn’t. ‘Behind walls,’ we live in a city that has walls. I do hope none of you Stokeworthers or Stokeworthians or Stokeworthmen think deeply about what she just said. They wouldn’t, as the dragons roared in agreement with her. 

Lord Stokeworth’s household received their new orders. Our dragons’ saddlebags were removed, put on carts, and ridden off towards said ‘guest quarters’ she’d been referring to. As they were, cattle were slaughtered to feed the two large beasts. Lord Stokeworth’s steward personally showed us to washing rooms to fix ourselves up before lunch. 

Why didn’t we just fly our dragons to the guest quarters and unload them there?

The same reason Lord and Lady Stokeworth were frozen in place during our meeting with them. The same reason the whole courtyard knelt and held it until we finished making our arrangements and went inside. 

We were the Targaryens, they were lesser mortals, they would do everything without question, or they would burn. The Conciliator’s Doctrine would fill Targaryens with notions of blood purity until a hammer came along to prove that these gods were just as mortal as the rest of the realm. 

Nor was I in any place to refuse their simpering and bowing. It was part of the game. Had Lord Stokeworth, say, shown a dislike for placating the royals that fell into his courtyard, he would have been seen as uncouth and ill-mannered. In a world where I did become King, it’d still be uncouth and ill-mannered. Unless I somehow changed the culture of the Seven Kingdoms, it would remain once my day was done. 

The difference, I wasn’t full of blood purity. I wasn’t going to shun my lawful wife to snatch up a teenage girl so I could seduce her out of her smallclothes in a tower in Dorne while telling her all of it was ‘for prophecy.’

No, history would see me as someone far far worse. I was going to stop my sister before she turned the Seven Kingdoms into Flea Bottom and beheaded everyone for spreading the lies that her first three boys were notably strong, her first husband was killed by her second, and that her second husband had been going through and disposing anyone that got between him and her once his brother kept her as heir. 

The steward showed us to Lord Stokeworth’s personal bathing pool. Here, the maids helped unlace our riding leathers and handed us bathing shifts. No, I hadn't stopped finding the matching shades of green amusing. I wasn’t all too eager on a half-dozen women I didn’t know pulling my undergarments off, so I dismissed them. Helaena, presumably to maintain that unity of ours, did the same. 

I put on a shift to slide into the pool, as she was my sister. Helaena went bare, citing the need for some water after those leathers left her sweating ‘like Lady Strong in a sept.’ I could hardly tell her otherwise, those leathers were awful for multi-hour flights. They turned my waist into a pressure cooker. 

Once I knew we were alone- it was a bathing pool in a large room with no attendants around- I put forth the question that had been on my mind since landing. “Why are we staying the night in his quarters on the estate?” It wasn’t that I wanted to, the tradition of staying in pristine quarters was a tradition, for better and for worse. 

“I would rather the household not hear the sounds of our bedding,” she answered with a too-sharp smirk. 

Did my sisters get replaced while I wasn’t looking? “Did you forget my-” 

She cut me off by standing up. “I forget nothing, my love. Quarters there, you can make us a sister for Maelor, a girl that will grow into a striking beauty. Or a little brother with the purple eyes and platinum-gold hair of Old Valyria.” 

See, I was very extremely absolutely confident I hadn’t had too much to drink the night before. I looked her over -not like that- and noticed something, two somethings to be precise. The little orchids.  

We’re playing the game. I wanted to find out, so I did, I went to my feet, walked up to her, and wrapped my arms around her as if to embrace. 

I cleared my throat. “Are we here fooling the greenlanders?” I rolled in Pyke. 

Her eyes twinkled with mischievous delight. “Why, you are too fearful. Sons of mud are no threat to men of iron.”

“Do you believe Black Harren said that as Aegon came from the heavens?” 

“No, Aegon was too late. He did not notice Aegon had arrived until his ceiling began to melt. He shouted it when what remained of his army came back after Mathis Blackwood and Addam Bracken smashed them on the river road.” 

All those lords of yellow mud were of no threat, until Harren created unity in the Riverlands for the first time in almost a thousand years. How? He turned all of them against him. 

Qalen was the son of thralls in service to the Harlaws. Years rowing for the Iron Fleet and one successful reaving saw him earn enough silver to book passage to Oldtown. Ten years of link-forging later, he served in the Red Keep as a maester under Orwyle. It was to him that I went to relearn the second-most used iron dialect, Pyke, for that was the court tongue, even if Orkwood was still more popular. 

“The bedding japes? For the lambs?” I asked, still in Pyke, as I gripped her shoulders, swinging her side-to-side. 

“Yes. There are strong men all around us, Prince Apple,” she whispered into my neck, likewise in Pyke.  

I rubbed her cream-hued hair. “And you think the quarters will give us privacy?” 

“No. Dreamfyre and Sunfyre rolling around outside them will.” 

“Then why the japes?” 

She took a step back and grabbed my chin to make my head bend down to be eye-to-eye with her, or, for the lechers watching outside, make it look like we were about to kiss while giving me an excellent view of the parts of her normally under layers of clothing. “Recall mother’s words.” 

Words. Words. The terms. “The terms of intimacy.” Wait. “Those terms…” I stuttered, “...you set the restrictions.” 

“Entertain me, where in that contract was it forbidden to make mention of your husbandly duties?” 

It all clicked. I snorted. “You’re going to be Alyssa.”

That smile of hers died. “No, Alyssa was a whore who stained the reputation of our house. I’m giving these lambs what they want to hear. They wouldn’t believe us if you told them we were going to return to our chambers and lie together without laying together, so I say, tell them that we will make another child.” 

That was the problem with not being here for twenty years, I still had characters -or rather, my ancestor- wrong. “What is the difference between you and Alyssa?”

“Alyssa would make carnal noises next to her husband and tell others of what the two had done that preceding hour.” 

On second thought, please don’t be Alyssa. On third thought, that’s my grandmother. Thanks… Lord Martin. She took my fearful expression the wrong way. 

“We are in a private chamber, are we not? None should hear the whispers between wife and husband. Do not worry, my prince of apples, I will not repeat them out in the hall.” She reinforced the act by pecking my cheek. 

I hadn’t considered what we would be doing -aside from general ‘sit there and listen to lords toast to my father’ activities- but having her and I together in ‘privacy’ was as good an excuse as I’d get to find out. 

It was enough ironborn. The Winterfell timbres replaced Pyke’s tongue-twisting sharp vowels. “What is our course? Feast, chambers, Red Keep on the morrow?” 

“We have the clans in the Vale, as you reminded me. Where better to deliberate like a pair of maesters than Lord Lamb’s quarters reserved for noble guests?” 

Damn you, I’m not supposed to be laughing. “How about Oldtown?”

She shook her hair and sighed wistfully. “Oh, beautiful, we are sure to come to a consensus!”

There was something ironic about discussing the Citadel in two thick Winterfell accents, what with the whole continent between them, the Citadel’s dislike for offering people to heart trees, and Winterfell… being Winterfell. 

Putting some thought into it -how heretical- I realized the merit of the suggestion. “We’ll have privacy to discuss without any of mother’s… friends intervening.”  

“Nor will father summon us to his bedchamber to listen to the tale of when he slew the white stag,” she added, hiding her grievances behind a snicker. 

I never stopped hearing about that story. I’d errantly thought it took place during his reign, what a later historian would deem the high point of House Targaryen. No, one of his most boasted achievements took place eight years earlier, when he was second in line for the throne.

“How will we… discuss without revealing?” 

“Maesters have maps.” She looped her arms around me and murmured “We are planning to go on a progress, are we not? Jaehaerys and Alysanne. Our matters are ours.” 

It was times like these I was thankful Helaena was mother writ small. Everything planned out before Dreamfyre landed in the yard.

“And the feud?” 

“What feud?” she countered, looking around the room. 

Ah, right. Seven Kingdoms, one thousand lords, seven thousand feuds. “Ermine and lamb. Tanda.” 

“What would you have us do? Summon them here and tell them to set aside their quarrel?”

“A betrothal was broken.”

She raised an eyebrow. “And?”

“You do not think this animosity will spread to the feast?” 

“It may,” she wrapped a hand around my wrist, “if you wish to solve this, how?” 

She doubts my abilities. I doubt them as well. “It would be just to have the ermine lord answer for the broken betrothal. Do you agree?”

She honed in on my eyes. “Then when we return to the capital, lay your own claim forth with grandfather, and have the two summoned to court.” 

She turned to go back to her side of the pool. 

I reached out to grab her shoulder. “One more matter.” 

“What?” she huffed, exacerbated, “Further feuding? We have a small council for these small trifles.” 

“Remember Darklyn’s painting, from Braavos?”

She scoffed. “My eyes can never forget it.” 

“Then you’d best not look to the left,” I said, and left it there. The cultural dispute may not be our problem, yet, but I couldn’t deny its presence. 

To our left stood a pair of marble statues, a naked man and naked woman. The man stood ‘reading’ a tome while the woman ‘played’ a string instrument. 

“Aegon,” Helaena was dumbstruck enough to stagger and fall back into her romanticized Oldtowner. 

I caught her. “Yes, Helaena?” 

Not only did she forget her accents, she forgot she was supposed to be the calm and demure princess. “I want this pulled down and destroyed.” 

“Why?” 

She rotated to me, eyes and temper alike flaring up. “Why? Why? What in all the seven hells has gotten into you? This is not a whorehouse! Imagine if Jaehaerys saw that! Or Jaehaera! Gods! They’d…” 

I couldn’t believe I had to be the one to ground her, alas, there I was, shushing her. “Helaena, we’re guests in their castle. We cannot-” 

She shoved my hand off her. “The Stranger take them and their castle! This is a desecration of decency!” 

So is bedding your brother. I hadn’t had enough to drink to be sensible, though. “We cannot impose-” 

“We have a duty to uphold the King’s virtues,” she said through her gritted teeth. “This is no different than a council in Flea Bottom.”

I took her argument and put it back on her. “Are we to hold this council now?” 

Somewhere in the distance, I heard a dragon roaring. “No. Not now. What we discussed before comes first. He shall answer for this. Let father stop me.” 

I looked into those simmering orchids, and I understood. “Let father stop us, Helly.” 

She smiled.

I understood. It all tied back to him, and what he represented. She lived in a castle where Mushroom waited around every corner to make remarks, in a city where his presence was felt in every alley. These statues were emblematic of him. The cultures of the Free Cities reminded her of him. All of it was him, even if in reality none of it was. I was confident Lord Stokeworth merely had an interest in Braavosi nude statues, which, while I wouldn’t want him for a father as a result, wouldn’t breach the top one hundred in strange interests. I’d never convince her of that. When she saw the intricately detailed man and woman, she saw him and the gold cloaks, and her, and Breakbones, and the White Wyrm. When she saw the statues, she saw the women’s councils she held in the city. When she saw the statues, she saw the brothel-obsessed world he helmed. 

When I saw the Braavosi sculptures, though I would agree that I’d never let my four year old children see it, I didn’t see any criminality. The Doom of Valyria, whose shockwaves were felt as far as the Wall, had brought an end to the cultural stagnation arbitrated by the Freehold. Braavos was leading the way towards a new man, as they’d have said in my past life. 

When she saw the Braavosi sculptures, she saw all her fears confirmed; that he would turn the Seven Kingdoms into his personal brothel, using the Free Cities’ culture as he used their sellswords to take what he wanted. 

I trusted that she had enough of our mother in her to sit through the feast with reserved courtesy, not allow this… reminder of something that enraged her… to bring out our father. 

The two of us dressed in the same riding leathers as before, now sprinkled with Lord Stokeworth’s perfume to help mask all that wonderful wonderful sweat. 

We departed the bathing chamber like nothing had transpired inside. The guards bowed their heads. 

“The guards heard,” she whispered to me as we crossed a courtyard, bound for the central building that looked like it could be the same size as two Holdfast’s put side by side. 

“All of it?” I countered, a touch worried. 

“The statues.” 

“Will this sour our… clothes?” I sent a look her way for her to comprehend. 

She did. “Do you think I am Lady Strong?” 

In other words, do I think you’re entitled and self-righteous? Sometimes, but you’re a person. This time?  “No.” 

She pecked my cheek, then reminded me of mother’s words. “Try not to forget we’re married,” she giggled. 

Given the chance, I likely would have never wed her to begin with. The High Septon wouldn’t let me set her aside and let me take up the vows of a septon, no reasonable figure would; nor would I want to set that sort of legal precedent and give lords an ability to set aside their wives once they’re no longer of use. Doubtless Dragonstone would be happy to have me write that into an edict. 

We were bound to one another for the rest of our short days. I didn’t know the prince, but I wouldn’t break the oaths he made. Just because he made them didn’t mean I had to bed her. A Targaryen prince would come along who’d break those sacred oaths. For that and many other crimes, one furious hammer crossed paths with him on the Trident. 

The feasting hall was made of the same milk-white stone as the exterior, with white marble floors. The tables and chairs -chairs!, not trestle tables!- were made of dark wood from Crackclaw Point. Everything, and I do mean everything, made of fabric was green. 

My elder sister would be distraught to know that the carpets did match the drapes, both were as green as us.  

The room’s most prominent feature, to me that is, I wasn’t an architecture person, were the stained glass windows. They depicted past Stokeworths on hunts, riding along the shoreline, and battling sigiless foes. Between each Lord or Lady, there was the white lamb holding the golden chalice upon the green field; all the details made out in the colored glass. Thanks to their height and the architect’s planning, the sunlight struck the glass and covered much of the room in multicolored rays of light, most of them green. 

My sister was the one to know every single type of food, what with her love of making pastries for the twins, and her love of eating all the pastries they refuse to touch because the two like being fussy little bundles. 

I was more of a ‘this is meat,’ ‘this is a bushel of green plants,’ and ‘this is something that crawled out of a swamp and died on my plate’ type of person in both lives. 

To that end, they served the two of us the lunch they had planned to serve Lord Stokeworth: A boar seasoned with unrecognizable, unnamed, and nigh-indigestible spices, many plates of green mush done in many different ways, fresh bread products filled with creamy deliciousness, three kinds of beer, and one kind of wine, an Andal Red by way of Pentos, made by the few brave septries in Andalos. 

As with any feast, at any time, anywhere, it was custom to begin the same way. 

Lord Donnel raised the goblet. “To His Grace, Viserys Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm!” 

The room cheered the usual “Long may he reign!” and “King Viserys!” and even a few “Seven Kingdoms!”, as I presumed they were happy at the lack of their villages being sacked. I would be, too, if I lived in the Crownlands, and thus didn’t face raiding from ironborn, the Three Daughters, Dorne, Dorne again, wildlings of the Mountains of the Moon, wildlings from across the Wall, or my neighboring lords. 

Otherwise, I don’t think I would be toasting to the demi-centralized Seven Kingdoms, whose monarch favored making High Valyrian a court tongue over offering the Three Daughters a deal: Pay reparations for raiding and the heads of those responsible, or the Blacks and the Greens are going to set aside their squabbles, come together beneath the red dragon, and turn Tyrosh into Harrenhal. 

No Westerosi feast was complete without a dozen toasts. In this case, seven. 

The King. The room thundered as one. 

The Queen. The proper pleasantries were hollered at the top of their lungs. 

His heir. My sister and I did as was courteous, while paying very close attention to the quieter landed knights. 

Me. The room cheered. Suffice to say, I swelled like a peacock. No, it wasn’t humble, no, I didn’t care. 

Princess Helaena, I toasted, since if they’d make me a peacock, I was going to make her suffer the same. In the wise words of an edgelord, she was our queen to be. Plus, her little blush -equal parts mummery and genuine- was priceless. 

The Hand of the King, offered by some landed knight. I wasn’t a fan of toasting to him, but I did so anyway. 

The heir to Dragonstone, offered by the fourteen year old Maia. This was a fun one. Everyone was suddenly mindful of the two large dragons sitting outside, and kept their utterance of Velaryon as low as legally permissible. Everyone barring Maia, that is. She was smitten with the boy of notable strength, and boasted of his flying skills. It was, most hilariously, the two of us who would break that unspoken agreement, tipping our goblets to the teenage girl. I couldn’t speak for my sister, but who was I to reprimand a teenager for teenage hormones? 

No toast to the Blackwater Confederation. Lord Stokeworth knew better than to try to stoke his worth. We were here on a spontaneous royals-do-as-royals-do feast, not a formal occasion celebrating him. He merely had the fortune of being where our dragons landed. 

Absent from any mentions was him, for reasons I unwillingly and unwantedly found my mind wandering towards. Was it our dragons? Did Stokeworth have some past blood with him? Just as Velaryons had ‘hereditary’ positions on the small council, Stokeworths had ‘hereditary’ positions as Commanders in the city watch. The lowest Stokeworth was still of higher blood than most of the rank and file, and with a castle-born education, found promotions easy to come by. In the days of the Old King, that was. 

The two of us sat right next to one another atop the dais, at the table reserved for the lord, lady, and his immediate kin. Lord and Lady Stokeworth and the rest of his kin sat at a longer table at the base of the dais. This wasn’t something my sister had laid forth, it was custom from the days of the Conquest. Dragons do not break bread with major lords, just as major lords do not do so with minor lords, or minor lords and lesser lords, or lesser lords and landed knights, or landed knights and regular commoners. 

Had the Stokeworths deigned to sit next to us -something Helaena would’ve loved since she kept waving at the little Falena in her little pearl-plucked emerald gown who got out of her big chair to give little curtseys every time she peeked back at us- it would have come across as ill-mannered. They would be seen in the wrong, as ambitious graspers who dared to be like the dragons. 

On the upside, the two of us sitting alone, barring the instances Helaena invited Falena up to pinch her cheeks, made underhanded plotting easy. We were within whisper range of the other by default. 

I went with Pyke, as to a non-learned ear, it sounded like an incomprehensible mess of mumbled consonants and sharp vowels. To a learned ear, it sounded like a mess of mumbled consonants and sharp vowels. To a native of the Iron Islands, it was happy and cheerful and romantic, the product of being the divine tongue. 

“Princess, I noticed a lack of mentions in the toasts.” 

“To whom?” she whispered back, flat and toneless, an affront to the dialect. 

I found her hand under the table and held it. Just in case. “Lady Strong’s new husband.” 

She took it well, only a single sharp intake and a slight squeeze of my fingers. “You’re right.” 

“Let us not prune around the Tyrells. Do you have any reason why they wouldn’t?”

She let go and returned to the grape juice covered butter-filled ball of bread. “Seeing as I just came to an understanding of it-” she took a bite out of said ball, “-no.” She inclined the bread at me as though it were a goblet. “Do you, my dear prince of perception?” 

“No, please no titles-” I waited for her to swallow the bread to say “-I’m not the Sapphire Prince.”  

She choked on her laughter, drawing a minor amount of attention from the Stokeworths below us. Said attention was dissuaded when she smiled at them like they were little children, at which point she smiled at Falena, who reciprocated with this tiny little toothy smile. 

“The Evenfall Prince is no match for my Apple.” She washed down the bread with some wine. “Wait,” she gradually rotated to regard me, “wait, do you believe he gives them speeches about the darkness?”

Them speeches? I had enough speeches about the darkness  from the One-Eye. It was our loss, I was the favored son, Helaena had her own household and duties, Daeron was off having fun in Oldtown, which left him the second son free to fill himself with teenage angst. “Who?”

She chortled, not that ladylike of her. “His ladies.” 

“As he’s between their legs?” 

She bobbed her head with the ferocity of Jaehaerys when offered a new toy. Except when he is a grown up and he has to tell me toys are for Maelor. Those times, Jaehaera conveniently appeared to take it out of my hand, thank her brother for his gift, and disappeared down some hallway. 

That’s outrageous, that’s ridiculous, that’s nonsensical, that’s… “I see it now. ‘My lady, your hair shines like the Blackwater by moonlight, your maiden’s place is as crisp as the dew of dawn.’” I winced into my cushioned. 

Helaena suffered secondhand pain from the line reading. That meant I was on the right path. 

“Why does anyone bed him?” I shouldn’t have asked that, let alone in the airiness of Pyke, but I did. 

“He flies a dragon, is skilled with both his swords, and has that strong look of Old Valyria.” She finished the ball of bread. “Bedding isn’t marriage. I light candles to the Maiden that we find him a wife who shares his love for the night. My pardons, the night.”   

“What is he up to now?” I wondered, more to myself than her, as I cut off a slice of boar. A slice not covered in fifteen thousand spices that set my tongue and heart on fire. 

“Playing with the twins. He brought them gifts.” 

I unceremoniously revealed that I’d toned out during his storytelling. “He did?” I shouldn’t have been surprised, it was in his nature. 

“For Jaehaerys, it was Maester Durran’s Star of the Dusklands: A History of House Sunglass. For Jaehaera, a new set of articulate toy knights, made by Lord Massey’s favorite artisans.” 

Now I was forced to imagine the Prince reading Jaehaerys to sleep, and sitting across from Jaehaera, staging ‘battles’ with her armies of knights. Battles she’d undoubtedly win when ‘Morghul’ the stuffed dragon or ‘Morghul’ the wooden broomstick showed up. Short-lived victories, as, like mother like daughter, she could be made to confess to cheating by way of tickling. Lots and lots of tickling. 

I would’ve rather been there, fighting her knights on the ‘field of battle,’ but I couldn’t, which is why he was. 

“The Prince would make a good father,” I said, forgetting my Pyke for a moment. 

“No he wouldn’t,” she answered, still in Pyke. “He’d spoil his babes until they were old and gray.”

“Not like us. We would never spoil ours.”

“Not like us,” she agreed, we clinked goblets together, and drank. 

I gave her a few minutes to gorge herself on her green bowls of choice while composing my thoughts into something resembling regal. Once I was done, I found my Pyke accent -not one I liked, but it was useful here- and leaned over. “Robin of the lambs was Captain of the Iron Gate until the year 104, until he met a most misfortune end in a tavern.” 

“Would Ser Robin happen to have been honorable?” she put forth, knifing some salad absently. 

What am I, an encyclopedia? ‘Why yes, this man that has been dead for thirteen years was a renowned spigot of honorable wisdom.’  “Robin could have been the blackest blackguard this side of the Toynes. He’s this one’s uncle.” 

“Would we happen to know who replaced him?”

“Ser Vaeron of Tally Hill.” Or so he styled himself. In reality he was Ser Vaeron of nowhere, upjumped brigand, now replaced by a Ser Omer Bulwer. 

She tapped her fingers in mock contemplation. “That’s curious.” 

“Curious enough to… use?” 

“If he was a sword-swallowing adulterer that let his wife ride half the castle so he could go off bed commoners’ brothers by day, he would still be more reliable.” She patted my hand. “We are the scions of Oldtown. We light the way.” 

Not the monologue I was hoping for, but I’d take it. That was the product of eight toasts of wine plus whatever else we’ve sipped at since. 

‘In every man, there lay a need. In every lord, there lay a want.’ Those were the words of grandfather. He encouraged us to be reflective of our own, then assume that our foes knew all that we did, for the Red Keep’s walls were covered with banners of all colors. 

‘What was Lord Donnel’s, and how can we provide it?’ I asked myself as we supped above him. 

Ser Bulwer was one of grandfather’s appointments, proud and cruel enough to keep his gilded cloaks in line. That did not make him a good commander or captain or man of justice. It did not matter. He was one of grandfather’s tools, while grandfather worked on cutting out as much of his infection as he could. I felt confident in surmising that, in a day where the Dance never comes, Bulwer would one day wind up at the Wall, all those crimes of his catching up with him. 

I tried to think like grandfather would. Not the grandfather who saw the finest trainers for mother’s children, and lavished us with anything we could dream of, no matter the cost or distance. Not the grandfather who cherished every minute he had with our three children. The grandfather who made landed knights disappear in service to his daughter. 

Ser Bulwer was replaceable. Ser Bulwer was not worth the hundreds of men and allegiance of House Stokeworth. Why hadn’t grandfather given the post before? I imagined the answer was something along the following: Stokeworth sat here, so close to the capital that they were legally required to do homage to the man who sat the throne.

Maybe it was circumstance, I was in the quarrel, I wasn’t moving pieces around from above it. Maybe it was seeing House Stokeworth all lined up nice and ornately. Maybe it was wanting to put as many knives in Dragonstone as I could. Whatever it would come down to be, I had a thousandth of grandfather’s sense if I was feeling generous. Six months was no time at all to learn the depths of the game. Helaena, though, had mother’s. 

I put forth my theory, sticking to Pyke. “The Iron Gate could be replaced.” 

“Grandfather would never part with his black bull.” 

Speaking of bulls, I’m being too bullheaded. “What about the other gates?” 

She switched to poetic Oldtown. “There are… rumors… of Leo Costayne returning to command the Sound.” 

And take one of our finest naval commanders from the city? I followed her and changed to Oldtown. “What for?” 

“Ships may be needed…” she paused to smooth her wrists, “...the Three Daughters.” 

Because the King slashed his arm and could die, and those ‘Three Daughters’ could close the Gullet. “Are we in an agreement?” 

“I would rather Lord Donnel command the River Gate than the Princess’ choice,” she said, in a voice low enough to be heard by only a few. 

Including the head below us, the one that turned to whisper to Aerion, his dragonseed maester. 

“Lord Mathar is too selfish and stubborn,” I added. Nevermind that Captains weren’t known for their selflessness. 

“Well said,” she concurred. We left it there, and returned to feasting. 

Lord Donnel was twenty two. At such a young age, he was capable of being the second in command of a baggage train and little else. King’s Landing wasn’t like ninety nine percent of the continent. It was a city. As the King held his small council, the cloaks had their seconds and thirds and fourths. 

Lord Donnel would bolster his incomes overnight. His male cousins would find themselves in profit-making positions. Their presence in the capital would boost the chances of any of them being picked up by the Red Keep. It was a win-win, until the King on the Iron Throne started demanding those responsible for groping his second daughter. The day could come -as it has in the past- that the King appears with Blackfyre, twenty years younger, tired of the lack of results, and takes heads, starting with the top. That would be Donnel’s problem, not ours. 

There’s plenty of ways a hosting lord can entertain his royal guests, from musicians to slightly worse musicians. Lord Stokeworth chose to indulge in his own house’s importance, humbly, of course. He would never want anyone to accuse him of being selfish.

According to him, the Blackwater Confederation was founded by Steffon Stokeworth and Erich Archer. House Rosby only joined in a few years later, through bending the knee from conquest. I half-expected him to also tell us the Blackwoods of the Wolfswood were the rightful kings of the Rivers and Hills. 

The Stokeworths, Archers, Rosbys, and a score of lesser houses would band together to keep their sliver of the continent independent of all foes, from the far-away Mudds to the neighboring Darklyns, Gardeners and Durrandons. They voted for their rulers, said rulers originally ruled for life. Their leader, a first among equals, a First Speaker. 

He told us of how the coalition adapted Valyrian policy, having a council of landholders who voted on policy, diplomacy, and governance. Said council would go from being advisory to controlling the Confederation, with the First Speaker eventually being reduced to a figurehead. That fall of the First Speaker lined up with the Coming of the Andals. To be specific, House Thorne. 

The Thornes were the unheroic sort of Andal, the ones who converted by setting an example, not by challenging bloodthirsty gods to duels and setting trees on fire when the gods lost. 

The Faith of the Seven in those days stood to oppose the divinity of old gods kings, who claimed their mythical ancestors gave them the right to lord over the rest. Some sects, like the Stranger, would take that another hundred miles, and behead anyone with a drop of ‘divine’ blood. 

The Blackwater Confederation wasn’t like most kingdoms. Stokeworth attributed it to the Valyrian influence. I attribute it to being a cavalcade of petty kings ruling over hilltops, forced to set aside their feuds in their mutual defense. In other kingdoms, the kings were divine and lived in far-flung palaces. 

Here, the ‘king’ was a lord voted in by lords and landholders. Said lords and landholders did not disappear once the First Speaker rose, they remained, to challenge and check his proposals, to ensure his will was the will of all. Those lords interacted with their commoners every day. Those lords would take progresses multiple times a year. They were not unseen monarchs, they were lords intricately tied to their lands. 

Within a year, the Blackwater Confederation converted to the Faith of the Seven, one of the shortest conversions of any ‘kingdom’ in known history. Now, those lords had to be faithful to their feudal contracts and their knightly vows. Should the lord break his contracts and promises, should the lord be cruel to his commoners, he would lack the resources to stop a peasant rebellion. All that he had he owed to being just, merciful, kind, and protective. 

Was this system effective? History would say ‘no,’ citing the eventual fall. The maesters would say ‘yes,’ citing the Confederation lasting though centuries. Centuries where older and larger kingdoms, the Mudds, the Royces, the Greyirons, the Boltons, all fell. 

It was a red stallion that would defeat the Confederation, which was about as disgraceful an end as theoretically possible in Westeros. And to a woman named ‘The Maiden’ no less. 

Few of these details, that the Blackwater was a land where man was closer to the Seven than nearly anywhere else, a land where a true knight armed with just a flail could bring down a corrupt lord, mattered to Stokeworth. 

No, he preferred to wax poetic about the Stokeworths being the center of cultural progression for centuries. Duskendale, he claimed, held fast to their ways. The Stokeworths adapted, integrating the newest fashions and art from the Valyrian Freehold. This went on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, until I dozed off, dozed back on, and it was still going on. 

When he moved on to talking about the Doom and Braavos, I gripped my sister’s hand under the table to give her what comfort I could. Above the table she had the court smile on, below it she was digging her nails into my skin, all that was stopping her from climbing over the table and clawing his eyes out. 

We endured his lecture. Braavos, like the Blackwater Confederation of the ancient past, was a place of ‘common’ men who voted in their Sealord. This made their culture naturally reasonable to adapt. He went on at length about the new styles the Braavosi were coming up with, paintings and statues that depicted men in their ‘natural states.’ 

I was too busy rubbing small circles into my sister’s wrist -and not wincing as her nails drew blood- to point out that a keyholder of Braavos had more in common with a high lord of the Seven Kingdoms -such as the Footlys or Rowans- than he did with a landed knight, let alone the average free commoner. 

Lord Stokeworth had a, one could say, unhealthy fixation on anatomy. He eagerly told us about how Stokeworth was being filled with statues and art ‘not found anywhere else on this side of the Narrow Sea’ barring Duskendale and Dragonstone. These statues and art depicted men and women, either clothed in ‘common’ garments dyed lavish Braavosi hues, or naked. 

My sister rarely opened her mouth during this lecture, and it was with the warmest of courtesies. “Forgive me, my lord, but I require some detail. Why do you want a naked man watching you read a book in the garden?” 

“That man has been sculpted to fit the perfection we should strive for. From head-to-heel, he is all muscle. Not a single stone of fat to be seen. I want to be reminded of who I should be.” 

While you sit and read a book, not working towards any of that muscle. I didn’t speak.

Helaena did, and she sounded like mother. “What has your septon said? I recall the Seven-Pointed Star being against the baring of nakedness in all places but the confines of one’s quarters.” 

He didn’t like her calm composed knife-through-the-throat question. “King’s Landing has whorehouses. I do not see the High Septon calling an anathema on them.”

I sensed it was the right time to join in. “When I meet the High Septon, I shall make said inquests of him. If he does not, as you have suggested, perhaps I will have to follow in the path of Queen Visenya.” I held up my hand and smirked. “That is but a jape, my lord. I wish nothing but the most health for His High Holiness.”

By health I meant abdication. He was father’s man through and through. A High Septon with more backbone than a dying fish would have brought the light of the Seven down on Dragonstone. If not physically or legally, for the swords and scales were concilated by the Conciliator, then verbally. Accuse him of having the two Velaryons killed so he could wed the girl he forcefully took the maidenhead of years prior. Sure, such an accusation could get him killed… but that’s the nature of fighting cruelty, isn’t it? 

If not him, there was another who could stick his neck out and say that which none had dared say. Another whose neck was already lined up to be chopped. The first in line to go. 

I kept such thoughts to myself. My sister needed me alive in the long term, and keeping her from combusting into flames in the short.

We waited for his speech on Braavos to reach a discussion on King’s Landing. Specifically, to mention the gold cloaks. In his case, he was referencing some serjeant he knew who owned a Braavosi art piece.

“The City Watch were better run in the days of Commander Sandor Stokeworth,” I began. 

Helaena gave her agreement. 

The obnoxiously humble man humbled himself before us. “House Stokeworth is honored to be given such praise.”

I had just enough alcohol to channel the man that’d topple my dynasty. After living six months in it, I agreed. “I’m not trying to honor you, Lord Donnel.”

At that, he froze up. Targaryens aren’t known for being amiable. Something about having giant flying flamethrowers that give them the notion they’re better than the rest. 

Just as I might be the tough one so Helaena came off as the soft, easy going one when we needed to get the twins to bed… or take baths… or go to their physicals… or drink or eat something… or listen…. So it was here, I tough, she sweet. “Ser Leo Costayne is to retire from the captaincy of the River Gate soon,” she said with a warm yet commanding smile, “we believe you would be a sufficient replacement.” 

“Oh me? I’m not selfish enough to have the post,” said the one selfish enough to have the post. 

It was back to me. “The Princess of Dragonstone has a mind to have the post replaced with Lord Mathar Rosby, the Lord of Rosby. Do you believe he is capable?” 

If he said ‘yes’ I had a plan for that too, it was called make something up. “No, Mathar’s a brute and dullard,” so bellowed the brutish dullard. 

Check, and mate. I thought we were done. I was half-right. 

In cut Helaena. “Is that your sister Maia down there?” She pointed down at the hall, where the teenage girl was gathered with a dozen other teenagers, probably doing normal Westerosi teenager things like plotting to overthrow the government. 

Lord Donnel stiffened like he was at a drill. “It is, Your Grace.” 

“While we did come here to make you our new Captain of the River Gate, now that we are here, I have learned that I missed a comely maiden, I see that your sister is quite comely. May I see her myself?” 

Lord Donnel made like my responsibilities in my past life and flew away. 

The teenager was marched up here, somewhere between petrified and embarrassed. In other words, a teenager. 

“Your Graces,” she curtseyed, head bent. 

Helaena waved her up. “Show us your face, Maia.” 

The girl did that. She had a lean face, green eyes, and a braid of naturally black hair dyed green and gold. 

Helaena slipped on her ‘I’m talking to the scared lady’ smile. “You have the same beauty my elder sister did when she was your age.”

Maia turned a shade of pink. It was no easy feat being compared to the Realm’s Delight, let alone by said delight’s delightful enemy. And, being mother’s daughter, she knew how to make her lies sound believable. That, or, quite possibly, Helaena did see some fairness in the teenage girl’s appearance; it wasn’t as if any of us thought our sister was some high bar to pass, what with her being our sister. 

Regardless, Helaena was in her element here, so all I did was sit back and drink wine. 

“Have you flowered yet?”

Maia shook her head. 

Fourteen and unflowered was normal here. Westerosi diets weren’t diets of my past life. If only Helaena hadn’t gotten unlucky on the roll, and or not had a father who believed his first daughter’s claims that unless the marriage was visibly consummated, the two of us would be slandered like she was. 

“Do you have any interests?” She asked sweetly. Not the question I’d go for, but I was drinking wine.

“I like painting…” she shyly confessed, her eyes everywhere but the dragon-riding princess. 

Helaena leaned over and grasped her hand. I didn’t need to lay a finger on the girl to know she was cold to the touch. “We came here to invite your father to court, but then I saw you. There is no comelier maiden between here and Harrenhal. I would be most grateful if you joined my household. My daughter Jaehaera loves painting. If you would like, you could teach her.” 

The Princess had a way of cutting through anxieties with one of those puffy-cheeked dimpled-smiles of hers. 

“Oh… that… truly? I’ve always dreamt of…” 

That proposal of Helaena’s was an obvious warning bell to Lord Stokeworth. He laid a hand on his sister. “Maia is meant to be betrothed to Mandon Massey of Stonedance.” 

Helaena wasn’t about to be outplayed by a man with a sheep on his heraldry. She clapped her hands together and made a most unregal noise of merriment. “Wonderful! Ser Willis Fell of the Kingsguard has been searching for a squire.” She directed her proposal at Maia, not Lord Stokeworth. “You and Mandon will have most of the day to be together, Ser Fell guards our babes.” 

“House Stokeworth gladly accepts the offer, Your Graces.” That was the voice of Lady Lyra, and within a moment, she was also behind Maia, also taking possession of her. “Both offers. Though… law compels me to warn Your Graces, my lord husband is not one for commanding men.” 

“Neither are half the City Watch,” I countered, playing up my regality, “the Watch has many men who can command, very few have any wisdom. Lord Donnel has generations of experience to draw upon.” I made no mention of his literacy. Not all lords in the Seven Kingdoms were literate. Borros the Blockhead was one paramount example. 

Within a few minutes, we’d made Lord Stokeworth ours. Lord Stokeworth would take two hundred men to escort he, his wife, his daughter, and his sister to King’s Landing. 

We would provide him a manse -of which the Princess had many of, grandfather and mother gave her them for that very purpose- that he could stash his family in. 

He would come to court and ‘receive’ the position, which was a nice way of saying we’d find something for him to do, ideally Captain of the River Gate, practically some civil position under the master of laws. 

His wife would manage the manse and pay us rent, which gave her the ability to secure trade deals and alliances she would never otherwise have had since King’s Landing was King’s Landing and Stokeworth… wasn’t. 

His daughter would be a playmate for Jaehaera, and when she inevitably proved too aggressive for our sweet little girl, she’d become a playmate of some Hightower or half-Hightower cousin. 

His sister would be taken into Helaena’s vast net of ladies-in-waiting. Tutors she’d never have otherwise would tutor her as they do the rest of Helaena’s ladies. No mentions of betrothals, as while to us all of this ended with advantageous political matches, mention the betrothal word to non-greens, and they flee into the winds. 

Our victory was not without a cost. We’d never get Rosby’s support. We had to find something for Lord Stokeworth to do. His daughter Falena was not guaranteed to stay with Jaehaera for long. Maia would have a difficult time adjusting. 

All of this is besides the Stokeworths and their strange Braavosi-adapted culture. Said culture wasn’t going to make them many friends in King’s Landing. On the upside to that, it wasn’t our fault they believed in nude statues, nor were we going to be blamed for ‘introducing’ Braavosi ‘culture’ to the court, the Darklyns had set the precedent. Half the young men and women in court were secretly clamoring for every drop of Braavosi ‘style’ they could acquire. 

To celebrate his new appointment, and because he could, Lord Stokeworth called for musicians to entertain the hall. Like everything else, they were Braavosi. The local landed knights were quite receptive to their instruments, some going so far as to get up and dance. 

We lasted a few minutes of professional violin, panpipe, and tamborining before going mad. 

Helaena sloshed her goblet in my direction. “Aegon, do you see the woman down there in white?”

In white? Woman? “What? That’s half of them.” 

“Brown hair, large bosom.” 

Why, that’s extremely helpful. “That does not narrow it down.” 

She rolled her eyes. “She’s not wearing a veil.” 

Why, that’s even more helpful. In most of the Seven Kingdoms, women, wed and unwed, wear veils. Nice veils at that, for hair is a virtue to have. In Stokeworth, they didn’t. “That also does not narrow it down.” 

“She’s sitting nine places over from the man with the bright yellow hair.” 

Ah, her . The woman in question had all the features Helaena described, with a few she didn’t; early twenties, white dress slashed with green, some simple pattern work on her sleeves, possibly a landed knight sigil woven into her skirt. 

“What about her?” I inquired, sipping at the wine that’d lost some of its flavor. 

“She thinks I’m our sister.” 

“How do you mean?”

“She’s a sheath-swirler. She’s been giving me lusty looks since I sat down.” 

“Does she make you uncomfortable?” What kind of question is that? ‘Why, this person I don’t know looks like she wants to invade my personal space. Yes, I love it!’ 

“No. I’m a little surprised-” she traced the goblet with her finger, “-normally there’s ten, twenty of them in each feast. They all want a taste.” 

She’s slammed. “Do they now?” 

“They think I’m the whore. Or, no, they’re not that blind. They think I’m fat and therefore my husband won’t touch me, so I’ll covet carnal pleasure. That’s where the ambitious graspers come in.”

“Why sheath-swirler, I don’t recall-”

She glared daggers at me. “Are you thick? What do you do with your tongue?” 

Do? I opened my mouth to object -I had vows- but she closed it for me with a kiss. 

A deep kiss involving copious amounts of lip-on-lip contact. For a moment, the briefest of brief moments, I worried that she’d suddenly been swapped with our sister. 

She broke it off and winked at me, proving my fears unfounded, she was the same Helaena as usual. “There, now all those Braavosi whoresons have something to do under the covers tonight. Seven know they have the chastity of our sister and Mushroom combined.” 

Same as usual except for being drunk. Right, I think that’s it. Drunk Helaena is going to get us all killed. 

It wasn’t hard to excuse myself from a feast. What was Lord Stokeworth going to do? Stop us? It was harder picking up Helaena, she knew how to put her weight into her stance when she felt like it. That wasn’t one of those times, she murmured something to Lady Lyra that left her blushing and wishing the Maiden would “make my seed quicken.” 

Helaena wasn’t drunk enough to topple over, thank the Seven. We left the hall and took the long walk to the estate. Walk, not ride. The stewards offered horses, Helaena rejected them, “I’ve done enough sitting today.” In that same vein, when we passed the two dragons, she kissed Dreamfyre on the snout and patted Sunfyre’s scales, and bound onwards; leaving Dreamfyre making soft wailing noises and Sunfyre hissing at me of all people. 

“What am I supposed to do, Sunfyre, throw her on your back?” 

Sunfyre let out a throaty rumble. 

Well I won’t. She wants to walk, so we’re going to walk. I don’t care how long it takes, we will walk! 

It took us long enough for me to care. Half an hour of half-bumbling half-stumbling walking. 

The guest quarters would be a lavish ranch house in my past life. I didn’t go wandering through the house for some secret desire to be an architect, no, I wanted to find all the secret entrances and exits. Three bedrooms, made for the lord, the lady, and the children, a communal bathing room with an indoor well to draw from, a small dining hall, even a lord’s study. All the bedrooms had small dressing closets, said closets partially filled with Stokeworth-green attire. Most of it was undergarments or underlayers. Nothing immodest or Braavosi. 

Sitting on the desk of the lord’s study were the tomes I was hoping to receive; large books full of maps of the Seven Kingdoms. I only needed one, the Vale. I asked for them all from Maester Aerion to obfuscate intentions. There was nothing disgraceful or shameful about a prince asking for said books. I had to be mindful of them, Aerion claimed the collection only had two other copies in Castle Stokeworth. Only. 

I counted three doors and thirty one windows. 

The servants assigned to us would sleep in the dining hall. My sister dismissed them immediately upon arrival. “If I have need of you, I will sound this horn. Else, do not approach, for the dragons are hungry.”

At her mention of it, the two dragons descended from the cloudy skies. 

After the last of the servants had left, Helaena barked orders at the dragons. “Dreamfyre, Sunfyre, stand guard. All night. We want no visitors. If you need to hunt, one hunts, one stays.” 

The dragons roared their agreement, then proceeded to rip into the dead dolphin Sunfyre had caught. 

Finally alone, I could get to what I wanted. 

I found Helaena stripping off her riding leathers in one of the bedchambers. The one we’d use, based on all our saddlebags being there. 

“Helaena,” I turned away. I wasn’t into watching my sister undress, sorry Valyrians. “Now that the Stokeworth placation has concluded, I think it is prudent to get to the Vale. I have a tome in the-” 

“Shove a cock in it. I need a piss.” I just dodged her leather breeches. Nobody could dodge her half-drunken rage. “That whore! Our sister’s turning the Blackwater into her personal brothel.” 

I was happy to know I was right, had we stayed there any longer this would turn into the Greens roasting the Blacks. I was one of the last people on the planet to defend Dragonstone, but I wouldn’t see her be blamed for a crime that wasn’t hers. “This is Braavos, not our sister.” 

“It reeks of our sister’s fingers. Stokeworth’s under her, isn’t it?” When I didn’t answer in that split second, she split my ears with a “Tell me! It is! These lamb-bedders are hers!” 

Why was I the reasonable one? “She has everything east of the Wendwater, and the Islands. Not Stokeworth.” 

“Doesn’t matter!” I didn’t dodge her tunic, nor could I dodge Dreamfyre’s roaring. My ears were ringing.

And she just kept going, only further inflamed by Dreamfyre. “This is the whore’s doing! Fill the lords with degenerates and win them over! All of them are no better than the gold cloaks!”

It would have been smarter to not entertain this lunacy. I wasn’t smart. “Wouldn’t this… heresy… do the opposite?”

“Lord Stokeworth’s a stupid boy of two-and-twenty! We know him! Our sister invites it to Dragonstone, which sets the precedent for the rest of them. He doesn’t care about what his father’s men think, he cares for what his tavern-brothers think, and his tavern-brothers like bare skin!”  

There was an art in making sense of her. Precedents and planning. “We don’t know she is-”

“Yes we do!” she shouted in what felt like my ear. I blame Dreamfyre, she made reality difficult to comprehend. “Braavos makes these lords dependent on her! She is all that stops the High Septon from excommunicating them!” 

I doubted she was smart enough to concoct all this. That didn’t mean my sister wasn’t onto something. Circumstance is opportunity and opportunity is taken. I was left with one problem, one I couldn’t chin-tap my way out of. “Why Braavos?” I asked the walls. 

“The whore of Dragonstone wants to consort with whores. Can you see the Red God’s followers allowing this?” 

I could see R’hllor’s followers allowing anything and everything. “I don’t know, Helaena,” I told the wall, as I hadn’t wanted to compromise her modesty. Modesty that was being compromised as more articles of clothing were thrown at -and sometimes hit- me. Now it was her shift. 

“They wouldn’t! She is looking for any path that helps her. She found one! Braavos is as lusty as she is!” 

I sat down -literally, I backed up to the bed, keeping myself away from where her voice was- and pondered her words. Truly pondered them. 

She wants to secure Braavos’ help in the coming war. The Iron Bank might be ‘neutral,’ but they’re going to look more favorably on someone spreading their city-state’s beliefs. As city-states to court, Braavos was the best yet to be touched. Volantis was on the other side of the Three Daughters, and R’hllor besides that. It was an open secret that Dragonstone and the Prince of Pentos were good friends. Norvos and Qohor weren’t renowned for their seafaring capabilities, and half a world away from the Three Daughters. 

Could Dragonstone really play both sides of the Braavosi-Pentoshi war? Why not? All they’re doing is allowing trade to bring culture from Braavos -and Pentos- through their ports. From my unlearned and unworldly and therefore woefully inaccurate perspective, both states would be the ones courting Dragonstone, not the other way around. The Iron Throne was a powerful ally and terrifying foe. 

Or Helaena really does need a piss and I’m keeping her busy. 

“Helaena, am I keeping you from your privy?”

“Yes. Are you done asking me if the whore of Dragonstone is a whore?” 

“I am done, yes. Have an auspicious time in the privy, I’m going to go brood in a corner.”  

I didn’t brood in a corner, I brooded on our bed, and I didn’t only do that. I went to the lord’s study, retrieved the book on the Vale, and put it down on a desk beyond flinging clothes range or flinging goblets range. The last thing we needed was one of our only useful assets getting destroyed because she confused her wine for her throwing knife. 

When she finally returned to the room, I glanced over at her. Thankfully, she was wearing clothing. Some clothing. A tight-fitting thigh-length shift. I was half-certain she was saving this for a trip beyond the Red Keep. Mushroom would have a field day harassing her if he knew she wore this. Suffice to say, it only enhanced the physical consequences of giving birth at fourteen and the years of depression from dragon dreams.  

Not that I’d ever mention it, which was why she wore it here and now. “How was the privy?” 

“I drank far too much,” she answered, calm and, dare I believe my ears, part way back to sobriety. 

What? All this time? “All of that?” 

“I should’ve gone before we left. I learned my lesson.” She patted her stomach. “At least I’m not pregnant. When I was carrying Maelor, you could tell time by how often I went. Three hours. Night, day, snow, summer sun, Maelor was a thirsty little babe.” Her dimples appeared. “He hasn’t changed. How do you think he is… now?” 

“I would promise all the gold in the Seven Kingdoms he misses his mother.”

She threw her head back and hide her blush with a dismissive chuckle. “That’s unfair. They all do.” 

“Maelor’s special,” I countered, since I was going to get answers for this. “The twins have each other even if they pretend they don’t. Who does Maelor have?” 

“Aemond. Uncle Aemond will make faces at him until he goes to sleep.” 

“If I make faces at you, will you go to sleep?” Not that I wanted her to, I was just curious. 

“No, I have a headache. Nothing short of a-” she dramatically cleared her throat, “-soothing pair of hands will help.” 

Yes, yes, she wants me to massage her head. I wasn’t going to refuse. I wasn’t going to accept it then either. 

“I’d like for us to go over the Vale. The factions. The Mountain Clans.” I swept a hand at the tome. 

“No head soothing first?” she pretended to pout. 

“No head soothing first.” 

“What if I ask really nicely?”, then before I could inquire what she meant, she stepped up to me and fluttered her eyelashes at me. “Please be a good chaste knight and touch me in all my chaste places.”

I lasted less than a second before keeling into snickers.

She came tumbling onto the bed next to me a half-second later. 

We laid there, hysterically laughing, until we were both out of breath. Now and then we’d make remarks of Ser Breakbones and his maiden Lady Strong, the two paragons of chastity and purity that all of the Seven Kingdoms should aspire to. 

I don’t remember which of us had the bright idea to start wrestling. It came about while we were discussing Lady Strong’s ladylike attributes, with Helaena countering, “I’m a better lady! Queen Visenya taught me that all ladies need to break the teeth of their brothers!” Then she tackled me, and the duel began. 

It was a short engagement. 

She won the first round by taking the element of surprise. 

The second round -the first round where we started in traditional ready positions- she won by breaking my lock on her wrist and sweeping my leg out from under me. 

The third round she was poised to win, having knocked me onto my back. I elbowed her in the groin, she yelped, I kicked her onto hers, and accepted her defeat. 

“That’s unfair,” she chided, as if she’d never cheated before. 

“You taught me to go for the maiden’s place when wrestling her.” 

“If you want her to rip your throat out with her teeth, yes. It hurts, Apple.” 

“I don’t care. You cheat all the time.”

“That’s because I’m a princess. Princesses make the law, don’t you know?” She clicked her tongue in mock disappointment. “Everyone knows. Now be a good little craven and do what your princess says, or she’ll whine to her father and make him behead you and your whole family.” 

“Eat a sword,” I politely reciprocated. 

She sighed. “No, I’m not a seahorse. I am the heir to the Seven Kingdoms, and you will kiss my smallclothes.” 

I needed a second to come up with a retort. “I won’t, your smallclothes are full of sweat and hair.” 

She gasped and covered her mouth. “Lies! Treason! High treason! Take his tongue, father! He lies! My smallclothes are as pure as a maiden’s!” 

“The smallclothes you aren’t wearing.” 

“Lies! Treason! Take his head! Send his family to the Wall and the silent sisters! You cannot prove I am not wearing any smallclothes! I am wearing smallclothes! What is your proof?”

“Mm mmhhm hm mh mhmm mh mhmm.” 

“Good little lordling. Now give me your family. I need hostages. And give me all your gold. My eldest boy needs a nameday feast befitting a true Targaryen prince. Which he is.” 

I couldn’t tell which of us had more fun with it. What really made it endearing was the deliveries; we both used the voices attributed to her and I from a troupe of mummers. The mummers gave the Princess this nasal accent akin to someone that enjoyed hearing their own voice, and me this sulking perma-petulence, like I’d just sucked on all the lemons in Lemonwood.  

Eventually, with a few cups of non-alcoholic beer to wash the wine down, we gathered our composure and single brain cell, sat up, and got to work. “I concede, you’re right, Aegon. The sheath-swirler of the Vale needs our attention more than the sheath-swirler of Dragonstone.” 

We established the Vale first. The map came in great help here, putting places to names, and terrain details to what would otherwise be our imagination. 

“Lady Jeyne’s strongest allies are Corbray, Redfort, and Hunter. Corbray’s charged with command of the Knights of the Vale, Redfort and Hunter hold high posts in the Eyrie’s court. Redfort’s second daughter is Jeyne’s favorite sheath.” 

“Jessamyn Redfort,” I said, remembering. 

She tipped her head. “Lady Jeyne’s not Boremund. She knows how to avoid making enemies. Most of the time, the Vale competes with itself for prestige. She takes their desires and throws them against the Mountain Clans, disposing of a hereditary enemy and unifying the Vale. Every time they finish off some tribe, it’s another victory for her.” 

“Then how do we strike at her… if that’s our plan. Is that our plan?” I wasn’t sure, that’s why I asked. 

“Are we not grandfather’s grandchildren?” she opposed, rhetorically and sardonically. “Everything should be done in service of mother and the Greens.” 

I didn’t like that sentiment, even if, in my gut, I knew it to be true. “We shouldn’t be doing this for plotting. We should be doing what is just.” 

She jabbed a finger at the Eyrie on the map. “Lady Jeyne isn’t just. She is shrewd. Use the lords of the Vale to serve her own ends. Twist Ser Arnold’s rebellion into benefiting her. A true Lady would not sit in her castle while letting her vassals do the bleeding for her.” 

Wait, what? I looked into her orchids. I needed to know. “Truly? That’s how she rules?” 

The orchids never lied. “She has never ridden against the clans herself. Nor has she ever committed a single one of her household guards, or her fourth cousin Ser Joffrey, in spite of naming him Knight of the Gate.” 

If what she was saying was true -which I had no reason to doubt- Lady Jeyne was breaking the lord’s pledge. The feudal contract wasn’t slavery, it was an agreement. 

Feudal contracts varied from region to region, and even between bannerman and his vassals. The general guidelines, if they could be called that, were that the vassal would become his lord’s ‘man,’ giving him tribute, levies, counsel, and be faithful to him, in return for his lord’s protection and generosity. Lords cannot turn their vassals into giant gold mines, no more than vassals could refuse their lords’ rights to come and take levies for a muster. 

One of those laws of protection was that the liege would offer his own men in the event of war. Afterall, the liege was richer than his vassals, and unlike the vassals, had a steady stream of new knights should he need it. This sort of ‘offer his own men’ customarily included himself. Customarily as in, some customs separate the liege and his knights, some bind them into one. 

I wasn’t a legal expert, but off-hand, I knew the Vale to be one of the most centralized regions of the Seven Kingdoms. The Arryns were Andal chivalry, personified. Some of the terms set forth in the Arryn feudal contract: 

Men declare war before calling their banners.

Lords will ride to war with their knights. 

Lords will meet under parley banners and break bread with one another before their armies engage. 

Lords never plunder villages, nor will they harm villagers. 

Lords do not harm women, children, and the weak, no matter the faction. 

Lords try to take prisoners, not kill their enemies, no matter whether the enemy is a conscripted peasant or a lord. 

All men, no matter their banner, are given over to the maesters for care. 

All sides agree to let the literate among them write letters to their families. 

One cannot lie in sight of the Seven. All words are taken as truthful, and all words are expected to be honored. 

The Arryn feudal contract was best remembered as their house words, for their house words were the first feudal contract, as set down by Hugor of the Hill. 

As High As Honor. 

This only made Jeyne’s rule… harder to believe. Her lack of action could be perceived as a breaking of those pledges. “Why haven’t the lords opposed her? Call their banners from afar?” 

“The Vale is not the Riverlands or Westerlands,” Helaena answered. “One cannot form a block of lords easily. Additionally, most lords feel bound to her, being her father’s last living child. Daughters come before cousins.” 

“Could we not hold her on trial for neglecting her lordly duties?” 

She tapped her chest, then mine, “We could, if we had father’s support. Her bannermen will not rebel against her. They do not have the strength, not unless a majority of the major lords join a coalition, which they won’t. They cannot rebel against her. Not openly. All those oaths end once they are inside their castles.” 

“Who would side with us?”

“Lord Gawen Grafton, for certain. You know of Eldrane Grafton.”

“One of Daeron’s potential betrotheds.” 

She nodded. “Grafton is friends with grandfather. Grafton dislikes both Jeyne and her cousin Arnold. He would rather his cousin Isembard be Lord Paramount.”

Isembard Arryn. “The Gilded Falcon. Does such a precedent exist?”

“Every rebellion is illegal until the rebels win,” she said. 

“In the Vale,” I corrected myself. 

“I have not read all fifteen hundred years of history of the Vale. There has to have been a time in the past when a terrible King Arryn ruled, so his brother or cousin or nearest blood relation rose to oust him. The deposed King Arryn wouldn’t be killed, he’d be allowed to live out his days managing a small estate of his own.” The confidence in her voice suggested she had vague memories of such an event.

Alternatively, she was using common sense. Her words made me think. “We can’t have men follow Arnold Arryn. His rebellions were dishonorably done.” 

“So you say. From his perspective, he would have us believe he was noble and just.” She laid a hand over her chest. “From mine, Jeyne never gave him over for a trial, and has left him in the sky cells for years.” 

“We should have him handed over to the throne.” 

She gazed into my eyes and her voice lowered. “Yes. Yes we should. Let him lay his case before the Iron Throne.”

Something roiled in my gut. Arnold Arryn isn’t a just knight. “Who else do we have, besides Arnold?”

“As an Arryn to replace the arbitrary Jeyne? Joffrey is her staunch ally. He does not ride forth to defend the Vale. After him, there is his father’s little branch; his brother Josten and his sisters Cariah and Theona. As to their supporters… Joffrey is married to a Redfort, his brother to a Corbray, one sister to a Belmore, and the other is Lady of Ironoaks.” 

As she was mentioning supporters, a light switch went off in my head. I regretted not reading more about the Arryn war in my past life; it was a tiny event in Martin’s never ending saga of physics-defying breasts and teenage war heroes. I did remember one detail. 

“House Royce.” 

She scanned me quizzically. “They will never support Joffrey. Arnold is half-Royce through his mother.” 

“No!” I exclaimed in frustration. “House Royce are Arryn's strongest bannermen. Yes?” 

She set her gaze on me, trying to piece together where I was going before I went there. “It is. What of it?” 

“Rhea Royce is no friend of Dragonstone.”

“Rhea Royce is dead, killed by…” Her orchids lit up. “Yes, Aegon. Yes. One blight. Gulltown and Runestone are unlikely to set aside their differences.” 

“Who said we had to present them with a choice?” I hated that I was doing this, but I had to. “As grandfather would say, Arnold is a tool for a course. Arnold rallies those who are distraught with Jeyne’s breaking of pledges, and he is her legal heir.” 

She pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her head on them. “You would have us fly there and support him?”

She means it. She really means it. I did as well… but not like her. “And draw the ire of the Seven Kingdoms? No.” I pointed at Heart’s Home. “We have oaths to the realm first. The wildlings are the enemies of us all. Let the realm see that Jeyne is so inept, she requires dragons to support her.” 

“She yearns for dragons.” 

“She does?” Of course she does, you idiot, don’t you remember the Dance?, I could hear a small part of me chiding. To that, the rest of me went sure, right, I’m going to have all those little details memorized twenty four hours a day seven days a week. Not like that Dance is real and my family’s going to be killed by it. I’ll just take an abstract objective perspective about events that are going to rip the land I live in in half and leave tens of thousands dead, all because of one man’s ambitions. 

His ambitions. 

His ambitions.

He is watching.

He is watching. Watching now. The White Wyrm. 

He is watching. 

He is waiting. 

He is watching. 

“Aegon!” a voice shouted. A familiar voice. 

I woke up looking at… a ceiling?. Why is Helaena above me? The rest of reality fell into place soon after. I was lying in Helaena’s lap, her hands cupping the sides of my head. Gently cupping it, gentle like her eyes. 

I should’ve been used to this by now. I never would be. “What happened?” I asked her. 

“You looked into the distance, all the life drained from your skin, and you collapsed.” She grabbed a small vanity mirror and held it up.

She was right. I’d gone paler than normal, even for a Valyrian. 

I didn’t know what to say to her. I laid there and tried to find the words. 

“It was him, wasn’t it?” She asked herself as much as she did me. 

“Yes, it was. I thought of how he was… watching.” 

She exhaled slowly, and laced her fingers through my hair. “I agree with you… with the Royces. They hate him as much as we do.” 

That’s it. That’s just it. I surged with energy. “That’s right!” I yelled, she winced from the unexpectedness. “The Others take Jeyne. This war isn’t about Jeyne, it’s about him! Him! He is the enemy, not her! Let her send her knights to die. Her time will come. She will pay for her crimes. All of them will! He! He first! He is the enemy!”

Normally, this much mentioning of him sends her into the throes of panic, with me -and sometimes the children- being all that keeps her from going mad. This time, though, she smiled. No false smile curated to appease the Stokeworths either, that was Helaena’s sisterly smile reserved for the two of us. “I agree with this course.”

“Thank you,” I sat up and pulled her into a tight hug. “What would I do without you?”

She answered by patting my back and saying “Drink far more often, and wrestle far less.” 

It wasn’t courteous to drive your sister temporarily deaf by laughing into her ear. I didn’t care. 

That ended when Helaena proposed we go to sleep. “We should sleep now, so we can fly back to the Keep at dawn.” 

The Keep? Something snapped inside me. Something that made me come across as desperate. “What about the Mountain Clans? Don’t we have oaths to protect the Vale?” 

“The Lady Paramount has oaths to protect the Vale. We have oaths to be loyal to our father.” She rolled over, to face me, and rested on her elbow. “This little progress of ours cannot go on for long. The sooner it ends, the sooner we can return to the Keep. Lady Alerie will have matters to share with us.” 

“We have oaths to protect the realm. Father is one man.”

“Father, Seven help us all, is the King on the Iron Throne. The King commands, and we obey.” She blew her hair out of her face. “I want to sit and listen to him dodder through a feast as much as you want to bed our sister.” She groaned, as much for her sake as mine. “It is our duty, as Prince and Princess of the realm.” 

Duty. “I need to go to the sept.” I grabbed a tunic and leggings. I didn’t need more than that, the signet ring, and the coronet. The tunic was my arms quartered with my mother’s enshrouded in green. The leggings were a matching hue of green with gold patterns. 

She sat up, worried. “What for?”

“I need wisdom from the Crone.” 

“May I join you?” 

“No,” I cut, plain and clearly. “This is between me and the Seven. I…” I set down the clothes to cross the distance, and take her hands in mine. “Please understand, Helly. I need this.” 

She looked, and she understood. “I may drink some more while you are gone.” 

Now it was my turn to be confused. “Why? What for?” 

She said nothing. Her orchids revealed all. 

She needs me to keep her company. She needs me to lie on her stomach, or her to lie on mine. She needs to know I am there, protecting her while she sleeps. Without me, she cannot sleep. So she drinks. “I will be swift,” I avowed. 

The Stokeworth sept, like the rest of the complex, was made of milk white stone. It featured a high vaulted ceiling, with the seven statues at the far end, each one in its own large shrine. The Stranger stood in the middle, the three male aspects to the left, the three female aspects to the right. While all seven did have the Braavosi style of hyperstylization, all of them were clothed. The men had muscles beneath their clothes, the women curves, and the Stranger… nothing. The Stranger wore a massive robe, larger than other depictions I’d known of him. Not even his face was present. He was faceless, formless, featureless.

The sept was empty when I entered. I found it unsettling, lonely even. The royal sept was never empty.

A fire was kept lit, presumably every day and night, to allow for the lighting of candles. I took a candle, a plate, and a small torch. I set the plate and candle down at the base of the Crone, took the small torch, and lit the candle. I extinguished the torch and fell to my knees before the candle. 

As I was alone, I did not hide my prayer. “Crone above, I seek your wisdom. There are two paths ahead on my road. Two paths. Two oaths. My father or my land. History will say both are just. My father has decreed what the law shall be, his word was solidified by the consensus of a Great Council. The land is older than my father, than my dynasty, than this sept, and will outlast all three.”

“Hugor and Qarlon appointed true knights to rule fiefs in their blessed names. Even they, of blessed remembrance, were not capable of saving all men nor of protecting all their lands. My father was named and anointed and coronated in your holy light. Is he the heir to your wisdom? Is there another path that I am blinded to?”

“Light my way, light the path that is true, and I, Aegon Targaryen, firstborn son of His Grace, Viserys, First of His Name and do so swear to uphold it.” 

I closed my eyes and bent my head. The two paths warred inside my head as time swam past. 

I was pulled out of the trance by a woman’s voice. “Your Grace?” 

I rose and turned to face her, one hand on my dagger, just in case. It wasn’t an assassin, or if it was, she was well-dressed. A septa, all in white, wearing a rainbow-threaded belt and two small pendants around her neck. One was a crystal. The other, on closer inspection, was a small figurine. I knew her at a distance, the Mother, eyes down on the babe nursing at her breast. 

“Septa. How may I help?” 

She laughed lightly. “Your Grace has it erroneous, I fear. How may I help Your Grace?”

We were in the house of the Faith. The truth was required. “Have you just arrived?”

“I have, Your Grace. Evening services are to begin soon,” she answered, meeting my look with her own softer one. 

“I suffer a quandry, and I am in… need of some assistance. Are you the head of this sept?”

“No. That would be Septon Dale. Shall I-”

I raised my hand. “No. You are enough.” 

She picked up her dress to curtsey as low as she could. “I am honored, Your Grace.” She gestured to a table. “Is this a matter of confession?” 

“No. It is a matter of need-” I felt the seven eyes on my back, “-the realm’s need.” 

Her own eyes widened slightly. Her breath hitched. “Anything, Your Grace.” 

“There lay two paths before me. One is blood. The other is the land. Whose path comes first?” 

“I…” she stuttered, “...I am sorry, Your Grace. I do not understand the question.” 

Very well. “I have two oaths. The first oath is to my blood, to my father. The second oath is to the land, to the weak and the innocent. I am not asking which oath is more important. I am asking you which oath comes first. Both will be fulfilled in time.”

She looked up at the multistory statues, eyes glazed in thought.

Until she had her answer. “An oath of knighthood comes before an oath of blood. All knights are commanded to protect the weak and innocent, whether they be of blood or not. Is that-”

All knights, even princes. A king who ignores the plight of his subjects to feast is an evil king. A knight who breaks his father’s oath to protect women and children is a true knight. “Yes. Yes! Seven blessings upon you, septa. Now and forever.” I bowed my head to her.

I lit candles to all seven aspects, and took my leave. 

I needed to rest. I had a war to win.

I returned to find Helaena lying on top of the covers, still awake. 

“How was it, Aegon?” she asked, surpisingly no more inebriated than she was when I left her.

I climbed into bed next to her and hugged her head. “We are going to the Eyrie.” 

“We? What happened to father?”

“Ser Criston Cole bade me knee and swear the vows of knighthood when I turned six-and-ten. Those vows are still binding, four years later. I am going to the Eyrie, to defend my bannermen from the raiders. I will do it. If you do not want to, go back to father and tell him I have. Jeyne is an inept fool, she is still our vassal, her villagers are ours.” 

I don't know what I expected. Disagreement? Debate? Pointless stubbornness? Whatever I thought I'd get, the moment we met one another's eyes, it all became clear.

“There’s the ferocity I missed,” she said as she laid down on my stomach.

“You will come along?” I asked, perhaps a tad too playful for this, as I ruffled her hair.

“Yes," she told the ceiling. "A Queen of the Seven Kingdoms must protect her commoners just as a King does. Let us rest up.”  

And so we did, with her sleeping on my stomach, I above her, ready to remind her that she was never to be alone.

I suspected that was part of why she came along. The two of us could not seperate.

That neither of us had any interested in the feast was a small help.

We did rest well. We would have left the next morning.

Would have.

We were woken up at dawn by the roaring of our dragons.

The two of us rushed outside in our bedclothes.

Both dragons were roaring and snapping off to the east, paying no attention to us.

"What in the seven hells have gotten into them?"

Helaena's eyes followed the dragon's snouts. "Not what, who." She took my hand and pointed at the rising sun.

There, coming at us with the rising sun to their backs, were a pair of dots.

Not five minutes later, those dots were large enough to make out.

A large yellow dragon.

A smaller gray-and-sand dragon.

Syrax and Vermax.

"It's too late to flee and make like we were never here." She turned her back to the not-so-distant beasts. "Come, let us dress. If the whore and her strong son want to demand homage, the least I can do is make them come this far for it."

Chapter Text

Prologue, V: The Heir to the Seven Kingdoms

4th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.4.127AC) 

4th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.4.1590AV)

I didn’t want to see her. I didn’t want to be in the same lordship as her.

Mother said she’d come to visit me two days after the accident. That visit was half-addled by milk of the poppy. The name and the face were fused to one -the same eyes that looked back at me in the mirror, the same silver-gold hair, the same full face of my old portraits- and branded into the front of my mind ever since. 

There was not a day that passed that I did not see her in my dreams. Nor was I the first, for said dreams wracked the prince before me since he was a boy, according to Helaena. Her and that yellow dragon, him and his blood-red one, flying circles over the Red Keep. 

She had her court on Dragonstone. It was there she remained. It was there she ruled. 

For her to stir from her den was a terrible sign.

As ever, Helaena shared my thoughts -or perhaps, I shared her- as the two of us swapped old undergarments for new ones, both of us watching our dragons through one of the windows of our quarters. Sunfyre and Dreamfyre were strikingly regal, if terrifying to behold in all their austerity. And yet, she avowed, the two would guard us. 

It was strange, when she said that, I could almost make out an affirmative in the two’s rumbles.  

There wasn’t any chance of a fight breaking out, I kept reminding myself as we dressed. 

That didn’t stop Helaena from kneeling before a small shrine to the Seven in our quarters, clasping her hands in prayer, and pleading the Mother to protect us both. 

I didn’t know why she was throwing my riding clothes at me at first. 

“I have tunics, you have dresses. Shouldn’t we look like father’s children?” 

“She’s father’s child. Father’s perfect child,” her laugh had no joy in it. “We’re the descendents of father’s paramour.” She slipped her own breeches on them, and with them a change in tone. “Recall mother’s lesson. No two shirts are the same. Riding leathers? We stopped over for the night. We are going flying.” She pointed at me. “It’s not a lie, is it? We are going flying.” 

As we dressed, the two of us shared the same look of puzzlement. ‘Why here, why now?’

“She found out,” Helaena sliced through the silence. “Orwyle has maesters under him. Some are sworn to her.” 

I took the next logical step. “One of them sent her a raven and told her we were going to Stokeworth. Why?” 

She inclined her head at the dragons. “Our precious sister is as fearful as she is gluttonous. She suspected we would pluck her lord lamb from her and carry him back to the Red Keep.” 

“Her fears are right,” I noted.

Helaena chuckled. “Her fears are often right. As we dress, she is learning that we have dyed the wool green. One does not stand to inherit the Seven Kingdoms on being blind, deaf, and dim. Even a woman who fills herself with cakes while her fisherfolk pray for a catch to last them the moon. Would that she was as sweet as she was beautiful, she would hang him by his own intestines.” She pulled on a silk glove. “That, that must fall to us, too.”  

Yes, it must, because she was hooked by him. “What is our approach when she finds us?” 

“We were going flying.”

“Flying where?” 

“Pick one of the golden dragon’s strongholds between here and the Wall.” 

Said golden dragon roared, to remind us he was paying attention. 

Why, that’s no easy task. Gulltown wasn’t outwardly known as one. Harrenhal I had no interest in. “Riverrun.” 

“Why were we going to Riverrun?” 

“To visit Lord Gunthor Tully, hear his cases, offer what guidance we can, and go on a progress around the Trident.”

“No-” she wagged her finger, “-not a progress around the whole Trident. We cannot let her think we are trying to usurp her alliance. Pick a lord.”

Pick a lord. In the Trident? Why, there’s only two major lords who are ours. I picked the one with the nicer sigil. “Humfrey Bracken, Lord of the Stone Hedge.”

She took a seat in front of me. “So why are we going to the Trident?”

“We are to visit Riverrun and Lord Gunthor Tully, then… go on a progress of the Red Fork. Stone Hedge, Harroway’s Town, Darry, Maidenpool.” 

She tipped her head in approval. “Well done. I agree. It is a possible story. It is not the whole Trident, yet it still threatens some of her allies in Darry and Maidenpool… which is exactly what we would be doing.”

“Were we to go there,” I added.

“Were we to go there,” she confirmed, “we would be going to sway Darry and Maidenpool. There is no law broken by swaying lords. Were we to only go to… Stone Hedge, say, she would know us for liars. Days of flying and exuberant feasts being thrown, and for what? To reinforce the Brackens’ preference for great councils?” She shook her head, almost playfully, “We would be dullards to not use our dragons for conquest.” 

That earned a laugh from me. For conquest. 

Just as she’d desired, the two of us donned our riding leathers once more…with a few additions as it was clear we couldn’t just take our dragons and fly off. 

Green silk gloves trimmed with gilded thread, half a dozen rings, a gold-and-emerald necklace for her and a crystal pendant -from Eustace- for me, and a pair of complementary coronets. We threw long cloaks over our shoulders, both depicting the quartered dragon-and-tower, and fastened one another’s with brooches, little gold three-headed dragons with emerald eyes. 

She even tied a small silk woolen cloth - ‘ripped off my softest dress’- around my shoulder and pecked my cheek.

“There, your maiden has blessed you with good fortune.” She fluttered her eyelashes, as if she was one. 

I crossed my arms over my chest and regarded her. “The maiden would like a kiss in return? Not very ladylike.” 

“No, silly, that’s why she’s a maiden. A maiden dreams of knightly kisses, a lady dreams of the marriage bed.” 

I grabbed her hand and kissed her wrist. “There, the maiden has been appeased.” 

She couldn’t convince me to do anything less maidenly than that, and she knew it. Still, for the sake of it, she pretended to pout. “It is not very knightly to tell maidens when they are appeased.”

I sighed. “Fine, maiden, get on the bed and spread your legs.” 

She grinned. “Who do you mistake me for? Our sister?” 

At that, the two of us burst into laughter. 

The laughter quickly became the two of us holding one another’s shoulder, holding each other upright while complaining about the wine. 

Neither of us wanted to face her. 

Neither of us could escape her. 

Both of us had headaches from last night. 

The dragons, I found most surprisingly, weren’t annoying. Sunfyre’s hisses and growls made sense, in the way that a madman tries to find patterns where none exist. Dreamfyre’s roars weren’t just noises, they were statements. She was announcing, to Stokeworth, to our sister and our nephew, that she was here. 

For all I hated that morning, I’d never forget Helaena going out to Dreamfyre.

The blue dragon let out a low croon when Helaena appeared in the doorway, and lowered her head. 

Helaena rubbed the scales under her eye. “No, girl, we’re not going anywhere.” 

Dreamfyre lowered her head to the ground and whined. 

Sunfyre leaned over and knocked his head against hers in what sounded like it would be painful. 

In fact, the two merely used it as an excuse to hiss at one another while Helaena massaged her snout.

She turned to the side and waved me over. “Come here, Aegon. Sunfyre’s not as fussy, but he still wants his payment.” Dreamfyre, annoyed at no longer getting all her attention, growled at me. 

I beg your pardon? Payment? “How do I pay him?”

The golden dragon stopped headbutting, rose, and stepped over to me. I, feeling like the insignificant little mortal that I was, stood very very still for want of anything else to do. 

The young dragon knocked me to the ground and opened his mouth. Gold lit up the back of his throat. 

Gold. Lit up. Like a fireplace. 

He breathes golden fire. Not yellow. Not orange. Not red.

Gold. 

He hissed at me. 

“Be good to him,” she said, and for the life and death of me I couldn’t tell if she was talking to me or Sunfyre. 

I extended a hand. Sunfyre’s scales were warm. Warm like the sand on a beach in the midday. At first touch too hot, over a few seconds once the hand is acclimated -or the proper nerve damage has taken place- tactile. 

Call it madness, call it instinct, I sensed he needed a chin scratching. 

I wasn’t capable of scratching his chin, what with dragons being covered in dragon scales. In place of that, I rubbed his chin with little circle motions. 

He was most appreciative. Being a multi-ton dragon, ‘appreciative’ meant nearly crushing me beneath his snout as he rumbled at me. 

When I looked at Helaena, she remembered she couldn’t giggle at everything. Dreamfyre was exempt from said royal restriction, and made a hissing noise. 

“You hug me after I’m done with your shoulders,” she explained, as casually as if we were lying in bed. “He’s you.”

“Oh, aye, he’s me. He’s a giant dragon.”

Sunfyre threw his head back and let out a deafening roar. 

I don’t know how she avoided going deaf. “He’s a small babe next to Vhagar.” 

Sunfyre walked on over to her and let out a deep rumble. 

Dreamfyre extended her head past her master, and hissed back at him.

The two knocked heads together and both of us backed away with utmost swiftness. 

As ever, such pleasantries could not last. 

Both dragons stopped what they were doing and turned towards the castle grounds. 

The two of us only caught on a minute later, when a cluster of individuals appeared. We told our dragons to hold where they were, and started towards the cluster. 

When Helaena and I went around the castle, we did it on our own. Yes we had the army of servants bring our saddlebags to our chambers, but once that was done, the two of us kept ourselves to our own devices. It was quaint, in a way. Nobody rushed up to shine our shoes. Guards and servants alike knelt but had the wherewithal to know we weren’t demanding parade perfection.

There, walking towards us like they had all the time in the world, was a cluster of Stokeworth guardsmen and a dozen landed knights and their ladies, all tailing two figures.

The boy wore a teal and black surcoat over his red and black attire. The woman wore a burgundy-hued Valyrian gown over… nothing. Bare skin. The gown was cut so low there was less of her chest covered than there was exposed. In this massive gap there hung a Valyrian steel necklace of a hundred miniature rubies. The boy kept his brown hair in a coronet. The woman had her silver-gold hair in an elbow-length braid. 

I had my answer. She didn’t come for us immediately because she wanted to get changed first. 

I wasn’t one to judge others off their appearances, but she looked like she walked out of the richest pillow house in King’s Landing. I could have bet gold I had seen that gown there every time the two of us passed by to do our circuits of the city’s septs and poorhouses.

Then it struck me. She wasn’t wearing their styles. They had copied hers. 

Say what I could of her, and boy did I have a lot to say of her, I could see why, to some common man who married his neighbor’s daughter, she was ‘the Realm’s Delight.’ Even after a decade, five childbirths, and peasant rebellion amounts of gluttony, she had an goddess-like quality to her features. 

That didn’t mean I found her remotely comely. Not by a thousand leagues. And not because she was my sister, either.  

No, the fairest maid in all the realm was Helaena. Helaena of the cream hair, orchid eyes, the soft face made for smiles and laughter, and the gentle hands made for kneading dough -and nerves- and playing with her three children. 

This gradually approaching high treason with legs had a fuller chest and more curves in the places Westerosi liked them, even after years of said treason. 

I’d take the ‘fat cow’ any minute of any hour of any day, for she knew who the true enemy was, and there lay no man or woman alive -save the babes- whose heart was made of purer gold. 

One of them didn’t look like she wanted to bed me. The other was walking towards me.

The groups halted halfway between the walls and the quarters, out in the meadow. Her group stayed behind to allow her to advance the last few paces. 

Helaena and I knelt and lowered our heads. It wasn’t right, she wasn’t the queen. And if I can see it done, she never will be. The true queen didn’t need a fifty-man tail to walk through a castle. Even mother, who was by all the vows and blessings, didn’t need it. 

What was it grandfather said? A ruler should be able to walk in peasant clothes alone, and make others recognize him by how he carries himself. She’s certainly carrying herself. 

“Aegon. Helaena,” the voice spoke with the accent of the Eyrie. 

“Your Grace,” we answered as one, also in Eyrie. 

“Arise, let me look at you,” the voice bade, relaxed.

We rose. I rose. She was right across from me. She was only a few inches shorter than me. Her strong son stood off to the side, watching with dogged interest. 

“I must concede, Aegon, when I heard you fell from Sunfyre and cracked your skull, I thought you would not recover.” She clapped me on the shoulder and smiled, and all I could do was find something to keep me standing there.

He is my rock, my fortress, my rescuer. He, my strength in whom I trust, my shield, the horn of my salvation, and my high tower.

I could not throw King David at her, much as I wanted to. I’d even take King Ish-Bosheth, even with the Abner betrayal.

My heart steadied, and with it my tone. “It was the Mother’s mercy that gave me life.” For all I knew, that was the truth. I certainly didn’t come here by means of some scientifically advanced method. I drank too much water, left our tank to go find a bush, then the sirens went off. Last thing I ever saw before diving into the ditch was the smiley face on that ‘welcome to’ sign. Next thing I knew, I was sent to kingdom come. Seven kingdoms. 

“The Mother?” She was dismissive. “She did not save you. The Grand Maester did.”

I’m not headacheless enough to have this theology discussion. I wondered what the nobles behind her thought. I did not ask. Her tail was there to be a tail. 

I bent my head. “Then it is the Grand Maester I owe my gratitude, Your Grace.”

“Your Grace,” she slurred the title, “do you all hear this? Your Grace. Have you forgotten my name, beloved brother?” The tail behind her reacted with murmurs, as if I’d done something wrong.

That was just it. I might have. I did not know. 

I bowed my head. “Rhaenyra.”

She laughed, grabbed my shoulders, and stepped up to gaze into my eyes. “You cut the beard,” she half-whispered in a voice two octaves too low for comfort. “You look like a proper dragon, little brother.” 

In the pit of my stomach, there churned a nauseous feeling. I kept my courtesy. “Thank you, Your Grace.”

She wrapped her arms around me and pulled me into a kiss.

Not a greeting kiss between a sister and brother. Not a fair kiss between a maiden and a knight. Not the little chaste pecks between Helaena and I, symbols of virtue and reminders that we were bound as one in sight of gods and men… and dragons. 

No, she pressed her lips against mine like one of the more ambitious ladies who’d just happened to request an audience with me in my solar. Their kisses were always short tastes, hinting and teasing, the kind the prince liked. The prince often indulged in his solar. When the prince enjoyed them, their fathers and brothers advanced in court. To hear it from them, they loved every second of it. To hear it from the Queen, only the graspers dared to his solar. They dared, and they won. 

Even so, they had their limits. At any moment I could yell out and have them sent to the silent sisters. 

She was none of them.

Hers was full. Her lips pressed into mine. Her fingers clawed into the back of my head like ten little knives. Her eyes searched for every flicker of movement, there were none for I had frozen.

And her tongue.

That worm shoved its way through the gap she made with her lips and felt around my mouth. By the time I registered that it wasn’t at my lips it was inside me it was too late.

I almost snapped her neck. I didn’t.

All the while, the way she sank her fingers into the back of my head, my eyes had a full view down her gown. 

She tasted of spice and warmth.

When she finally broke it off with a little moan, I wasn’t confused. No, I wasn’t confused. Numb? Slightly, the shock was such an overload of my senses and reality that it reset me and grounded me. 

No, I was angry. 

I forgot there was a tail there. I forgot I was a Green and she was the heir. “What in the seven hells?”

She turned to notice me like one of those ladies at court. Except they were teasing. “I told you, you look very handsome.”

“This is ill-mannered,” you deranged pervert.

She guffawed. “Ill-mannered? I did not know your wits drained out when your head cracked open.”

It took what little I had to grit my teeth. “No. This was vile. You shame me, you dishonor my wife, you break our vows, you bring a stain upon this very stone.”

She did not care. Not for ignorance, she looked right into my eyes. She doesn't care. “Hel, are you so ashamed?” she asked as she stared into my eyes, smirking.

“You did not have to do that,” Helaena called flatly, both next to me and a mile away. 

She directed her laughing amethysts off to my side, to Helaena. “I did not have to, but I did. My brother happens to be strong and fit. Just as you are a striking beauty, moreso once we get those layers off you.”

Why? Why in front of everyone? To show you can? I wasn’t that interested in her speech. “Apologize to her.”

She turned lackadaisical. “What crime did I commit?”

A small voice in my head was saying ‘you are walking into a trap.’ It did not stop me. “You dishonored both of us.”

“How? By tasting you? By wanting a taste of my beautiful sister?”

You are mad. “Yes. This is wrong.”

“Why? What law forbids me from tasting my handsome brother?” She made no move to hide her immodest pose. 

I held my ground. “The binds of marriage. The Seven-Who-Are-One.”

She let out a hoarse laugh. Her son of renowned strength and the rest of her tail watched from a distance. 

She clasped both our shoulders at the same time. “So the rumors were true. You turned into a septon. Allow me some sisterly insight. We are the blood of the dragon , those gods are not ours.”

Helaena kept her mouth sealed.

I did not, stupid that I was. “Last I heard, we were named in their light and anointed with their seven oils.”

She turned to face me.  “You were named for the Conqueror beneath a glass window, and anointed with some oils I could buy at a marketplace. If I have a stained glass window and some oil, I could sell myself as a septa.”

This is not a fight you shall win, you incestuous abomination. “Desecrate and despoil that which you want. They are my gods.”

“You worship false gods. For all their claimed strength, the Conqueror broke them in a single battle. Where were their gods then? Where were their gods when Maegor declared war upon them?”

“Where were your gods when the Doom came for Valyria? Where were they when a pack of desert-dwellers brought down Meraxes? Where were they when the realm turned against Maegor? Why must we be named in the light of these false gods if they are so weak?” Ah, that’s right, the dragons live by the wits of the Conciliator.

She did not give up or admit defeat like a normal person, as she was not normal. She gave me another lip-on-lip kiss, spun around, and pulled Helaena into the same. 

Once done, she stepped back to see us both from one spot. “You are a dragon, Aegon. We are the scions of gods, not men and their scented oils. Take what is yours, or the lesser men will take it from you.”

Let those lesser men take it from you and me alike. “Will there be anything else… Your Grace?”

“Yes,” she answered, and gestured to the tail.

The boy in the rich surcoat walked over. 

“Uncle. Aunt.” The brown-haired bastard inclined his head. Unlike his mother, he didn’t force himself on either of us. 

We inclined our heads in return.

“The Seven are good to see you well and walking, uncle. The Mother is kind to see you hale as I remembered, aunt.”

Helaena had the same court smile as usual. I matched her front with a stern expression.

He continued in stride. “How is my cousin? I have been wanting to see him, but mother keeps me at Dragonstone.”

I eyed Helaena, she took the reins. “Maelor is healthy and growing. He recently learned his first word.”

His pug little face scrunched up in excitement. One would even think he was being genuine.

“Can I see him?” he begged like the preteen he was.

Helaena provided an excellent non-answer answer. “When we are next in King’s Landing.” 

Apparently his time to be a curious child was over, because his mother called to him in High Valyrian, and he backed away, head lowered respectfully. 

“We the blood of Viserys have much to deliberate on. On Dragonstone, I find my mind best cleared from a hot spring.” She extended one of those pudgy ring-covered hands at us. “Join me. Stokeworth has a spring.” 

The two of us exchanged a look. We were both going to be sick. I spoke. “We would rather not, Your Grace. We intended to go flying. It is important.” 

She studied me with a similar look as Sunfyre and the dead dolphin. “Flying? Where?”

“A short progress. Riverrun and down the Red Fork.” 

“A pack of scrabbling lords of mud and clay are more important than a spring with the Princess of Dragonstone?” 

Oh, take your generations of incest and shove them. “Yes. Those lords pay taxes. You don’t. I’d rather not wake one day and discover the Faith Militant has returned.” Truthfully, I’d be fine with it, as long as they understood that I was on their side.

“Ah, I understand,” she laughed proudly. “That son of the Swords swims around in your head. The Faith Militant were felled by one dragon. We have four between us here in Stokeworth.”

Eustace was the son of two free farmers. His maternal grandfather, so claimed all but him, was Lewys Rivers, also known as Lewys of Lychester, a lesser Captain of the Warrior’s Sons. 

He defeated the royalists near Wayfarer’s Rest and raised the rainbow star over the ancient seat of river kings. He and his band of five hundred joined up with the rest, and marched down to the Great Fork, where most of them were turned into crispy bacon by the Black Dread. 

Not him. No. He went back to High Heart, found more supporters, and continued fighting until one of the Most Devout came to personally deliver him and his a pardon if they would lay down their swords. He beat his sword into a plow, set off for Stoney Sept, and took up a life of farming. 

Eustace’s own tale has his maternal grandfather a different Lewys, still originally of Lychester, as one of the Stars. Unlike the famous bastard, this Lewys was another ‘roughspun robe’ in the sea of roughspun robes making their way towards King’s Landing. After the Great Fork, he went back to his homeland and stayed there for the rest of the war. 

Whichever Lewys fathered his mother, Eustace lived in some small village near Stoney Sept. In his youth, he was prone to bouts of difficulty breathing. The Faith was a natural course for him to take. When he came of age, set off for the eponymous sept. Many hard years and many hard miles later, he would make his maternal grandfather proud by becoming the personal septon of the royal family. 

Not that he likes being told of it, ‘There is no pride in my place, it is the path bestowed upon me. Many a village septon will wish they had this post, just as I would wish I held theirs. Their difficulties are theirs and mine are mine, neither are equal, yet both are as hard in the eyes of those who must face them.’ 

Plainly, she did not care for any of that. “Lord Stokeworth!” she shouted, and the young man made himself appear from the small crowd. 

He dropped to one knee behind her. “At Your Grace’s service.” 

“Have rooms made ready. The three of us shall be taking a bath in the hot spring.” 

“Your Grace,” was all he said, he bowed his head to her back, rose, and went to his cluster of retainers. 

Once he was gone, I glanced at her. “We did not give our approval,” I said in the court dialect of the Vale. Helaena tipped her head in agreement. 

She scoffed. “I did not ask for it. You and Helaena belong in a hot spring, to cleanse the filth of this sheep pen.” 

She can’t force us- I cut that train off. Yes, she can. She’s the heir to the Seven Kingdoms. Father bestowed on her all the rights, for she ‘is to be queen after me.’ She had every single royal permission, including all those previously kept by the king and the king alone. She’s not our equal but one rung higher, she’s equal to father.

If she wanted to have us apprehended for breaking the King’s Peace, she could.

If she wanted us to join her in a hot spring, we had to comply, or we would break royal law. 

What gave her such rights, even rights that no Prince of Dragonstone ever had before her? She popped out of Aemma Arryn’s womb. 

Sunfyre and Dreamfyre sat out the whole greeting. They had the sense to keep their heads down and watch from a distance. That didn’t make them apathetic to our situation. In the few minutes we managed to wring out of her to pray, the two gave us reassuring hisses and rumbles.

Reassuring, in that they were multi-ton dragons hissing at us, which I was meant to take as them being concerned about my -our- well-being. 

I’m never getting used to having a pet dragon. Is ‘pet’ even the right term? Helly says they are as smart or smarter than we are. Does that mean Sunfyre’s my companion? 

I’m never getting used to having a dragon for a lifelong companion that understands everything I say. 

Like most castles, Stokeworth had local hot springs. Winterfell’s were the most famous in the Seven Kingdoms by virtue of being as large as other castles’ estates. Stokeworth’s was of a smaller, no more modest, size, a whole tower dedicated to the hot springs. The tower in question had bubbling hot springs on the ground floor, rooms for drying clothes on the second and third, and a small dining hall and balcony on the fourth. The wraparound balcony gave views of Blackwater Bay and the large village along its shores, since Stokeworth was atop a high escarpment. 

The heir was already sitting next to the hot springs when the two of us arrived, clad in green and white bathing gowns provided by the local servants. Most of our jewels were left in our quarters, under the armed guards known as Sunfyre and Dreamfyre. The irony of having two dragons guarding a hoard of expensive jewelry wasn’t lost on me.

At least the dragon wasn’t hoarding an underage lady. That was one of her descendants. Deride the line of cursed dragon kings all I wanted, none of my mother’s descendants would live beyond the year 133. The Unworthy, the Falseborn, and the Mad were their abominations. 

“Is the Prince not going to join us?” I asked after we entered, noting the emptiness of the room. It was the three of us, and that was it. No servants, no attendants. 

“The Prince is holding court with Lord Stokeworth. It is his place.” 

So you can sit back and kick around in some warm water. I understand. The subliminal didn’t go over my head. He’s going to try and pull Stokeworth back to the Blacks. He’d be half a day late, we already had the planned arrangements written out, sealed with our signet rings, and sent by way of glass-bottle-attached-to-raven to King’s Landing. Mother and grandfather’s reactions could not be predicted. What we did predict was that they’d see the necessity to give Stokeworth a place at court then and there, before she fought back. 

Such was the nature of the great game. 

After months of living here, I grew to figure out that it was best compared to Go, which I first picked up in officer school. Some men who go there have intelligence. Some got in by sleeping with the secretary. 

Other board games have pieces of different size and importance. Kings, Queens, Bishops, Knights, Rooks, Pawns, to name one of the most famous. Those pieces did ‘exist’ here, insofar as a Lord Paramount commanded high lords, who commanded lesser lords, who commanded landed knights and village masters. A high lord could crush a lesser lord, who could crush a landed knight. 

A lesser lord did not have to follow a high lord, nor were landed knights guaranteed to follow their lesser lord. The Faith Militant Uprising was a fine example to reference. 

Had Lord Paramounts been all that was needed, the rebellion would never have existed, for none dared to side with the Faith until the last days of Maegor. Had high lords been all that was needed, the rebellion would have been snuffed out immediately, for only a handful of them dared to defy the throne. The Uprising was just that, a rising of upstarts. Lesser lords, landed knights, sometimes just a coalition of villages. Few of them had renowned names or ancient bloodlines of immense reputation, yet they succeeded. 

‘The Faith did not succeed,’ I remember Aemond saying during our lessons. At that, I countered: The Conciliator did not put Oldtown to the torch and make the religion of Valyria the religion of the Seven Kingdoms. He won over the Faith by compromising.  

I am of the opinion that there were no pieces bigger or smaller than others in the Seven Kingdoms. A high lord’s support for mother and I did not mean his lords would follow him. Yes, high lords had a strong influence on the decisions of their banners, but I wasn’t going to take assumptions. 

The board game had no bigger or smaller pieces. Victory came through positioning, through envelopments, and claiming territory. For every piece I placed, the other player analyzed the location and placed his or her own in response. Victories could be predicted, but they were rarely certain until the board was filled. 

So too was Stokeworth one of those yet-filled sections of the board. Yesterday we laid a piece down to suggest an envelopment. She countered by dispatching her son to place a piece to contest it. Perhaps her piece won the fight and won the territory, perhaps it was already lost.

Perhaps grandfather would let Stokeworth return to the Blacks so he could conquer territory elsewhere. Our move may well have been a small sacrifice or distraction in the larger game at play. 

The heir was quick to show her nature. We were there all of half a minute before she shed her robe and slowly stepped into the hot springs. 

I was frozen in place. Helaena, she should have known better and gone in, but she stayed by my side. 

“What are you two staring at?” she encouraged us as she took a specific seat at a specific height that would see her top half branded into my mind for the rest of time. “Come, get those robes off you! I see too much clothing all day!” If she was japing, she was good. She sounded and looked desperate.

“I won’t,” I said first, Helaena second. 

She sighed. “It was not up to be argued upon.” 

There was a threat in those words, and I wasn’t feeling daring enough. Not yet. I helped Helaena in and followed her. Only once we were in the warm bubbling water did we take off our robes. We hadn’t ruined our only clothing, we had additional bathing robes sitting on a wooden trestle nearby. Why would anyone put a wooden trestle in a permanently humid enclosed room? I wasn’t an architect.

“You look like you’ve never seen a woman before, Aegon,” she laughed. 

Yes, because it’s not normal to have a woman ten years older than me encourage me to take off my clothes and join her in a hot spring, then threaten me with her powers if I don’t comply. Oh, and do the same to my wife. All with a grin. “Your Grace…” 

She groaned. “Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Grace, Your Grace.” she waved her hand about. “You sound like one of my servants. Are you my servant, Aegon?”

Is this some trick question? Is she having fun? I didn’t change my tone. “I serve Your Grace, so… yes.” 

She threw her hands up and cheered. “The Queen would be delighted to hear that!”

Helaena cut through the sarcasm. “Sister, why are we here?” As she asked it, I offered her an arm and wrapped it around her other shoulder. 

“You’re my brother and sister and you’re both quite comely. Can three comely scions of the dragon not enjoy a hot spring? Or would you prefer to return to the leering gazes of King’s Landing?” 

Why that’s nice of you to say, why don’t you use some of your kingly rights to have your husband’s men hung. Oh wait.  “I have enjoyed the hot spring,” I stated, and made to rise, but Helaena yanked me back down. 

‘Why?’ I asked with my eyes. ‘This’ll be over soon’ hers said back. 

“Tell me, Aegon…” she laced her fingers together and leaned forward, “...who was your last lay?” 

I beg your pardon. No. I really beg your pardon. Just when I thought this couldn’t get pervier, she springs that on me. “What in the seven hells? Why would I tell you that?” I switched gears, since I’d rather not be defensive over nothing. “I haven’t laid with anyone.” 

She inclined her head in my direction. “I suppose you’ll say the three babes came about by prayer?” She chortled. “Do not fear, little brother. I know the pleasures of mounting a dragon, and being mounted by one. You have the fortune of having one of the comeliest ones to ever live next to you.” 

Somewhere, in some other time, Helaena might have appreciated that. As of right now, sitting in a hot spring, she kept her court tone. “He hasn’t laid with anyone since… it.” 

“Like you would know,” she cut back, and turned to me. “It is a great crime to lie to the blood of the dragon. Who was she?”

Nobody. I just told you that. “I haven’t touched anyone.” Is this why she confronted us? To harangue us? Why? Why? What is this utter madness? 

“Which maiden did you last think of, then?” 

“I think of many maidens every day,” I played dumb, because I really, really didn’t want to answer the question she was hinting at. 

“Oh come now-” she slumped, “-what maiden last lingered in your mind as you took yourself in hand?” 

You’re off the banana. The problem with that thought of mine, it had no throughline. The woman I was looking at didn’t sound like she was off the banana. Someone off the banana is off the banana. She sounded like a teenager boasting of all the passionate lovemaking he had, trying to goad everyone else to share stories of all the passionate lovemaking they had. In truth, she sounded like Aemond, if all the dark broody edginess was worn into lustful smirks.

With that came a follow-up thought. Is this some familial trait? Discuss bedding all day and night? With that came an epiphany. She was copying someone else. Someone who had a reputation for carnal relations. The father of her only legitimate sons. 

In spite of figuring out her secret, I couldn’t bring myself to lie. “None. I don’t…” I resisted the urge to shudder, “...take myself in hand,” you lunatic. 

“Next you’ll tell me not a single fair maiden caught your eyes at feasts.” 

Is this all she cares about? “None.”

“That’s quite sad,” she mourned, distraught. “You had a good eye for them. For the love I bear you, can I ask you to go back to searching? If not for your petty vows, then for me?”

“Why? Why would I help you find courtiers to bed?”

“I need new favorites. Dragonstone’s morsels are few and far between.” She chomped at the air. “Court’s full of such perfect maidens.” 

Thanks for confirming all those rumors. Not that they were rumors, Helaena had known about them before, the prince before me -apparently- knew about them as well, Aemond knew them, mother knew them, grandfather knew them… it would be fair to say that there were less in the Red Keep that didn’t know of them than those that did. 

With all of that in mind, I asked a question as calmly as I could. “Do your lusts know no limit, sister?” 

She looked abashed. “You? You claim my lusts have no limit?” Something clicked in those eyes of hers, and she regarded Helaena. “Hel, what plague has befallen him?” 

The plague of having self control. 

Helaena -wisely, cautiously- let me run my mouth for most of this. Only now did she provide a long answer. “My Aegon has taken vows of chastity and celibacy, to give thanks to the Seven for saving his life.” 

I wish I could’ve framed her surprise. It was a good salve for having her across from us, topless. “You allow him?” 

“He is my husband. It is his decision. I am honored to have him, vows and all, by my side.” 

Helaena, you’re the best sister ever. 

She made a half-grunt half-growl noise. “You are dragons! The Seven do not tame dragons! Only a dragon can.” She went from one of us to the other. “Aegon, did your skull cracking open take your manhood off? Helaena, if he’s so weak, mount him!”

We were beyond the pale at this point. I was steadily approaching ‘I’m going to punch you in the face, royal blood or no.’ “Is this all that you concern yourself with? Your brother and sister’s carnal relations?”

“I want my brother and sister to be happy,” she said, as though this were a common sibling concern. “There is no happiness like the marriage bed.”

“You must have been most distraught for many years, then,” I said, and Helaena made a choking noise next to me. 

“What might you be implying?” 

“Laenor wasn’t quite interested in your ladylike form.” Neither was I, but last I checked myself, I liked women. Just not my sister. And thanks to my vows of marriage, nobody else either. But I did like women. 

She looked like she’d give me the Vaemond treatment. 

Go ahead, then, do it. 

She miraculously had enough discipline to not do so. Where said discipline was when she was encouraging her siblings to have carnal relations with the other and bullying them for not, I didn’t know. “Those rumors are unfounded.”

Of course they aren’t. Neither are the rumors that the heir to the Seven Kingdoms has a collection of favorites. 

“I suppose so,” I supposed, so. “Here you are, instructing me to bed my sister.” 

“Only a dragon can best a dragon.”

“I am not bedding her.” Why must I repeat myself? Why can I not have alcohol to distill this idiocy? 

I’d say she gave up fighting, but that would be like saying father gave up on pretending his eldest wasn’t actively committing high treason. She didn’t give up, she changed courses. “Hel, have you lost all your wits too?”

I glanced at Helaena and she nodded. “Last Orwyle examined me, he concluded that I still had my abilities.” 

We were beginning to enrage the woman obsessed with lust. “Tell it true, have you not dreamt of mounting your handsome, striking brother?” 

“The Mother says one cannot be faulted for the feelings that naturally come to them.” At that she also leaned forward. “Have you?” 

“I would never!” she exclaimed, shocked. “He is your husband!”

Oh, sure, that’ll stop you. Like it stopped you before. 

I may have had no idea whether this behavior of hers was normal or not; it didn’t stop me. “Are you done with these childish antics, sister? Neither of us are here to discuss our marital bed, which, for your knowledge, shall remain cold.”

Something twinkled in Helaena’s orchids. Under the bubbling water, she laid a hand on my thigh. It wasn’t a gentle hand, but it didn’t feel violating either. 

“My Aegon’s a bit of a dullard sometimes.” She leaned over and kissed my cheek. 

At that, our sister lit up. “Yes, he is.” 

Helaena wrapped her other hand around me and clung herself to me. Because of the water’s elevation, it was clear that she was pressing her chest against the side of mine. “You’re right, Rhae. He’s been trying to shun my marital bed, citing these vows of his. Why? My touch breaks all his vows.” 

Common sense was telling me this was very very wrong. 

That small voice inside me was telling me this is Helaena. Since when does she act like some… other sister? 

Between the two and the whore of Dragonstone’s lusty smile, everything clicked into place. 

The terms. Mother’s terms. 

It’s an act. 

The heir fell for it wholecloth. “Don’t you see, Aegon? Your Seven cannot protect you from a true dragon.” 

Helaena kissed my temple. “Oh, he does not see it, but I will show him later.” It was then I figured out why her left hand was where it was. Above the water it looked like it was… correctly placed. 

The heir took a deep breath. “No, you do not have to wait until later. My husband does not bother. We have had councils, he touches me behind the neck, and then… I have to. I dismiss the council, and he takes me right there on the painted table. A true dragon’s fire cannot be quenched.” 

It didn’t matter that she was thirty. Her husband was still grooming her.

It didn’t matter that she was thirty. In these matters, she was still sixteen. Something Helaena seized on, moving her hands to imply something, when in fact she was just scratching my belly button. Not that one would understand from how she talked. “You wanted the truth of it, Rhae?” She dropped her octaves and kept herself nice and audible. “There are times I wait for him in my bedchamber with one of your gowns on. He cannot keep himself from pushing me onto my back and taking me right there.”

“He shouldn’t.” She peered at me. “You should not have lied before. We are the heirs of Aegon and Rhaenys. It is in our blood to take what is ours.” 

“By the time he finishes, your gowns are ruined.” 

“As it should be,” she bobbed her head. “Silk is made to reveal, not conceal.” 

Little did our sister know, Helaena was telling the truth. 

She wore those gowns… over many other layers. They weren’t her style, but she always liked playing dress up. 

She waited for me in her bedchamber… because her bed’s comfortable, and she’d be dumb to not lie on a nice bed. 

I did shove her onto her back… to grapple with her, for when the two of us were free, any time was grapple time. 

I did take her right there… if by ‘take’ one refers to a grappling match. 

I did finish… tickling the confession out of her. 

I did ruin her gowns… by getting them wrinkled, because ‘she keeps sending me them, why not ruin them?’ She then takes those gowns and has them sent around as name day and wedding anniversary gifts. ‘Lady Strong wants children conceived in these horrifying scratchy slips, she never said they had to be ours.’ 

The Princess of Dragonstone just couldn’t contain giving commentary to Helaena. “Hel, you’re too soft. Get in front of him, let him taste your milk, it-” 

Helaena spared both of us the rest of that tangent from the sixth hell by saying “I have dried up.”

For the first -or it felt like the first- time in this whole day, our sister didn’t look like she was going to bed everything with legs. No, in fact, she was confused. “You don’t nurse Maelor?” 

Helaena repeated herself, “I dried up.” I commended my own self control, not wincing right out of the pool and into the nearest sword. 

“That’s hedge superstition. You never dry up. I thought I had. I learned if you touch yourself every day for a moon’s turn, it’ll come back.” 

No, I stood corrected, I did wince. Not into any nearby swords, but I toppled over into the pool, making an unceremoniously small splash. 

Thankfully, my splash ended the rest of that, as our sister was excited to hear that Helaena was enjoying her marriage. I wish I could’ve drowned myself to avoid listening to her showering my wife with compliments related to how her beauty could bring any woman into her bed… should she want it. Being our sister, she recommended trying paramours ‘once a moon.’ 

Trying, as if they were articles of clothing. Then again, she described them like articles of clothing. ‘The blood of the dragon cannot be contained by any one pair.’ 

Only after all of this did the heir to the Seven Kingdoms reveal why she had fallen into Stokeworth. A normal person who was mentally mature would hold a mature meeting in a formalized setting, like a study, or as they’re also known, solars. One would think royals, paragons of said responsibility and discipline, would retire to specific places, surrounded by all the tomes at their disposal. That was how my grandfather conducted himself, and my mother, and even my father when he could be bothered to rule. 

The heir to the Seven Kingdoms held it in a hot spring, naked. We were given permission to leave the hot spring, so we donned the famously dignified clothing lesser mortals have called… bathing robes. That was how we held this ‘meeting,’ a naked heir flopping about in the pool while her two siblings sat on a wooden table clad in bathing robes that weren’t even ours; they were lent to us. 

The first topic, to my absolute amazement, all three of us agreed on. 

“Father’s feast for the Confederation is a useless expenditure. He would be wise not to remind the lesser lords around King’s Landing that they have successfully maintained their independence before.”

If I was feeling particularly snarky, I would look her in her eyes and say but what about all that blood of the dragon? Doesn’t that make you impervious to rebellions? I didn’t, as to do so would require me to look at her, and to look at her would make me want to spoon out my eyeballs. There’s indecency and then there’s her. ‘I’m the blood of the dragon and the blood of the dragon does not wear a shirt.’ 

To that I would have wanted to say And you’re not making the title ‘Whore of Dragonstone’ any less applicable, blood of the dragon. 

“The ship to dissuade him from throwing a feast has sailed and sunk, Your Grace,” said Helaena, who similarly looked everywhere but her. 

“We do not have to attend,” our sister said. 

“Father has given us positions. Master and Mistress of the Hunt.”

I wasn’t Helaena. “Why are you here?” I asked, straight-faced. 

“Why were you?” she countered. 

Helaena went with an immediate save. “It was a place to stop on our way north.” 

Our sister seemed to buy it. “We came to visit Stokeworth and Rosby. It is a special week for them, the little lords like to be reminded of how important they are once a year.”

She bought it, or she’s playing the same game as us. As it pertained to her lusts, I could accept she was that easily impressionable. As it related to the game… better safe than sorry.

Even if in this case, my gut should be right; she’s avoided high treason by being her father’s favorite, the only reason the Velaryons still support her is his daughters and Rhaenys not knowing of Hull.

We will have to take a trip to Hull soon, won’t we? 

“What is your suggestion?” I asked our sister, as I’d rather this be her fault. 

“You do not have to attend his petty feast. Go to Riverrun, feast with Lord Gunthor and Ser Edwyn.”

Ah, so you can steal all the fame while there? All the non-fame to come from a non-feast. Since she offered it, it was only fair I reciprocated. “Where will you be off to?” 

“The capital for a day, then back to Dragonstone. The Three Daughters are in the Stepstones once more.”

That led to the second and, if we believed her, main topic. 

“I’ve called the banners,” she growled out, “yet father refuses to lend his assistance.” 

“And this brings you to… father?” 

She set us with a stern gaze. “No, Urrax take father, he will dither and dodder until the Daughters are in the Gullet. I’m going to the capital to lay my case before the Lord Hand.” 

Had she not been naked, and fresh off harassing us to have carnal relations with one another, I would have been intimidated by her. Considering she was stating this while floating in a hot spring, it made taking her seriously hard. 

Yet Helaena did. “You want us to help you?” 

“I was going to ask for the Queen’s help. Vhagar, Caraxes, Sunfyre, Syrax, Dreamfyre-” she closed a fist, “-together we can put an end to the Three Daughters once and for all.”

Once and for all. “By burning them?” 

“With our combined dragons, we can make Harrenhal look like a thatch hut! Those bastard daughters of Valyria will be begging for the gift of mercy once we’re done with them!”  

I walked right up to her. “Rhaenyra, I will not burn a city down, even a city as vile as Tyrosh. For every slaver who must pay for his crimes, there are ten freemen and slaves whose only crime is being forced to serve their local lord. The Warrior gives strength to the arm of the righteous. Under no term is the killing of innocents righteous.”

“I will be sure to remind the realm that you did not act, brother. The Daughters threaten my kingdom. A single swing, and they can be decapitated.”  

This wasn’t some easy decision. This wasn’t something I was preparing for or expecting. This never happened in the books from what I had remembered. That didn’t mean it wouldn’t here. 

As with any difficult choice, I looked to my other half for something, anything, to give my thoughts weight and my words support. 

The orchids were with me. “I agree with both of you. If this threat is as you have claimed, then action is the only course. That does not eliminate what action. Father does not want war, any war. Can the realm sustain one with the Three Daughters? Stark’s warning is always right, winter is coming.” 

“We do not need the realm,” she sneered, clenching her fists. “Lord Velaryon’s fleet and our combined dragons will make short work of the Triarchy. A raven to Lord Boremund and Lord Bryndemere can see the Stormlands ferrying across to Bloodstone. My husband’s friends are not to be discounted, either. A raven to the Prince of Pentos will see fifty thousand men ready to ford the Myrth and march on Myr. Another to Triarch Vaeron shall see tens of thousands advance up the Disputed Lands.” 

She gave me all I needed. “Then you should take your husband’s friends, and go fight the war with them,” I said with cool courtesy. “May the Mother protect you and the Warrior strengthen your sword-arm. Why should any Andal spill a drop of blood in the Disputed Lands? ” 

“They are to be my vassals.”

That’ll win their hearts. “How many of them want to die to hand the Three Daughters from one pack of fire-worshiping slavers to another pack of fire-worshiping slavers?”

“What Pentos does is up to the magisters of Pentos,” she barked.

I see now. I see my place. “Then you are no true warrior, sister. You are killing one snake to allow a second to grow. Some of us have oaths.”

At that, I took Helaena by the arm and led her away.  

“AEGON!” her voice rang through the room, enough that the guards poured in.

She ordered them gone that instant and she strode up behind us. 

“You have grown fat and insolent in your time in King’s Landing. This was not to be contested. As a dragon-rider, you are sworn to the defense of our house. You will uphold that oath.” She was polite enough to not lay a finger on us. She didn’t have to. Her words were a royal command.

Sadly for her, I had enough. “I am not going to risk my life for slavers. Nor will Helaena, Aemond, or Daeron.” 

There was no need to confirm it, like that, I felt Helaena’s hand holding mine. “We won’t.” 

“You would break your oaths?”

“I swore an oath to protect the weak and the innocent. I would sooner fall on my sword than hand a single hide of land to any of those slavers.” 

“You are a fool, Aegon. Dragons do not cower behind stone statues.”

I am no dragon, I’m something worse, a follower of Moses. “For He is righteous, He loves justice, the upright shall behold His face.” I took her hand and kissed it. “Heed these words, sweet sister. The Triarchy’s days are numbered.” As are the days of Pentos, Volantis, and your husband. 

I left her. Helaena followed me out. 

We changed and returned to our quarters unassailed, unstopped, and ignored. 

Helaena was the first to react once we reached the safety of the two dragons. 

“Aegon. What was that?” She slumped over, Dreamfyre extended a wing for her to rest against. 

“What I said? Some words I read in a book one day.” 

“She wanted us to stay there,” Helaena seemed to realize then, digging her fingers into her strands. 

“Yes, she did. I’m not a servant to be summoned.” I turned to face her. Dreamfyre watched both of us from behind her, while Sunfyre stayed a few paces further away, watching Stokeworth. “Are you, Helly?”

“No, I’m not… but… she’s going to… this won’t… father will be… wroth.”

I crossed the distance and took her chin in hand. “You taught me to not fear father. Mother will control him.” 

“She…” Helaena gasped, even fearful she sounded too innocent for this, “...oh Aegon… I’m sorry for the kissing. The vows. I… I forgot.” 

I pulled her into an embrace. “I figured it out when you put your hand on my leg. You’re not the whore of Dragonstone.” I leaned back so she could see me. “Tell me, was I wrong to… confess my truths to her?”

“She doesn’t believe you. She wants all of us to be as lustful as she is. Some mornings when I wake up, I don’t believe you. The Aegon… before it… would have… some feeling.” She studied me. Something went off in her head. “You have none,” she proclaimed in a whisper, “you have none, is that it?” 

“I told you. I won’t bed my sister.” All the gentle hand-holding and cuddling on the bed only reinforced why I wouldn’t. Partners come and go. A sister, one not obsessed with how they’re the blood of dragons, outlasts them all. 

In the theoretical world I had been Aegon, yet married to, say, a Hightower cousin, I would not be where I was. I needed someone who was with me, not for an agenda or an ambition; someone who was pure and staunch and unyielding. For that, only brothers and sisters. Aemond was nice if an adulterer edgier than Valyrian metal, and Daeron was in Oldtown becoming the perfect knight. 

“I shall not bed my brother, either” she murmured into my shoulder. “But… what happened today cannot…again. We must become mummers. Especially with her and her allies. Or they’ll call you a sword-swallower and me barren.”  

“I think today’s was sufficient. Was it?” I asked her forehead. Don’t say it isn’t. Don’t say we need to be intimate. 

“Yes,” she said, letting out a sigh of relief. “Yes, it would.” 

“Good. We have a Vale to go to, do we not?” 

She tipped her head. “We do. Come, let’s get changed for the second time in half a day.” 

"Will we be interrupted for a second time?" I pondered, only half in jest.

"Not if we don't go to sleep."

The two of us shared that laugh.

We earned it.

The heir to the Seven Kingdoms let us go free. Why? I figured out the answer as we took to the midday skies.

Stokeworth was a 'battle.' She wanted to get the measure of the two of us.

By not sitting there and enduring her version of a council meeting, we conceded defeat.

That was one of the problems with learning Go, the pieces were all equal.

The Blacks played by one doctrine.

The Greens played by another.

I didn't have to play by her rules. I had my own.

Chapter Text

Prologue, VI: The Mountains of the Moon

4th day-5th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.4-2.5.127AC) 

4th day-5th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.4-2.5.1590AV)

Common sense and some basic measurements agreed, setting out from Stokeworth at noon on the 4th, we could reach Gulltown by the night of the 5th. Dragons, for all their terrifying awe, were still mortal creatures, not machines. Of what I’d remembered from the Red Keep, for every hour they fly, they should have another for their rest. Like any horse, they could be pushed well beyond that in a moment of need. We weren’t in any moments of need.

Any flight had to factor in time and place. By night, Westeros was dark. Not pitch black, to my surprise when I first went riding into the Kingswood. There was so little light that the countless stars in the night sky lit the ground up like it was permanently twilight, quite similar to how it was in the deserts of my past. Still, with a lack of notable landmarks by night, all our flying had to stop by sunset. The moon was only visible by night for half the month, Helaena didn’t know how to navigate by starlight, and I was too mesmerized to do so. 

For Westeros’ night sky was not the stars of my home. There was no gash that cut across the sky. There were no familiar constellations. Orwyle had reported that the nearest heavenly body had rings around it. 

In my past life, to look up at the heavens was a matter of awe-inspiring humility. To be reminded of my own insignificance in the greater universe. I could easily see why men worshiped that which -in their eyes- went on without end. Even through the advancements of science, the same beauty remained. The stars were without number, and none of them would ever be reached by us in our lifetimes.

In this life, to look up at the heavens was a matter of complete terror. I couldn’t be outside for more than a few minutes in the night before being beset by crippling amounts of fear. There were divine beings up there, and they were watching. The Seven-Who-Are-One, the old gods, Red R’hllor, the Drowned God, the Many-Faced God, and others whose names I did not know. By day, sunlight gave me the pretense of being in a world of my own. The darkness stripped that cover away, leaving the world -and I- bare to the unperceivable gazes of those divine eldritch entities. 

I had once asked Orwyle if he believed there was anything out in what he would call ‘the heavens.’ He told me of the twelve houses of the heavens and their rulers. In my past life, I would have dismissed this as crazy superstition. Between the Valyrian Freehold, the existence of dragons, the human-dragon bonds that all riders shared, and my own existence in Westeros, I put nothing past the possibility that there really were twelve rulers living in palaces floating about in the heavens, warring amongst themselves. 

One night, two months into my time in this realm, two of those ‘houses’ went to war. For a single night, hundreds of meteors -or as they were called, falling stars- burned up. One grew brighter than the rest, waking the dragons from their slumber beneath the pit. This star would disappear off to the south, likely to crash into the Summer Sea. This star would become a source of gossip and speculation; from the gods’ blessing for Viserys’ reign to a herald of the end times. 

We did not go to Gulltown. I proposed it to Helaena, Gulltown being a seat of one of grandfather’s potential allies, and also being a gateway to the Vale at large; and she dismissed it. She refused to fly past Duskendale, and she refused to fly out over the open water to get around it. There was a fear in her eyes there, one I didn’t have the heart to combat, so I told her I’d look elsewhere.

Much later on, I would realize why she had such a fear. Rook's Rest had been between us and Gulltown.

I settled on Darry. We’d stop there for the night, then fly over the Mountains of the Moon and into the Vale.

“You can’t fly over the Mountains of the Moon,” she stated, confused.

I didn’t ask ‘why.’ The paintings I’d seen in the maesters’ books made them look like any other mountain range. She had more experience flying a dragon than I did. I chalked it up to weather patterns, mountains were cloudy, dragons couldn’t fly through clouds. 

I changed the second part. Darry and then the Bloody Gate. 

“This would bring us within Lady Jeyne’s domains,” she said. 

She made it sound like a problem. I didn’t see any. “We’re blood royals and we’re on our way to fight the wildlings. What is the harm?” 

She looked at me like I’d gone mad. “You do not fly into a high lord’s personal lands without warning.” 

Oh. Awareness bashed me over the head. Oh. Right. Yes. They’re high lords. We’re children of the King. “So we shall send her a raven from Darry. Would that be sufficient?” 

“Are we willing to feast with her?” 

I admired her concern and her use of ‘we’. “Yes, we are.” 

That settled it. 

We did not make it to Darry. 

We could not just point at Darry and go there… or maybe we could have, I never instructed Sunfyre to “fly to Darry.” What could I say, I was new to this dragon-flying business and still half-numb from having a massive young dragon to do with as I wished. 

Instead, I, I, for I led this expedition, had us take a straight path perpendicular to the Blackwater coast. The coast ran northeast-southwest. Northwest would eventually lead us to the God’s Eye, a geographical feature that was neither mundane nor easy to miss. 

The Crownlands was villages along every watercourse and holdfasts atop every rise, with vast forests and farmlands everywhere else. It was elegant and refined in a pastoral sense… and dreadfully repetitive for navigational purposes.

The sun was approaching the western horizon when we reached the God’s Eye. I could understand why they gave it such a name, only from dragonback, thousands of feet up, could I make out all four shores, with the Isle of Faces planted in the center. Why do I not have pages of poetry about the God’s Eye? Because, as Sunfyre banked, like an antiquated fighter aircraft, and began the long descent towards Butterwell, I looked to the northeast. 

The last light of the day illuminated a row of white teeth off to the northeast.  For the whole flight from Stokeworth, I’d seen them off to the north, and figured they were clouds. Only with the last light of the day, when the shadows were their longest, did I comprehend what I was looking at. From here above the God’s Eye, they were the size of hills. Jagged, sharp, white hills.

I was speechless for the remainder of the descent.

The Mountains of the Moon were about a hundred leagues from Stokeworth as the dragon flew, too far to reach in half a day of flying.

That descent was one of those moments in Westeros. A moment when I had to sit and stare at the magnitude of the realm I had been thrown into. 

Of course the mountain clans were undefeatable, they lived in a mountain range taller than any range in my past life. 

It was emblematic of Westeros, a realm of eight thousand year old bloodlines, of seasons that lasted years, of people who built castles in defiance of the gods, and of blood-drinking heart trees. 

The Mountains’ scale was the answer to any question I could ever have had about the Vale. 

Next to Stokeworth, Butter Hall was a regular castle, no different from the hundred others I’d seen on my way northwest. That’s not to say all those cultures or peoples -or even architecture- were the same. Had I climbed off my dragon and looked at clothing, hair-styles, accents, I would have found a dozen different identities. That was my issue with my house in a single sentence: dragons don’t mingle with smallfolk, they fly over them. 

Not all the dragons are so selfish. We were all half-Hightower. Hightowers were taught to be charitable, gregarious, generous, and mindful. ‘We Light the Way, those words are not a battle cry, they are a reminder of our duties to the commoners,’ so said grandfather, according to Helaena. 

This was the same grandfather who was doing everything in his power to root out Dragonstone’s supporters and replace them with his -in turn my- own supporters, so I took his advice with a pitcher of salt the size of Yam Hamelach. 

Helaena claimed her desire to build poorhouses came from reading about queens in her youth… and the Star. On the first hand, good queens -like those that wound their way into story and song- invested themselves into the patronizing of the commoners. On the second hand, the Seven cursed the greedy and selfish. 

I sided with her over grandfather. Riding down the street on a white rounsey, stopping at every baker and butcher and sampling their wares, buying something from every stall in a market, surprising locals by appearing at the door of their hovels, praying at every sept in the city… all of that came naturally to her. 

Unfortunately for my training regimen, she dragged me on some of those rides around the city, Ser Thorne and Fell our white shadows. I’d spent more of my life in the Seven Kingdoms inside some single-syllable named commoner’s one-room apartment-house-hovel than I had at the lists. I also lacked the genuine tact she possessed, in being able to find something to praise in everything we came across. 

Like Stokeworth before him, Lord Butterwell hadn’t been expecting a pair of dragons or their royal passengers to descend on his castle. Unlike Lord Stokeworth, he found time to put on a tunic and pants. Also like Lord Stokeworth before him, Butterwell’s garments were ironically in-line with our heraldry. The white-yellow-green wavy was sewn into as many of his articles of clothing as that three-headed dragon was ours. 

Lord Otho Butterwell was a lean man in his fifties. He wore a thick tunic, bright surcoat, and, most notably, a short cape. Not a cloak, a cape that went down to his elbows. Said cape was plaid, yellow and green with white geometry, and fastened with a pair of iron brooches that resembled bucklers. Not bucklers, it occurred to me, the God’s Eye. 

He was joined by a woman who had to be Lady Helya formerly of House Strong, his three adult children, and a host of grandchildren and wards. I made out two non-Butterwell houses: one boy had the three white porcupines on yellow of the Wodes, two girls had Andahar’s horse on green wavy of the Rootes. The rest… I was at a loss. 

They were the sons and daughters of landed knights and village masters, their heraldry all kept to their liege’s color scheme. There were axes, spears, shields, plows, plowmen, cows, walls, fish, and no less than five different renditions of what had to be the God’s Eye.

Little did they know, this color-coded loyalty only served to make them look like the biggest Greens this side of Neverwin Peake, Lord of Starpike, Lord of Dunstonbury, Lord of Whitegrove, Castellan of Sevensbridge, and Marshal of the Iron Throne.

As with Lord Stokeworth, all waited for us from their knees, barring the grooms. Lord Stokeworth welcomed us in the melting pot accent of King’s Landing. Lord Butterwell… didn’t. 

“Your Graces,” was all I made out of the High Valyrian. 

In an instant, that puzzle piece slotted into the cavity of my skull, and I knew the man standing, er, kneeling before me. Otho Butterwell was that Otho Butterwell, one of father’s last friends from his youth. ‘His adventurous youth as Baelon’s merry firstborn,’ the Grand Maester and Septon would respectfully refer to the time period as. Mother had a different description, ‘his wenching days.’ To hear her describe them, ‘these friends of his joined his royal retinue to go wenching from Oldtown to the Wall.’ She did not mourn their deaths. 

I was not mother or grandfather. I didn’t know this Lord Butterwell. He had a lean, sharp face, a neatly-trimmed graying beard, and a happy little smile much like father’s. 

Helaena and he exchanged words. My past life, serving with men and women from every corner of the world, gave me an affinity for listening to languages. One man would grow up with a mother tongue, another might learn it at ten, another at twenty. I might have been terrible at learning, that didn’t mean I closed my ears to my surroundings.

I could say, without a shadow of a doubt, that Lord Butterwell had a stronger grasp of High Valyrian than the Princess. Butterwell had his responses out immediately, Helaena took a second longer than he did to compose herself. That was all the difference.

High Valyrian was not our true mother tongue, it shared the spotlight with Oldtown Common. The twins learned High Valyrian after they picked up their words in Oldtown Common. Everything else was taught after the two. 

Oldtown Common had once been the dialect of the three pillars: The Oakenseat, the Seven, and the Citadel. 

Mern IX Gardener, last of that noble line, himself a quarter Hightower, used Oldtown for prayer, Brightwater for the ladies, Highgarden for his men, and Westmarch for his destrier. 

Significantly, Helaena was not speaking High Valyrian every day. We had to master it -good luck making me learn it- to be better than the boys of notable tenacity. That didn’t mean we had to speak it with one another. Father made it the court tongue, he could hardly forbid everything else. The ‘everything else,’ those dialects of the Lord Paramounts, were preferred by us and those we were talking to. Afterall, few lords want to switch to a tongue that they started intensely learning in their adolescence at the earliest. As for all matters within the family and our closest supporters, we defaulted to Oldtown Common. 

That little difference, that little bit of rust picked up between uses, that little ‘my mind processes statements in Oldtown Common’ was noticeable if someone was listening for it. Was Lord Butterwell? Probably not, he was busy talking. Was anyone else? Probably not, they were either terrified or starry-eyed at the dragons hissing at each other in their normally dragonless courtyard. 

I stood there, silent and unmoving, probably looking as mentally balanced as everyone’s favorite product of super-incest, Rhaegar. I wasn’t going to open my mouth and prove I had as much control of High Valyrian as my father did of his eldest daughter. Fortunately for me, or maybe because she had the wherewithal to know that I could make us all look like idiots, Helaena did all the talking. 

When she finally stopped making me ears bleed -did I mention High Valyrian was an awful, annoying language yet today?- the gathering of nobles before us rose to their feet. She looped her arm through mine and the gathering split to make a path for us. 

The two of us followed a steward-dressed steward up many, many flights of stairs and down many, many identical hallways, to a tapestry filled bedchamber. Four-post bed, two desks, dressers, shelves full of important books, a door that led to a closet, and a door that led to a similar-looking bedchamber. 

A battalion of servants came with our saddlebags. Helaena, through the steward who could translate, dismissed them all. We “needed privacy,” she told the steward in Riverrun, right before politely kicking him out, too. 

“It’s too late to tell them I don’t need the lord’s bedchamber, isn’t it?” I asked in Oldtowner as I sat down on the bed. It was a good bed. I may not have wanted the lord’s bedchamber, but I’d be a fool to not sit on something so soft. Still not as soft as Woolfield wool.

“I told him we were content with guest quarters,” she answered as she began undressing, “he refused to bend.”

“Are we sure he’s of Butter Hall?” 

She snorted. “His son is married to a Vance of Wayfarer’s and his first daughter’s Lady of the Stone Hedge-”

Oh, I know where this joke is going, “And his second daughter’s Lady of the Crossing.” 

“No, she’s unwed.” 

Oh, that’s a shame. We were building up to such a good joke. “Truly?”

“And-” she threw the riding jacket at me “-they’re all half-Strong.” 

“His daughter’s Lady of the Stone Hedge? She’s no older than thirty.” Unless Amos was a time-traveling baby, she wasn’t his mother. 

“She’s Humfrey’s third wife. One fell into the Red Fork while chasing down Blackwood raiders and died, and the second was killed by a Blackwood raider.”

One could almost say that was a recurring problem, Lady Brackens leading their knights against the tree-lovers and dying for it. “I suppose she shouldn’t go hunting any Blackwoods,” I pointed out, as I pointed out at the window.

She leaned so far over in her quest to glare at me she fell over. Nor did I bother catching her. No, I sat there like a lump of clay and watched her flop onto the floor. I did take action… joining her in laughter as she rolled around on the floor like a child. 

I was feeling kind, so I helped her out of her clothes, not like that. 

“How do I ask this without sounding like a whore?” I inquired of the back of her head, as I undid her braid. 

She figured out where I was going with that. “He gave us the lord and lady’s bedchamber. He understands we are tired after a long journey, so the servants are bringing us dinner in the lord’s dining hall. Our dragons will be kept in the outer courtyard. He’s going to have attendants and guards assigned to us that know their Riverrun, since it’s no good having guards that can’t understand you.”

Let’s hope they don’t know Oldtown as well as we do, or we remember to switch to Winterfell at some point. 

I tried to think of what else to say. I wasn’t tired, not in the traditional sense. These minutes of sitting down and not needing to focus on flying were enough to have my mind contemplate the day’s events. The future Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, if father, his brother, and her few supporters had any say. 

Ah yes, supporters. “We need to send a raven to the Eyrie to inform Lady Arryn of our arrival.” It was in line with the Vale feudal contract, as a man would send ravens to all others informing them of his declaration of war, so too would a man send a raven to others informing them of his approach in times of peace. 

This sort of honor kept everyone decent. One day, a Lannister, a Frey, and a Bolton would attempt to use everyone else’s ‘honor’ to find short-term success. What few victories they achieved came at a cost, they would be hunted down. 

“I told the maester to send a raven,” she said as she offered me an undershirt.

A pang of concern took me. “He will send another to King’s Landing.”

I held up my arms, she pulled the shirt down. “So he will. We have naught to fear. Mother will hear father’s anger, she will lean over and kiss his cheek, and we will be pardoned of all crimes, even those we have yet to commit.”

Is that where she learned how to calm me down? Yes, why wouldn’t it be. Part of me hoped not, mother’s ways of soothing father offered far, far more than a simple kiss; as I’d been unfortunate enough to hear one time I went to her apartment to wish the two a good night. 

I stopped her from helping me with my breeches, not for some fear of immodesty, I’d done the same with hers, I just… was reminded of the bath. It wasn’t a good memory.

I tried to change the subject in my mind. “What is our plan?”

She scratched her chin and sent a wayward look at me. “I don’t understand.”

Of course not, I didn’t do any clarifying. “Are we defending the Lady or taking the side of the madman?”

‘So now you don’t know what you’re doing?’ her eyes said. “I thought you wanted us to be honorable. Your honor.”

Ha. That’s the issue. My honor’s not simple, and this game’s much too complicated. “I do,” I admitted, lacing up the dining breeches, “but honor is no easy aspiration. She is breaking her feudal contract in not lending her support to her bannermen’s campaigns. He is breaking his by rebelling against her.”

She raised a hand, as if we were taking lessons with Orwyle. I acknowledged her with a gesture. “Would you like me to stand here and listen to you indecisively blunder your way out of our alliances?”

Way to kill the enthusiasm there, Helaena. “Go ahead,” I conceded, not bothering to hide my discontent.

“We hold the lawful rights, not them. We do not need to do anything but watch. If the sheath-swirler is as inept as she is lusty for red forts, we need only return to grandfather. As for the mad falcon, we should have him removed from his cells and brought to the Iron Throne to answer for his crimes.”

We went over this not a day ago. Here I am, forgetting it. That was the effect of the heir. “And the houses?”

“You brought up the bronze men. I gave it thought on the flight, I agree. The Stormlands sets a precedent.” As she said it, she realized I’d gone dull and blank. “Come,” she extended a warm hand “let’s get some dinner stuffed into you.” 

The Stormlands sets a precedent. Turn vassals green while not touching the Lord Paramount. She’s mother’s daughter, and I’m father’s son. No, that was an insult to me, I had enough awareness to admit there was a color war on the verge of going nuclear. A color war the two of us were actively participating in. 

It’s the  secondary reason we are going to begin with. To get there before Dragonstone does. To win the allegiance of their banners. 

It was wrong. Helaena should have been flying there to protect our bannermen from raiders, for that desire and no other. But she couldn’t, for then she’d be naive to the game of Go we’re all living in. 

Dinner went by in a fog. Fish, goat, and a dozen different cheeses. Lord Butterwell and his family all bounced between Riverrun and High Valyrian, interchangeably, seamlessly, much too quickly for Helaena to lean over and help me with the context. Thankfully, we weren’t here to make Butterwell as loyal as his heraldry. He was father’s man through and through and that wouldn’t change. 

I was less interested in him than I was in the others. He, Symond, and most of his cadets that were present wore black-fringed surcoats and dresses. Arwyn, her ladies-in-waiting, her sons Hoster and Harys -here in Butterwell as wards- and Roote’s girls -also here as wards- wore emerald green.

Like in Stokeworth, I let Helaena take the chance to -courteously- sink her claws into Dragonstone’s supporters, while I sat back and listened to mine. 

Lady Arwyn and her array of ladies whose names and sigils I forgot three seconds after hearing them brought the sort of reports I expected to hear: bandits along the Red Fork, bandits along the border with Wayfarer’s Rest, and Harrenhal’s House Strong exerting its royal position at court to charter new towns near the confluence of the Trident. 

What was I supposed to do? Promise them I’d take Sunfyre and burn down the tree-lovers? I made no such arrangements, but I did promise to fly up the Red Fork some time and visit her hedge of stones. 

I filtered out most of the prattling about Tully and the Iron Throne’s castle charters -the former giving it to Stone Hedge, the latter taking it for itself- to piece together a quilt of friendships and rivalries. 

‘Quilt of friendships and rivalries’ was the best way to describe what the Storm Kings and Iron Kings alike called ‘the lords of the yellow mud.’ Lord Tully, blind but still hale enough to go on progresses, was an outspoken supporter of the Great Council. Why was that a surprise? It wasn’t. If there was ever a lord who’d support taking rights away from kings and giving them to lords, it’d be the lord who was never a king, ruling as king in all but name over a quarrelsome lot of lords all claiming to be the true King of the Trident. 

Equal parts vengeance, blood feuds, and a desire for autonomy once more, Lord Tully’s support didn’t go as far as he hoped. Bracken supported him, which made Blackwood oppose him. The Vances on the wane -Atranta- supported him, while those on the wax -Wayfarer’s Rest- went against him. 

The rest of the Trident did as the rest of the Trident does, and went their own ways. Piper has more to gain by opposing. Strong has his court appointment and doesn’t need to listen to anyone else. Mallister couldn’t care less. Darry followed the man on the Iron Throne. Ryger was hoping to secure more charters along the Green Fork. Frey picked the side with more fighting known fighting dragons and more fearsome commanders that oh so coincidentally had the backing of the Iron Throne. Butterwell, as aforementioned, was a loyalist. Everyone else supported or opposed their high lords depending on that patchwork of pacts and feuds. 

Roote’s seat, Lord Harroway’s Town, one of the only sites permitted to blossom into a large town, was wanted by everyone along all three forks. Bracken sat right next to him and won the coin flip. As such, the Red Fork was split in two, everyone on the southern bank supported me, everyone on the northern bank my beloved elder sister. House Strong technically supported the Iron Throne, but I knew better. If the Clubfoot ever slandered us in any capacity, mother would bring the entirety of House Hightower down upon him. That was one of the innumerable benefits of being made of gold. 

I made a note to fly up the Red Fork at some point. I needed to pay homage to my squabbling lords before they took offense at something I said and decided to stab me in the back, front, and every other possible and impossible angle. It took massive stones to defy everyone around you. Plus, Roote has our green, the Brackens have our gold, and the Tullys have the crimson for all the blood that’s about to fill the Trident. 

Yet through all of this, I couldn’t keep my attention on my supporters, no more than I could the dinner table. The Princess of Dragonstone filled my reflections of the past and the Lady Paramount of the Vale my fears of the future. I ate, I listened to their complaints and considered their pleas, I made a note to go up the Red Fork, and I waited to return to the comforts of my bedchamber. And my mount. Sunfyre proved nice to be around, once I got past his fire-breathing, sword-sharp fangs and talons, bulk, and very existence as a mount and companion. 

My change in temperament eluded Lord Butterwell. What a shock, the man I’ve never met has no opinion of my mentality, and even if he does, he knows better than to hint at anything remotely condescending to the man with a large dragon sleeping in his courtyard. It did not, could not, escape Helaena. 

To her credit, she kept her space until long after dinner had finished, we’d returned to our respective chambers, and gone about our usual preparations for bed. The bath was thankfully free of mother’s twenty different scented oils, although I did end up smelling like I’d been dunked in grape juice. The clothes were the same clothes I remembered picking, I would have been most surprised had I opened said saddlebag and found anything else. As for praying…

Lord Butterwell sent his personal septon to lead and receive my nightly prayers. 

Normally I was reassured by the godsworn. 

Eustace wore a white robe with red borders and a black collar. Nobody else in the Seven Kingdoms had that robe, nor would they until he died and the title went to the next Most Devout-appointed septon. The rest of our septons and septas had some shade of red on their vestments, red for the Faith or red for the Targaryens, I didn’t know. All of them knew me, as I knew them. That was the reassuring factor. I didn’t need to choose my words carefully or style myself like some pompous prince. I went to them for guidance and they provided it. 

Eustace was, at least in theory, bound by the sanctified laws of confession. In theory. Had I, say, admitted to wanting to kill my elder sister, the Conciliator made them answer to the king. That did not mean Eustace would or did. He had enough sense to understand that maybe, just maybe, the boy terrified of his elder sister and her husband may not speak with the best mental clarity about said sister and her husband. 

Why did any of this matter? I could kneel and tell him I feared my elder sister, or tell him our quest to the Vale wasn’t all altruism even if I wanted it to be one. More to the point, he knew both of those, so I could cut past explaining months -years- of history between all parties, and right to getting answers.

For this man, I had to be the prince. I knelt and we prayed. Afterwards, he gave a short lecture about hard work citing passages from the Book of the Father. 

It’s not that I expected Eustace to have all the answers to my dilemmas, it’s that I knew he’d offer a unique perspective on all the politicking. He didn’t need to concern himself with feudal contracts or trade deals, he was appointed to shepherd us on spiritual matters and provide insight on all others. Orwyle was meant to fill the same sort of role, unbiased advisor, but I didn’t trust him. Like the High Septon, the Grand Maester echoed the King on the Iron Throne’s opinions. Eustace may have, at one point, but by the time I was thrown into the Seven Kingdoms, he was one of mother’s most trusted confidants. 

I didn’t understand the relevance of this man’s speech about six year farming and the seventh year leaving all fields fallow for anyone to come and pick from. I wasn’t a field. I wasn’t a farmer. I wasn’t giving crops over to the landless. Westeros already had three-field crop rotation. I wasn’t mentally capable of building canals across the continent.

The ‘hard work’ I was doing involved turning people against their king’s appointed successor, citing the Great Council, Andal succession laws, and the reminder of who she was married to. In other words, paint the King on the Iron Throne as an arbitrary weak ruler, he was; whose unwillingness to make a decision was going to lead to catastrophe, it was; with a pinch of promising that someone who succeeded without the consensus of the lords was unlikely to heed them, she wasn’t. 

If father hadn’t remarried, if, if, if, there would never have been a debate to begin with. The only realm that would have been against the daughter coming before an uncle was the North, because male Starks being in Winterfell, and not having a single female queen at any point in the thousands of years of recorded history. Wonderful plan, that one, let’s allow the terror of the Stepstones to succeed. Then again, if he hadn’t remarried, I wouldn’t have been here… and his daughter would have had an unfortunate accident or twenty. Who’s to say she won’t? Those formidable boys come before the proper princelings in the line of succession. 

I was saved from the rest of the septon’s speech about crop yields by Helaena appearing. All she had to do was stand there, not asking for his counsel or advice or noticing him, to give me enough of an out to dismiss him. He wasn’t going to question why she presented herself in a shift, in the middle of the night, in the lord’s bedchamber I was residing in. That was a benefit of being married. 

She picked up a brush, sat down in front of the tall mirror, and began to brush the tangles out of her long locks. “You were distant all dinner, what’s the matter?” 

There wasn’t anyone around in the room. There were bound to be guards posted outside the door, and not the knight of flails. I marched over, sat down on a chair next to hers, and stared at my own reflection in the mirror. Is she a good replacement for a septon? That’s the wrong way to put it. Is a septon a good replacement for Helaena? “What’s the matter? We have to meet the Lady, that’s the matter.” Half the matter, I wasn’t yet ready to confront the other half. 

 She glanced at me through the mirror. “And? I refuse to believe the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms of Aegon the Dragon is unmade by a sheath-swirler living in her cloud palace.” 

Well when you put it like that, it is kind of ridiculous. “I… fear… this that which we do not know.” 

She let out a spittle-filled laugh. “You sound like Aemond when he’s about to give us a speech about darkness. All the mummer’s pauses. I’m not mother, I won’t thrash you for forgetting your courtesies. Be arrogant.” She waved the brush like a sword. “Aegon the Arrogant! I love it!” 

Of course you do. It’s better than Aemond the Sapphire Prince. 

I rested my chin in my hands and peered at her. “I don’t know how we are to confront the Lady. She’s shrewd and avoids stoking conflict, the only enmity we could look for is from the supporters of his rebellion. An unjust rebellion.” 

“There’s also the opportunists down by the coast, but I’ll forgive you for not counting them.” She sounded more tormented than I felt. 

“What do you advise?” 

“I gave my counsel before. The Stormlands approach. We don’t need Arryns, we need the Vale.”

“That’s the problem!” I groaned into my hands. 

“Ah,” she wagged her brush for a moment, before returning to her hair, “we fight the mountain clans. We prove ourselves better liege lords than she could be.” 

Either she’s not listening, or I’m not explaining it properly. “I’m not talking about…” I’m not explaining it well, “...right, listen, just listen. Borros inherits the seat of the stag kings. Who inherits the Vale when Jeyne flies away? Arnold, her legal successor, Joffrey, her closest successor that hasn’t tried to kill her, or Isembard, the man made of gold.”

“That’s your concern? She’s not dead yet.”

“You say that, and look at us,” I tugged on the sleeve of her shift, like everything else we wore, it was green. “He’s not dead yet!” I mocked. 

She nodded. “Well said,” she tapped her lips, “in that event, this is grandfather’s field, is it not? The Vale wouldn’t be the first of our realms to have internal conflict.”

I think I was going insane. “In one or two day’s time-” I snatched that brush out of her hand and pointed at her with it, “-when we are flying up to the Eyrie, what do we do?” 

“Bed me beneath the weirwood throne, you dullard,” she swiped it back and went right back to the spot below her shoulder she’d been combing. 

“Any other suggestions, Princess Alyssa?” 

She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m not Alyssa, I’m Jocelyn. If I was Alyssa, I’d want you to bed me on the throne, and make sure to repeatedly bludgeon that sensitive place that makes them hear me in Duskendale.”

What a wonderful suggestion, now I have to imagine that, don’t I? I had enough -or not enough- acumen to keep my jaw locked up, which resulted in making me look like I was sucking on a lemon. “Any other suggestions, Princess Jocelyn?”  

She sent a far-too-worrying look my way as she poured some oil onto her hands. “You’re making her out to be as violent to men and lustful for women as Maegor.” 

“She threw her cousin in a sky cell,” was my well-put together response. 

“Do you also want to usurp a throne-” before I could answer, she shoved an oil-covered finger into my mouth, “-that throne, her throne, not anyone else’s throne.” 

I took the bait. I licked the finger, made her stern and stiff composure collapse into Jaehaera-like giggles, and threw us both off the track for half a minute, or as long as it took to stop laughing at her. 

“How do we greet her?”

Here was her answer, a perfect mimic of my voice. “‘Good morrow, Defender of the Vale and heir to the Kingdom of Mountain and Vale, I’m Aegon Targaryen, hopelessly in love with one sister, perpetually in hate with the other. Here next to me is one of those sisters of mine, who I am married to. Despite sleeping with a sword between us, I’ve still put more children in her than anyone has ever or will ever put in you.’”

She was making this very, very hard to take seriously. It took yet another minute to stop laughing and try this again. 

“What are we supposed to do in the Eyrie?”

She chose to answer that one legitimately. “We are her guests of honor. She will feast us, be kind to us, and tell us of her troubles. We will have Arnold taken out, so that we may heed his troubles, and possibly send a raven to King’s Landing to acquire a royal decree to have him brought to King’s Landing to answer for his crimes. We will stay there as long as we must. How long must we stay there?” 

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to answer that, Helaena, who I have gone to to get answers. And because I like watching you comb your hair. It’s nice hair. That all said, her question did help ground me. “Until we know of the state of the mountain clans near Heart’s Home.” 

“Are we to take charge of a host and lead it there, or are we to take our dragons and fly directly to Heart’s Home and its defenders?” Before I could snap back, she jabbed a thick finger at me. “Armies take time to gather and march, but they offer us chances to gain experience in command, and to acquire allies in unexpected places. Many scions with no place in their keeps can find service-” her orchids narrowed to slits, “-and a new color, in an army.” 

She made me think. Not something I often liked doing. “I’d rather we fly to Heart’s Home. It has defenders, men, opportunities. Unless the wildlings acquired Dornish scorpions, I daresay the fight will be unfairly one-sided.” 

She scoffed haughtily. “Dragons make life one-sided. Only a stupid dragonrider gets within arrow range.” The haughitness vanished as she finished applying the oil. “As for the men. They’re men she has charged with its defense.” 

“All the more reason, is it not?” 

She considered it for half a minute. Her eyes lit up when she found her conclusion. She turned to face me, me in person, not me through the mirror. “Yes. Yes it is,” she ground out with utmost certainty. “A well-placed strike can win us the holy site and the holy line, no feasts needed.” 

That should have been it, my fears dealt with, my nerves put at ease. Be diplomatic and polite, and brief. Move on to Heart’s Home. Use the Stormlands approach where possible. Gains the most allies in the fewest moves, which attacking the mountain clansmen in defense of the holy site of Heart’s Home would accomplish. It wasn’t. 

I thought I hid the other part well. I thought wrong. 

She climbed into bed next to me, pushing her back up against the headboard. That was the signal. 

I laid down, head on her stomach, looking from the top of my peripheral up at her. 

“Something else is on your mind.” The words were a command. The atmosphere was helped by most of the candles having gone out, leaving her a silhouette but for the reflection in her eyes. 

The setting, her, the privacy of a single bed, the quiet, was just enough like the Red Keep to make me bend. “It’s her. From earlier.” 

“You should not fear her,” she soothed as she held my head. 

I should not, but I do. “The kissing. The…” violation of it all, violation of my personal space, of the bonds of marriage, of every single vow I could think of. I shuddered, thinking of what could have transpired. 

“Shh, shh,” she kneaded my hair, “I understand. You don’t need to ask for forgiveness. I understand. She desecrated us both.” 

It didn’t make sense. It just plain didn’t make sense. “How could the realm,” no, “how could father stand for this?” 

A minute of eerie silence passed. I glanced up at her, the eyes were far off. “You don’t remember, do you?” she seemed like she was asking it of herself, or of the air, or of some shade hanging over us both. 

“I don’t,” I whispered, suddenly very very concerned. What happened? 

Her eyes returned to me, and with them, the faint hint of a tug at her lips. A smile of guilt, of the past long gone. Of a prince’s memory long gone, I had thought for a moment. Of her husband’s, who had given her children, and who had loved them and her. Replaced by the shell of a man. How close was she, in that second that lasted an eternity? How close was she to breaking? To give up and admit the man she had been forced to wed yet grew to enjoy was gone forever? I did not ask, I only watched, for that shortest of moments, as the smile waned away. 

“She was much nicer when I was a girl,” she hushed, so low I barely heard it. “I was five, six, when she wed Velaryon. He used to pick me up and throw me in the air. He never visited us without treats. I remember when Jace was born. I didn’t know why Rhae was screaming, I thought she was being attacked by a dragon.” 

“You dreamt of it and thought it had come true.” 

She gently played with my hair, otherwise keeping her attention off in the distance. “A year later came Luke. A year after that, Joff. How was I to know the nature of their conception then?” she asked as she rolled one of my locks between her fingers. “To me, they were cute little babes, and their ‘father’ loved us all like we were his.’” 

Much as I liked hearing her coo, I was frustrated. “Helly, what is your point?” 

She let out a low growl. “Shh… shh… Rhae didn’t like us, but she didn’t dislike us. We were her little siblings, you, me, Aemond, later on Daeron. The sword-swallower was not their father, but he treated them like the sons of his own. He was not a man made for ruling, but he was kind, sweet, and gentle. For as long as Rhae was married to him, he had a way… maybe it was all an act, maybe it was real, a way of making her… nicer. She always thought she was better than the rest of us, that was father’s doing… but whenever he was around, he made her our big sister again.” 

I didn’t like where this was going. All of this changed one day. “This side of her… when did it begin?”

“Seven years ago,” her voice hardened to stone, “seven years ago. It was the first day of the second turn. The raven came right before sunset. Laenor was killed. I was a stupid girl then, I hadn’t even begun to flower, even I knew it wasn’t right. Nobody hated Laenor. Nobody… but one.” Her hands closed to fists. “One.” 

“The man that had been desiring our sister since she was six-and-ten.”

“No, not six-and-ten. Younger. Once he found out he’d never get the throne from father, he decided that he’d get it from our sister. Through our sister. She’d have ten thousand suitors, but he made her heart only yearn for one.” 

“And then everything changed…” I murmured to myself. 

“He was the man she had always dreamt of, and she was the throne he had always wanted. A Queen was supposed to take whatever she wanted, he had told her on their wedding night. I was outside the door. I heard it. I swear to you, let the Stranger take me, it was those very words. ‘You are to be a Queen, take what is yours. Name those who wronged you, and their defiance be tempered by Dark Sister. ’”

“Whatever she wanted…” the dread poured out, “...was him.”

“Ah, but he was clever. He did not tell her to lust for him, he told her to take what she wanted. It just happened to be that she wanted him.”

“What of the rest of us? What of the kissing? Old Valyria?” 

She answered in the same accent she used for him. “A Queen of the Seven Kingdoms, like the Kings before her, has appetites. None should stop her from claiming that which she wants. If the Queen dreams of a woman, she should take her to bed. As for Valyria? The Faith are the gods of the Andals, who Valyrian broke eons past. She is the blood of Valyria. The Faith hates carnal pleasure, the Faith hates queens, the Faith hates dragons, the Faith hates and forbids…”

I filled it in for her. “...and for all that the Faith hates, her-” no, “-his, his Valyria loves and allows.” 

“That is why she forced herself on both of us, and derided you for the very thought of being chaste. That is why she believes the Faith to be her foe. That is why she demands our obeisance.”

“None of those are her thoughts. They were his, his that he hammered into her.” 

She nodded. “For had he not, mother, a septa, us, anyone, any common handmaiden, could have told her he was trying to use her to get to the throne.” 

I began to laugh. I laughed from the absurdity of it all. I laughed because that was all I could do. “She says this. She, who is half Arryn.” 

She didn’t find it amusing. No, she was steadily getting angrier by the second. “She would rather we believe she is three-fourths Targaryen. He calls mother ‘the Hightower whore.’ House Hightower has endured since the dawn of days. Next to them, we are babes. If anything, we are half-Targaryens, who have the courtesy to wear the Targaryen name and bear the Targaryen dragon upon our surcoats and dresses.”

Eight thousand years, so mother claimed. Maester’s records support at least four thousand. It was… hard to grasp. Was hard to grasp. I had six months to do so. 

“She was nicer seven years ago.” 

“Was,” she rasped. “It used to be her. Now… it’s a side. A side that shrinks with every moon. When she… wanted us to be happy in the marriage bed…” her voice broke. 

I reached back and pressed my knuckles into her shoulder. “When she said that… yes?”

“That excitement? That was her. Look at it now. Twisted and corrupted. She’s no more than his catspaw…”

“And she doesn’t know.”

“No, Aegon,” she sounded fifty years older, “No, that’s what you never… never grasped. She doesn’t know, and she never will. He will stop at nothing to take the throne. She will die to Sunfyre, and we will all perish by his hand.” 

I did understand it. That was the problem. I did. That was the future. “We are trying to stop him,” I tried to reassure.

“It is too late for her. The girl I knew died in the shadow of the Dragonmont, as Caraxes roared. This woman will have us all killed, for his wants are hers.” 

I was reminded of a different uncle. He too lived in a kingdom of dragons, of fire, and of blood. He too led conquests. He too bore witness to a realm chafing beneath a line of kings who tried to make the world theirs. He suffered a loss, a loss that would kill most men, and leave the few remaining in miserable isolation for the rest of their days. He did not die, nor did he disappear into isolation. He became a mentor, first to his nephew, then to a band of heroes. Together, that band would bring balance to their world.

In his words to his nephew, also regarding a throne-chasing sister, ‘ she’s crazy and needs to go down.’

I could only give thanks to any number of divine beings that I didn’t have to fight someone who could shoot lightning from their fingertips. On the other hand, I regretted not having a master tea-maker on my side. 

I could have used a man with his wisdom.

The two of us fell asleep in slightly shifted positions; no longer was her head at the headboard, but on the pillows. My head remained on her stomach, the rest of me pointed off to the side so I didn’t trap her legs beneath my back. It should have been a nice sleep. All our dilemmas had solutions. I even dreamt of meeting the Lord of Runestone and gaining his allegiance in the war to come.

It was not to be. 

I was pulled out of my dream by quiet sobbing. Helly’s.

I didn’t move, I gripped her hand while looking up at her, hoping the dim reflection was enough. I held her hand and let her know I was there until the wailing subsided. 

“I need Maelor.”

That was why she had trouble sleeping? That's odd for her. “He’s not here. We’re in Butterwell’s keep, remember?” I shook her hand, as something as small as that had been proven to help her.

She sniffled. “I… I need him. I miss him.”

Where’s this mood swing from? “Do you want us to fly back to King’s Landing? We can be back within a day.” I meant it, too. Much as I wanted, nay, needed to be in Heart’s Home, I couldn’t deny my little boy anything. Least of all if she was fearful for him. Her fears often came true.

“No… I just…” she panted, “...I want to feel him on me again.”

“You want to nurse him?”

“I should have!” her cry rang through the room. “Mother made me stop… for… for…”

I patted her shoulder. “To conceive another.” Something neither of us wanted. “It won’t happen,” I whispered, caressing her shoulder, “I took that vow, and you don’t want another so soon.” Seven help us, I never have to touch my sister in that way. “We have three beautiful little babes. We don’t need more.”

“When we return I’d… I’d like to nurse him… again.” She steadied herself. “With, with your permission, my lord.”

My lord? What, did mother knock her upside the head? “Why would I refuse? Go ahead and nurse him yourself. I don’t need your Woolfield wool as much as he does.” That was partially a lie, but I could always take her dress and bunch it into a pillow. He needed her, not the dress. 

I couldn’t see her smile, nor did she give any thanks, but I felt the tension unravel in her. Her breathing returned to normal, her shoulders weren’t as wound up, her hands were their soft usual selves.

I gave her a few minutes to calm down. “Where did this come from? A dream?” Not a dragon dream… please.

It did. She described the dream in great detail. We were back in the bathhouse. Our beloved sister had been making Mushroom-esque comments about Helaena’s… features, except where Mushroom was purely spiteful and petty, our sister’s were laced with lust. I for one didn’t understand why comments about needing other women to nurse a babe were demeaning, but I also wasn’t going to challenge Mushroom’s favorite target.

In said dream, I was so offended by our sister’s remarks that I tried to tackle her. Instead, she grabbed me and kissed me. The same kiss as the real one, different outcome. In the dream, when she let go, some form of golden substance gushed from my lips. I fell over, and sank to the bottom of the pool. All the while, Helly was held down by a certain prince’s hands and made to watch.

When they were done with me, they shoved her into the hot spring, attempting to drown her.

She didn’t drown, not immediately. She sank, deeper and deeper, until the clear water turned blue, then black. As she sank, she sped up until she was in a free-fall. A familiar set of spikes rose to meet her, but when she tried to become Dreamfyre and fly away, the same familiar hands shoved her, eye-first, onto them.

That was how she awoke, gasping. The gasps turned into the muffled sobs that pulled me from my own sleep. Those sobs were for her son Maelor, who she ‘saw’ on the spikes. Had she nursed him, she convinced herself in that moment of guilt, he would have grown big and strong, capable of flying away as a pale green dragon.

It would have been easy to try and find deeper meanings in her dream. I didn’t. No, ironically, what caught my attention was one of the only ‘realistic’ parts; our sister telling us how we didn’t need to fear modesty in one another’s presence.

I was reminded of mother. Mother who also had her meetings in bathing pools. Mother who also had no qualms being naked -albeit, in the context of bathing- next to us. Mother wasn’t her. For one, she wasn’t incestuous. For two, her nudity was casual enough to suggest a cultural tradition. For three, she didn’t give speeches about the blood of the dragon, but she did often bring up Oldtown, and our ancient lineage, while bathing with me.

It couldn’t possibly be coincidental. I told Helaena of the similarities.

“I… never thought about that before,” she said, dumbfounded.

There was a lot in Westeros I could chalk up to coincidence. This was not one of those. “It cannot be sheer happenstance.”

“It must have been something they did as girls,” she offered, and I agreed.

We were such massive hypocrites, it went without saying. We derided her for her immodesty in the hot spring, while our mother did exactly the same, and we looked forward to it. Our mother was the one who encouraged us to enjoy dips in the pools and not concern ourselves with others; what with all of us being ‘together’ in the sense that it was us against the world. All our sister did was take that and make it lustier.

I was going to have words with the Queen when we returned. I couldn’t believe neither of us, neither, had thought of this before. 

That wasn’t the time or place to delve into it. The shock had worn off and Helaena had dozed back off to sleep murmuring of Maelor. I was quick to join her, we had a day of flying ahead of us.

And what a day it was. Butterwell’s servants had everything loaded, packed, and fastened within half an hour after dawn. We woke, bathed, changed into riding leathers, prayed in the sept, broke our fasts, and were off within an hour.

The night had taken its toll on Helaena and I. The first time I saw her smile that day was when we reached Dreamfyre. The blue dragon hissed at her and she beamed. It would also be the last for much of the day.

We had a full day of flying to make it to the Bloody Gate, which would -and did- leave all parties sore. At least Sunfyre and Dreamfyre had the chance to be playful now and again. The she-dragon would disappear into a cloud bank only to reappear behind us. My gilded he-dragon, not as acrobatic, would get his revenge by gliding down, picking up speed as he did, until he long outpaced her. He’d even throw his head to the side and let out a blast of golden fire to assert his victory. 

The whole day, and I mean the whole day, had those mountains steadily grow in size. They barely changed the first half of the day. Once we crossed the mighty Trident, they seemed to shoot up like a wall made to dissuade us. Alternatively, I was going mad from hours of flying, and once we crossed the Trident, I realized that a full third of the horizon was the mountains. The mysticism was further compounded by weather patterns, storms over the Blackwater eliminated visibility in that direction.

I wasn’t some kind of aerial measurement stick. The few times I peeked over Sunfyre’s back and down at all of creation below me, I surmised we were a few thousand feet up. I based this on the fact that we could breath, and we humans hadn’t both turned into icicles. All of creation. That’s just it, it wasn’t. The foothills were almost at our height.

When in the afternoon, we at last flew over the foothills and alongside those mountains, I took in their scope.

They were six times our height. The peaks and ranges criss-crossed. Valleys that had to be more than ten thousands feet high carved their way through the wall of snow-capped stone.

Now and then, when I looked, I could tell that every valley -every valley- that led out of the mountains had a castle near or at its end. How many hundreds of landed knights lived and died in those sunless valleys, charged with being alert at all times, lest clans come pouring out into the Trident?

With a mountain range thirty thousand feet tall, if I was being generous, it was obvious why the Arryns could never root the clans out. Armies of knights, levied peasants, and mercenaries lacked the logistics to march into these valleys for long periods of time. The defenders would always have better knowledge of their terrain. For every valley I did see, there were a dozen more hidden ones behind that first wall. 

It was early into the evening, the sun no more than an hour left in its rotation, when we spotted the high road, rounded a corner, and came upon the Bloody Gate. It was easily the widest of these valleys, and yet it was the Bloody Gate. Hundreds of years of Arryn kings had seen it bolstered and reinforced until it became a fortress of watchtowers spread out over this part of the high road. 

I was waiting to do this all day. “Sunfyre, announce our arrival!” No whip needed.

The dragon let out a deafening roar.

Dreamfyre joined in with her own.

The two dragons fell in, side-by-side, and began the slow, long, long descent to the Gate. With every circle, they let out another ear-blistering set of roars.

We didn’t need to land at the Bloody Gate. I had told Helaena I wanted to, “it is custom,” to which she agreed, and said she would have proposed it had I not. 

Was it because we cared about tradition? Maybe, we were a pair of dragon-riding siblings married to one another. A small part of me wanted to see the looks on their faces. 

That part of me was not disappointed. 

The dragons stopped past the last gorge, they were too wide to fit. The two let off soft croons as we climbed off them. Without any need to explain, only us walking off towards the narrow pass, the two massive creatures took flight. Not ones to be humble, they screeched and roared as they flew laps back and forth along the pass.

Had I never seen a dragon before, and then saw that, I too would be like half the guards, clasping their crystals and stars and muttering prayers.

A troop of knights galloped down from the Gate to escort us up. It was a short walk. It was still customary. The troop’s leader was a tall, broad-shouldered man with a square face. He wore a distinct three-spiked helmet amidst the company of round-tops. He fashioned his moon-and-falcon cape with a bronze brooch depicting three spearheads.

As we walked, the knight informed us that chambers and courses at the Gates of the Moon and the Eyrie had been made available to us. A feast was being prepared at the former keep, with bards and mummers. As for the dragons, the butchers were slaughtering cattle as we walked, to bring them to the same empty courtyard that once housed the Black Dread during one of the Conqueror’s visits. 

Helaena and I, of our independent wills, told him we’d rather have a bath than a ball. A day of flying left my lower half nice and cramped. I nearly collapsed when I climbed down from Sunfyre, the gilded beast saving me from an unceremonious fall on my face by using a wing as a railing. 

A single knight rode through the gatehouse. He wore a full suit of steel plate, white-and-blue roundels fashioned in the likeness moon-and-falcon enamelled in the white and blue of his house, his roundels and chestplate adorned with the sigil. A cloak, blue as the sky of our journey, was fashioned with a small silver falcon clasp. On his head he wore a winged greathelm with a visor shaped like a bird’s beak. I had to commend the artisans, two tiny slits for eyeholes was an excellent countermeasure for arrows… and an excellent way to disorient yourself. 

“WHO WOULD PASS THE BLOODY GATE?” He bellowed, his challenge echoing up the valley.

“Ser Kyle Moore, Captain of the Scouts of the Bloody Gate, and his charges, His Grace Prince Aegon and Her Grace Princess Helaena, of the House Targaryen,” came the rehearsed answer.

“Aegon Targaryen, son of His Grace, Viserys the First of His Name, King of the Andals, Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”

“Helaena Targaryen, daughter of His Grace, Viserys the First of His Name, King of the Andals, Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”

The knight opened his visor. “By the grace of Viserys, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm; and in the name of  Jeyne Arryn, Lady of the Eyrie, Defender of the Vale, and Warden of the East, I bid you enter freely, and charge you to keep her peace.”

That recitation was tame compared to holding court in the throne room, where every lowly landed knight showed up styling himself as the knight of one castle and master of five villages. Nobody cared that Garth Lake was Ser of Greenhill, Master of Greenhill, Oak Forest, Flower Meadow, Crossroads, and Slow Brook; but if he didn’t say it, he would be seen as less prestigious.

Truth be told, I didn’t want to listen to Joffrey Arryn -who had the same face as his namesake, one of the eighty six Kings of Mountain and Vale- give us a history lesson about the Giant’s Lance and the Gates of the Moon. The Vale was interesting… when it didn’t concern the Vale. Orwyle was once Orwyle Waynwood, even he agreed that it was wiser to study the Vale’s military and religious history as it pertained to the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. 

As an example: The Arryns spent two-thirds of their time in the Seven Kingdoms locked in a war with the Kings of Winter. Both sides of the Bite were covered in castles raised and razed over the thousand year conflict. It only stopped four hundred years ago.

As a second example: The Gulltown High Septons. Their chapters of the Swords and Stars led invasions as far north as Karhold and as far south as the Stepstones, and could be credited with dealing the death blows to the High Septons of Duskendale, Rosby, Storm’s End and Tarth. Gulltown would eventually bring the Trident and Blackwater under their sway. The two sides, Oldtown and Gulltown, would call for wars against the other often.

The Bloody Gate… wasn’t that. The Bloody Gate was never taken and only once gone around… by some Justman King of the Trident. Benedict or Bernarr the Somethingith had the wild idea to employ mountain clansmen as guides. One day, the man with the easiest job in the world -Knight of the Gate- had the misfortune to wake up to a burning valley. When he and his guards decided to sally forth against the men flying scales on their banners, they were hammer-and-anvil’d by lancers and horse archers, then run down by said lancers and horse archers. 

The problem with that history lesson, the Justmans were last relevant nine hundred years ago, and even that one Justman’s campaign could be summarized in a single sentence: He invaded the Vale. Just as he’d done to the Knight of the Gate, King Arryn’s banners converged on his forces from all sides and chased them right out of the Vale. 

Then again, we wouldn’t be visiting the Seven Kingdoms if the local lord wasn’t boasting of how his ancestor did something exceptional that one time in that one place in that one century. 

Ser Joffrey Arryn, I never thought it would be possible, eventually stopped talking about that bloody gate of his. “What brings Your Graces to the Lady’s Vale?” 

Why, a history lesson on all those landed knights. I’m sure knowing which one had the sigil of an egg and which one the sigil of a chicken was critically relevant to their fates. Their fates all being the same; dying while attacking that bloody gate of yours. 

Helaena, just as tired and sore as I was, yet twice as polite, answered. “We have come to fight the mountain clans attacking Heart’s Home.” 

Ser Arryn made the sign of the star and bowed his head. “The Seven bless you- Your Graces.”

The two of us inclined our heads at exactly the same time. Life was so much simpler when you had two flying nigh-immortal flamethrowers. 

When he finished thanking the Seven for our dragons -I tried not to laugh thinking of how that’d grind Dragonstone’s gears- he inquired “What are Your Graces’ plans?” 

I took that to mean ‘what is our strategic approach to the situation,’ and thus pondered it for a moment. Dragons were a useful asset. We’d go to Heart’s Home, meet with it’s defenders-

“Burn them all,” she said. 

My legs went stiff and refused to advance further. What the hell? “Helaena? What did you say?” 

She stopped and turned around, conflating my shock for misunderstanding.  “Burn them all. That’s what we shall do to the mountain clans. We have dragons.”

To her side, Ser Arryn nodded along agreeably. Why wouldn’t he? She was promising a decisive victory, not a single son of the Vale would have to die for it. 

Baelon and Alyssa, Jaehaerys and Alysanne, and Aenys the son of Aegon and Rhaenys. For absolutely no reason, I thought of our paternal ancestry at that moment. 

Burn them all. 

That was one of the first times, if not the first time, since I came to the Seven Kingdoms, that I truly fathomed that my wife, for all she was wonderful…

…was a Targaryen. 

Ser Arryn dispensed with the rest of the details as we reached Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, who, by their growls and hisses, didn’t like being forced to wait for us. 

Hundreds of raiders had gathered together, snuck through the forests and past the watchtowers, and struck at villages and a sept within five leagues of Heart’s Home. 

Heart’s Home, the castle and holy site, both sat at the western end of the Bay of Corwyn. The villages struck were in the foothills to its west. Heart’s Home, the lordship, extended thirty leagues west of the castle, much of it sparsely populated mountain valleys. Most of the lordship’s population lived around Heart’s Home or along the Bay of Corwyn. All thirty of those leagues were the responsibility of Lord Leowyn Corbray. 

No matter how quickly we defeated the raiders, Lord Corbray was in for a thrashing. Some of his subjects, those with no reason to suspect an attack so close to their holy site, died because he failed to see the hundreds of raiders coming. He was fortunate that I wasn’t going to deliver that thrashing. 

I never tried to counter Ser Arryn when he praised the Seven for our coming. Nobody was going to until I decided we should, and look at us, doing it of our own accord. Was that the doing of the Seven? Was it my own common sense? I didn’t know. The cynical side of me would say it was all my idea. Common sense would have been to take Sunfyre and get as far from all of these lunatics as I could. In my heart I found the answer. 

They made me Aegon, who shared a bond with his dragon Sunfyre, who had an ally in Helaena and her Dreamfyre. It was not the best of fortunes. Even if I was doomed to die to his machinations, that didn’t absolve me from trying to have the best possible impact on the Seven Kingdoms that I could. 

That night, when we landed our dragons at the Gates of the Moon, before going anywhere else or doing anything else, I went to the sept to light candles. The first candles were lit in thanks. The Crone for lighting my path, the Warrior for giving me the fortitude to mount Sunfyre, and the Maiden for reminding me of my duties to those commoners. 

Then I lit candles for guidance. Multiple to the Father and the Mother, for I needed their strength the most. Ser Arryn never overtly mentioned what he’d want our dragons to do. 

It didn’t matter if ninety nine out of one hundred of them were raiders. The ninety nine may have earned their deaths in raiding villages. The hundredth didn’t. 

Would I ever reconcile the mountain clansmen and the rest of the Vale? No. I couldn’t sit idly by either. Such was why I lit the candles and prayed. I needed answers. I needed to be told there was another way. I needed the strength to find that hundredth and to save his or her life. 

We were in the Vale; the land where ravens were sent before wars were declared, the land of parley banners, the land where innocents were spared and combatants were captured over being killed. Surely, I silently pleaded with the statues, surely of all the lands and all the realms, I would convince the lords to treat the innocents fairly. 

In the pit of my gut, I knew they weren’t going to. 

I feared to admit the first thought that crossed my mind when I had heard of the attacks. Raiders had attacked those I was charged with protecting. The time of diplomacy had long-since passed. 

Did I have the strength? If I didn’t, how was I to break the Free Cities and raise the seven-pointed star over Andalos? Pentos and the Triarchy and the rest, they weren’t as black-and-white as raiders and villagers. The slaves were innocent, yet were forced to reside next to their masters. Not all the masters required the same punishment. How many followed what their fathers did because it was what their fathers did? How many, if given the chance to repent, would? The fire of a dragon would not give anyone a second chance. 

I did not seek out the septon’s guidance that night. The septon of the Gates, an auburn haired man named Alyn, was happy to go on at length about the Book of the Maiden. The passages served to remind me of the hard path I had set out on, and reinforce my duty to follow it. I didn’t need his words, when the book’s were more than enough. 

I would kill my uncle and all those who he allied himself with. 

I would see the end of the slavers. 

I would bring an end to the abhorrent and abominable practices of Old Valyria. 

Would I succeed at any of these? How was I to say? If I failed, I’d fail trying. 

I had to stop myself from getting too… entranced by the prospects. Overzealous. Eager. Passionate. I was in the Gates of the Moon, I was about to go up to the Eyrie, I had to investigate the competency of Lady Jeyne Arryn, and I had to fight the mountain clansmen. All of this at least superficially in service of the Greens. 

Helaena and I feasted in the grand castle’s Great Hall. The knights competed for the chance to tell us that we were the first royal visitors in a generation. I would have preferred them competing for the chance to tell us tidings of Heart’s Home. All that we gained in relation to said tidings were echoes of Ser Arryn’s reports: hundreds of raiders had crept down from the mountains and through the forests using the storms as cover, and were still at large. 

Had I not flown by the Mountains of the Moon -which the knights assured were just as tall elsewhere in the Vale- I would have had a fair share of derogatory comments about the knights. After having seen them, from dragonback no less, I understood. The mountain clansmen were on foot, lightly armored, and knew the land as well as the knights. They did not need encampments or to retreat to holdfasts. The scale of the Mountains of the Moon gave the advantage to the lightly armored raider, not the plate-clad knight. 

Added to this, the war parties on both sides were small in number. These weren’t tens of thousands of men crashing into one another. The raiders and the defenders of Heart’s Home alike numbered in their hundreds. Heart’s Home could summon hundreds more to its defense, and beyond that, it’d need to draw upon levies. Levies needed to tend to harvests, not go on year-long expeditions into mountain ranges that have remained sparsely surveyed to this day. 

That was yet another issue. A small percentage of the Mountains of the Moon were mapped. The ‘major’ river valleys. Explorers who try to map the rest tend not to return, and for those that do, how can anyone trust their maps? Any counterattacks, campaigns into these mountains, required supply trains. Supply trains needed to come from somewhere and follow a set path, they didn’t just appear when someone shouted ‘Go, supply train!’ 

If all this wasn’t wonderful enough, these clans were rumored to live in wooden holdfasts in tucked away valleys. Rumored. They’d never been confirmed or denied. If the wild animals, the threat of storms, and the year-round fog didn’t delete the army from existence, marching right into a tribe’s home territory would. 

I had the bad luck to be sent into a world where I couldn’t pick up a radio and call in an artillery bombardment or air strike. Sunfyre was the closest option, insofar as instead of basking our enemies in the holy light of the Multiple Light Rocket System, he basked them in his golden fire. Did I trust Sunfyre to take me into terra incognita? Of course I did, he was a dragon. Did I trust Sunfyre to find his way back out? No, he was smart, he wasn’t a global-positioning service. 

After the fine dining, the two of us returned to our respective chambers. Ser Adrian Redfort, Keeper of the Gates, wasn’t Lord Butterwell. He didn’t try patronizing us with septons, much to our unspoken thanks. No, after a long day of flying, the two of us had the same need: a leg massage. Handmaidens diligently worked the cramps out of our legs while we read local tomes. Helaena picked a book on the Vale’s laws as set down by King Artys III, and I the Westerosi equivalent of an atlas of Heart’s Home, so I knew exactly the kind of disaster I was walking into. 

That night, we slept well.

The fears were, for once, behind us.

The next day, we would ascend to the seat of kings, and to its maiden. 

In retrospect, I should have remembered mother's lessons. The Maiden was once friends with the Bronze Bitch.

When the Bronze Bitch lived.

And hadn't mysteriously cracked her skull riding her horse on a hawking trip.

After spending her whole life in the saddle.

Chapter Text

VII: The Seat of Kings

6th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.6.127AC) 

6th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.6.1590AV)

The Eyrie was easily the most majestic castle I’d ever seen. The setting was one of panoramic views, the -very small- castle sat atop a mountain in the middle of a massive bowl valley, with a gargantuan mountain range ringing it in three directions. The castle itself was tiny, no larger than a landed knight’s holdfast in the Crownlands. Orwyle taught that there were storage rooms -and hidden ascents- carved into the mountain, akin to Casterly Rock. Personally, I felt bad for the small army that had to bring wood and other supplies up to the top of this snow-capped peak, whether by the waycastles or into the ‘secret’ vaults. 

The two of us circled the castle thrice. On the third, the red sun started creeping over the horizon.

I led our descent this time around. There were only two places large enough to support a dragon, even a ‘small’ one like Sunfyre; the garden and the courtyard. Not wanting to ruin a perfectly nice flower arrangement, I slashed Sunfyre on the head and said “Land at the courtyard!” 

Sunfyre let out a throaty rumble.

I should’ve known better. I told Sunfyre to ‘land at the courtyard.’ I should have told him ‘land at the courtyard without putting on a three-act drama performance.’ 

Sunfyre went up, not down, until he was directly above the courtyard. I had to wager he stopped a few thousand feet up. Once there, he decided he was tired of being a dragon. Why be a dragon when you could be a Stuka?  

He banked, closed his wings, and dove at the ground, letting out an ear-piercing roar. 

Instinct took over and I shouted a variety of expletives at him, all in a tongue he’d never heard before. 

He continued roaring, sending the quickly-growing ants on the castle grounds scurrying for their lives.

I kept shouting expletives at him. None of them had any effect, what with being in Hebrew. 

He knew what he was doing. 

He spread his wings long before we plummeted into the Eyrie and began to slow down. He landed in the courtyard as gently as a small bird. Said similarities to a small bird ended there, for he screeched at one of the only men still present, a knight with a surcoat depicting a weirwood with a burning face. 

Dreamfyre landed a minute later, hissing. At me? At Sunfyre? At the same knight? I didn’t know. 

Sunfyre had enough courtesy to lower his head for a change and let me off.

I rubbed the golden dragon’s snout while the knight went to one knee. 

“What’s wrong?” I asked the young dragon who was larger than most commoners’ homes. 

His brass-gold eye honed in on me and he bared his fangs. 

I wasn’t a dragon whisperer. “Princess,” I called over. 

The Princess appeared next to me. “Yes, my prince?” 

“Sunfyre is agitated.” 

“Sure he is-” she swept a hand around the courtyard, “-the two dragons barely fit. They don’t like it here.” 

That wasn’t a real answer and she knew it. We’d already agreed to let the dragons fly around while we went to treat with Lady Arryn. 

Why say something redundant, then? The knight? I didn’t have time to answer. She said something to Sunfyre in High Valyrian, and he took off. Dreamfyre joined him. 

The two of us stepped up to the kneeling knight. Helaena bade him rise. 

“Your Graces, I am Ser Endrew Erreg, Captain of the Guard. On behalf of the Lady, please accept this bread and salt,” at that, he motioned to a trio of blue-robed servants that had the courage to not flee the dragons. One held a plate of bread, bacon-like strips of meat, and salt. The other a pitcher and goblets. The third a small table. The table was set down, the plates were set down on it, and he poured us goblets. 

The three of us ate the bread and salt. “Rare are the hosts who feast with their guests,” I said as I finished the meat. I wasn’t much a fan of bacon in my past life, I had to admit this bacon was pretty good. 

“It is custom in the Eyrie,” Ser Erreg answered. 

Helaena and I shared a look. Poison. I turned to him and said “Do you fear poison, good ser?”

“Poison is the weapon of rogues. The Vale has had an infestation of them since the Lady’s youth.” 

Which kind of rogue? Helaena and I both wondered, glancing at once another. 

Once the confirming of hospitality was concluded, he moved on to standing rod-straight. “The Lady sends her apologies, the saddlebags have yet to arrive at the chambers.” 

He made it sound like the valet was late. In a way, the valet was late. Our saddlebags were offloaded at the Gates and given over to the Eyrie’s excellent mule division. Why? Helaena suggested it, ‘we are here on a progress, it would be unbecoming of blood royals to portage our clothes.’ A large part of me wanted to refuse, but I couldn’t deny the ceremony beneath her words, and -reluctantly- agreed. 

Then as now, the Princess took charge of terms. “Our rooms have been prepared, have they not?” 

“They have, Your Graces.”

She donned one of her court smiles. It would be far from the last time today. “Then all is well, Ser Erreg. When is the fast to be broken?” 

“The first bell… fifty minutes from now.” 

“Who shall be in attendance?” 

“Lady Arryn, Lord Redfort, Lord Hunter, Lord and Lady Waxley, Lord Crayne, Ser Corwyn Corbray, Lady Jessamyn Redfort, Ser Gilwood Hunter, Ser Villon Waynwood, Ser Jormar Borrell.”

Why, that’s an earful. A third of the Vale’s strength is waiting for us in the High Hall. 

“Thank you, Ser Erreg,” Helaena said warmly. “His Grace and I shall be in our quarters.”

He bowed his head. “When will the dragons return, Your Graces?” 

Helaena laughed, because it was funny. Apparently. I didn’t think so, but I also kept my mouth sealed. “They are dragons, they fly for as long as they desire. Keep the courtyard free, they will return to rest here.” 

 “Yes, Your Graces.” 

The Eyrie was deceptively large. The corridors we went down had vaulted ceilings with high narrow windows. Every inch of the wall, and ceilings, and floor, was made of mosaics. The floor’s were simplest, a pattern of tiles that depicted House Arryn's heraldic imagery. The walls were more elaborate: full-body portraits of past Kings and Queens of Mountain and Vale, standing next to their consorts, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, and even steeds. Each of these monarchs was given an equal portion of the wall. 

The whole history of the Vale could be told by walking around some of these corridors, so Ser Erreg had claimed.

King Robar III was depicted sitting on his weirwood throne, the star of the Seven rising above him. 

His daughter, the Queen Jeyne who lent her name to the Lady, wore a lizard-lion over her shoulder. 

Her son, Osgood I, held a map in his hands while a falcon perched on his shoulder, looking down at the map. 

His son, Oswin I, stood atop a dead direwolf, his longsword’s blade plunged through the gray beast’s neck. 

His son, Oswell I, held a pink cloak in his hands. 

His son, Jonos I, wore a gray direwolf’s head in place of his falcon crown. 

His son, Artys III, sat on the weirwood throne with a set of scrolls.

His daughter, Sharra I, held up a broken golden trident, as lightning cracked overhead. 

As interesting as Sharra the Smiter, First of Her Name, Queen of Mountain and Vale, was to hear about, I found more interest in Ser Erreg’s surcoat. 

“What is on your surcoat?” I asked as we walked. 

He slowed down to turn it to me. “The sigil of House Erreg, Your Grace.” 

A weirwood with a burning face -fire streaming out of its eyes and mouth- on a black field. Orwyle would be similarly ablaze if I failed to recognize one of his Vale’s houses. 

The surname and the sigil clicked into place. Erreg the Kinslayer. Not before Helaena could steal the identification -and possibly spare me the embarrassment of forgetting- “King Erreg of High Heart is your ancestor.” 

“He is, Your Graces.” 

I wasn’t going to pretend to be some hypocrite and claim that his house’s ancestry was ‘uncultured’ or ‘intolerant.’ I too have felt the urge to kill my sibling then take an ax and torchest to the nearest blood-drinking heart tree and chop it into firewood. The trees were part of some network of tree elves who had a strong dislike for mankind. Who knows, maybe one day once my sister pays for her high treason, I will go past the Wall and barbecue some elves. Still, the trees weren’t the people worshiping them. To the best of my knowledge provided by the Grand Maester, the North stopped practicing such black arts a century past. As to whether any still do… how was I supposed to know? 

When I first showed up in Westeros, I committed to remembering all that I could of the Dance. It was hard enough attaching events to names and names to faces. I wasn’t an encyclopedia. 

There were many details about the future that I also remembered. Case in point, my great-great-great-great-great-great grandnephew, the Godsgrief reborn, hammering my other great-great-great-great-great-great grandnephew, a prophecy-obsessed lunatic, in the chest at the Trident, before dethroning my great-great-great-great-great grandnephew, a mad tyrant. I was slightly, just slightly, jealous that I didn’t end up in an age to see said battle. 

 Seeing as I wasn’t a repository for every little piece of trivial detail, I had to rely on the Grand Maester. If the Grand Maester said the North was religiously tolerant, I had no choice but to believe him. I was also going to note that said tolerance came at the behest of Balerion the Black Dread, for Aegon was very tired of the Arryns and Starks killing one another in the Bite. 

We were shown to quarters within the Moon Tower, on account of being of royal birth. As with the rest of the Eyrie, it was smaller than a lord paramount’s seat should have been. The two of us had adjacent quarters, plenty of fresh sheets, fresh rushes, fresh refreshments brought up from the larders, and even two bathtubs whose water was collected from a rain-fed aquifer dug into the Giant’s Lance. ‘Rain’ being a broad term, clouds crashed into the Eyrie daily and the Giant’s Lance was eternally snow-capped.  

The two of us took our baths -we could hardly refuse the hard work already done on our behalf- and reunited in my bedchambers. Lady Arryn provided us handmaidens, apologies, and clothes; the handmaidens to bring her apologies for not having our clothes, and the clothes so we would have something to wear beside riding leathers. 

We took a five second gander at the offerings before rejecting them. Helaena did so with a tone as sweet as honey. I did so with a brief settling of amethyst eyes on the poor teenage noblewoman unfortunate enough to bring me clothes. 

We came to an unspoken agreement, we’d die before stuffing ourselves in robin’s egg blue and milk white. Sure, from an outsider’s perspective, the color scheme was nice. White and blue were distinct, moreso in a kingdom where every other house shoved a precious metal into its heraldry. 

Part of me even liked seeing the Arryn’s blue and white, it reminded me of the national flag of my past life. Said part of me was drunk and nostalgic. It only took a few seconds to then be reminded of the flag’s awful design: the blue was too dark, the shuriken didn’t fit. I’d always find myself trapped in a feedback loop of asking myself ‘Why not the menorah?’ or ‘Why not the lion rampant, like the capital?’ 

The handmaidens eventually made themselves scarce, save a few to act as cupbearers. We took a refreshment of, what else, bread, a bitter cheese, and small beer that seemed deliberately designed to wash down the taste of the cheese. “I was surprised by Sunfyre,” I began, in Oldtowner, pouring myself some of the small beer. “He was well-behaved yesterday and when we set off from the Gates.” 

“Dreamfyre was the same.” She poured beer for herself. “Barth would have us cite the bond. Our mounts are wise.”

“I have nothing to be upset about,” I raised my chalice.  

She clinked it and chuckled. “And I have no fears. To His Grace the King, Viserys, First of His Name.”

The rest of the room joined the chant, hailing the Young King and the Merry King.

‘And she has no fears.’ I had my answer, nestled within her cheerful demeanor. I’m fearful of Lady Arryn, so he’s angry at the Eyrie. The golden -if one will- question was, did he have reason to suspect them of wrongdoing, or was it all in my head? To answer that, I turned to my sister. 

“Do… does Dreamfyre have any reason to be afraid?”

“Dreamfyre dislikes this place. She would rather be in the Reach, where she may fly freely.” She gestured to me with the emptied vessel. “Does Sunfyre have any reason to be angry?” 

Do I? “I cannot think of any now, yet I am also in dire need of food.”

She shrugged, a hilarious sight in her riding leathers. “Dragons are smart. He has never been to the Eyrie. What he does not know, he fears. What he fears, he hates.” 

Thanks for destroying our cover, I grumbled to nobody. Were the servants wise enough to pick up on our subtlety? If I learned anything from King’s Landing, the answer was a resounding yes. 

“We have a third of the Vale’s strength here,” I stated, impatiently picking at the bread. All those lords conveniently form the block of her strongest supporters. How, pray tell, are we going to ‘Stormlands’ this? 

“You must forgive me, I had thought Ser Corwyn would be leading the defense of Heart’s Home.” 

Why the non-sequitur? It would be pointless to get left behind, so I took the hook she offered. “Why is that? His martial prowess?” Rare did a Valyrian steel sword pass into the hands of a man other than the lord. Rarer still for a sword like Lady Forlorn, who had followed the Corbrays since Andalos. 

“Ser Corwyn is…” she cleared her throat, “...not a man for books on warcraft and the training of levies. He is a man made for tourneys and battles, not for scrolls on warcraft and training levies.” 

Here is he, reading scrolls on warcraft and training levies. “Are any of the other knights here of a…” I rolled my wrist, “...similar disposition?”

She shook her head, sending her creamy ringlets falling in all directions, much to the disdain of the handmaidens. “None whose tales have reached the Red Keep.”

I ripped the piece of bread in half. “We must arrange a meeting with Ser Corwyn, for the defense of the Vale.”

She nodded, her eyes telling a different story, ‘once he is with us, we will make him a green.’ 

While I had to concede that the act of plotting was exhilarating, it was still wrong. “Mountain clansmen first. We must…” what must we do?... “...kill the raiders and not the innocents.” 

The shock of what I said made her spit her beer out. “Innocents?” Her eyes darkened. “What innocents?”

“Not all the mountain clansmen need to be burned. Their wives and children-”

She hammered the table with her fist. “Out! All of you! Out!” 

The room vacated itself. 

She picked her silk glove off the chair and slapped me across the face with it. “Are you awake now, Aegon?”

I rubbed my forehead, wincing. “Yes… yes, I am awake…” I exhaled slowly, keeping my temper in check, “...what in the whore of Dragonstone were you thinking, striking me?” 

She knelt in front of me. “It is a mercy. You walk into the High Hall and talk to them about the innocent mountain clansmen, and they will strike you with worse than silk gloves. Lady Jeyne has a sky cell waiting for you and I.” 

“I am not that foolhardy.”

“Good. You bring up the innocent mountain clansmen with me, and I’ll remind you again.” 

By slapping me with a silk glove. That wasn’t something done. “What has taken hold of you?” I asked, calm as I could, as I wasn’t angry, I was befuddled. Even if I’d somehow made her combust, we were adults, not children. 

She studied my eyes. “What has taken hold of you? In what hell do we spare savages that rape and pillage our own loyal smallfolk?”

Ah, it’s a minor miscommunication, I thought then. “I never said I would spare the raiders. Their families-”

“What families? What villages are these raiders dwelling in? They’re raiders. Raiders with the same savage blood.”

“You’d have me give them no quarter,” it wasn’t a question, as it was clear by her eyes that courtesy and Lady Arryn were all that was stopping her from carrying that out. 

“I’d have you bring our house words to any who dare harm ours,” she said at last, clapping me on the shoulder and getting to her feet. 

“Where does this ruthlessness come from?” 

At that, she softened, her lips curling into that reassuring smile of hers. “You. The other day, in Stokeworth. Father and mother gave me all these…” she sighed, “...duties. You cut through them all. You were going to the Eyrie, you were willing to do it alone. Mother would have us consider Lady Arryn’s temperament, father would have us at his feast. You, you saw through all of that. Heart’s Home is part of the Seven Kingdoms, our Seven Kingdoms.” She made a fist. “Your namesake brought our house words to all those who would harm his smallfolk.” 

He burned down swaths of land for the crime of not wanting to be conquered by him. I could not and did not say that to her. Instead, I sat back and made sense of everything. My statement the other day had kindled the same protectiveness in her that she has for the commoners of King’s Landing. Assuming that was her mindset, then, much like her punishments for outlaws, this defensiveness wouldn’t relent until all the mountain clansmen were dead. 

She was right. I was right, originally, before I took an introduction to philosophy course in my mind. 

This notion of peaceful treatment didn’t apply to raiders. They were raiders, here to loot and pillage. All those romantic customs of sending ravens before declaring war applied to men of virtue, not those who come out of the hinterlands and attack indiscriminately. 

I thanked her for reminding me, claiming that she was unique for doing so, and she threw her head back and laughed. 

“That’s how marriage works,” she said. “One day it’s you, the next it’s me. We only have each other to keep ourselves from being blown around by the latest rumors and tidings.”

“And stupid notions of peacefully treating with mountain clansmen,” I added, joining the amusement. 

She waved at the air, chuckling. “Don’t be so prickled. I’ve lost count how many times I thought ‘why don’t we fly to the Iron Islands and bring them under the light of the Seven.’ The Seven Kingdoms are large and full of men and women desperate to end up in songs. As grandfather would say, ‘the young malcontents aspire to a realm of their own making, the old spurned lords chafe for legacies they shall never have.’” 

That was a perfect mimic of grandfather’s wording, voice, tone, inflections, and even his unflinching gaze. 

The two of us finished our appetizers, had our hair done into Oldtown styles, donned our coronets and rings, and set off for the High Hall. Only Dragonstone had a higher concentration of our sister’s supporters. 

The High Hall looked exactly as the Grand Maester’s books showcased it: a long hall of blue-veined white marble with tall narrow windows and tapestries of famous battles. 

At the far end sat the Throne of Mountain and Vale. Right behind it was a gigantic mural of a falcon, the falcon’s talons ‘cradling’ the thrones from above. As someone who has spent far too much time standing within the vicinity of the Iron Throne, I found Arryn's seat nicer. The two thrones -one slightly larger than the other- were carved out of dead weirwood trees. The age had turned the weirwoods gray, making the thrones look like they were made of finely carved stone. 

The consort’s throne was vacant. 

Jeyne Arryn sat alone on her throne. At a distance, she was a perfect dopple for her ancestors, long blond hair, deep blue eyes, and a sharp nose. The ancestor -or rather, kinsman- she chose to venerate this morning was the Flower of the Mountain. To either side of the giant falcon mural were a pair of tapestries. Both were iconic in their own right. 

The first showcased the Queen Consort, presenting King Joffrey with the rainbow cloak as the seven-pointed star appeared in the clouds above. King Joffrey and all his knights and banners would don the rainbow cloak to ride out in their holy war with Harren Hoare. 

The second was of the Queen Regent from behind, standing atop the Gulltown Light, watching a sea battle offshore as a white falcon clawed open the belly of a blood-red dragon overhead. This was the Battle of Gulltown, when the combined naval might of the Vale crippled the Velaryon fleet. Only the intervention of Vhagar, not shown in the tapestry, saved the Targaryens from losing their entire naval arm. 

Helaena and I exchanged the smallest of glances at once another. The second tapestry was treasonous, I was certain Dragonstone would think as much. The first was little better, it prominently featured the Warrior’s Sons, King Jaehaerys would have labeled it illegal and ordered its burning. 

We were not the Conciliator and we were not Dragonstone. 

‘This is an opportunity,’ I heard my grandfather saying, and saw my sister thinking. I wasn’t going to look a gift falcon in the mouth. 

The long hall was sparsely filled, no more than a score of nobles and twoscore guardsmen. Lords Creighton Redfort, Petyr Hunter, Bermar Waxley, and Colemon Crayne I recognized. Their kinsmen and kinswomen and other present nobles -such as a man and woman with the Waynwood broken wheel- I did not. The guards, meanwhile, all looked identical: Silver plate armor, winged helmets, sky-blue surcoats and cloaks, stood in perfect unwavering silence. 

The herald cried our names. 

“Presenting, His Grace, Prince Aegon and Her Grace, Princess Helaena, son and daughter of Viserys the First of His Name, King of the Andals, Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm.”

The guards went to one knee, managing to keep their spears up. 

The lords, old and young, dropped to one knee, some surer of foot than others. 

The Warden of the East rose from her throne, descended the dais, and curtseyed deeply. 

“Few are the visits of the dragonkings to my pristine Vale. Be welcome, Your Graces,” she said from her curtsey.

The two of us exchanged brief pleasantries, I on the Vale’s majestic scenery, Helaena on the Vale’s bountiful fertility. 

Up close, Erreg was onto something. Her voluminous loose-sleeved silver and sky-blue silks, long thick gloves and leggings, and copious amounts of makeup couldn’t hide her thinned face or sunken eyes. I’d been around Helaena long enough to know someone thrown into week-long bouts of depression from fears that may or may not exist. Helaena had her ways to fight it: her children, visiting the smallfolk, eating and drinking like they were the last meals she’d ever have. Did Lady Arryn? The Eyrie was to King’s Landing as a fortified inn was to a town. 

I could have stated our -my- reason for coming immediately. Mother would say it ill-mannered to discuss matters of the realm before enjoying the bounty of hosts. My instincts sided with her over being rash and -potentially- speaking out of turn. Plus, it allowed the two of us to read the room under the guise of eating. 

We were to break our fast on, of all things, fish. Fish from Longbow Hall. The rest of the plates and platters were full of indescribable plant matter of which similar boasts in distance were made; Coldwater Burn, Strongsong, Wickenden, Gulltown. I wasn’t one for said plant matter, but fish, fish I knew well. The salmon was caught, smoked, transported dozens of leagues, and carried up thousands of feet, all for me to eat if I felt like it. At least in King’s Landing, Aenys’ laws made what we didn’t eat find its way into our households’ dinners. 

Goblets of ale were filled. Lady Arryn raised hers, and with her, the rest of the room raised theirs. 

“To Rhaenyra, Princess of Dragonstone. Twenty queens have worn the Falcon Crown and ruled our Mountain and Vale since Artys raised it. To Princess Rhaenyra, the first of many queens of the Seven Kingdoms!”

“Hail Princess Rhaenyra!” 

“The Princess of Dragonstone!” 

Other such chants were called out. Up on the high dais, the two of us echoed the “Princess of Dragonstone” and drank, while Lady Arryn -in a far quieter voice- smiled as she said “Cousin” and drank hers. 

Further toasts were called. The King, the Queen, the realm, me, Helaena, a long autumn and short winter, and the Vale the land of prosperity. No mention of Heart’s Home. ‘Wait’ Helaena advised with her eyes, and so I did. 

The feast went by quickly. One at a time, nobles would leave their seats and make their way to our dais. There was an unspoken order of precedence being obeyed, lords oldest to youngest, heirs oldest to youngest, sons and daughters -considered equal- went oldest to youngest, cousins and kinsmen oldest to youngest, and at last everyone else. Some nobles took their time to praise my recovery from the accident and Helaena’s recovery from birth. Some did so to offer well-wishes to the namedays of our twins and Maelor. Some went further and informed us of gifts they were sending. Some spoke of the construction projects they had finished. 

The only one who stood out was a knight named Theo Templeton, fifth cousin to the Knight of Ninestars. 

Some ancestor of his -I didn’t ask, and I didn’t care- was offered land in Harrenhal in return for service. His father lived and ruled from a landed knight towerhouse in Harrenhal’s domains. During a border war between the Strongs and Goodbrooks, his father was killed. Lord Lyonel dispossessed Theo and his family, citing his inability to protect his villages. The lands and titles were taken from him and given to, of all things, a Frey.  

With what little gold he had left and a disdain for a life in a city watch, he went to Saltpans and took passage to Pentos. From Pentos, he went on a pilgrimage to Andalos, visiting the holy sites. Where many pilgrims return to Westeros after, he had nothing to return to, so he took up service as a guard for a septry. 

He would still be there had a band of peasants, searching for someone to blame for the latest Pentoshi failure in their wars with Braavos, not come through and sacked the septry, putting most of its occupants to the sword. The few survivors fled towards the coast. A tradesman, sympathetic to their plight, offered them free passage across the Narrow Sea to the Fingers. All of that led him here, to the Eyrie, where he serves as a household knight to the Eyrie. 

Why did he come up to us? To tell us of the tales of Andalos? No. To ask us to take the matter of his dispossessed lands to our grandfather the Lord Hand. The rest of that was just detail to explain how he went from heir to a landed knightship to having no possessions of his own but a single crystal pendant around his neck. 

Helaena and I were equally horror-struck, and not by his plea for having his lands returned to him. “And no septons spoke out against this sacking?”

“None I’ve heard, Your Grace. Would that they did.” 

“Why is that?” I asked Helaena as much as I did the knight.

The knight had no reply. Helaena, in her sweet court tone, offered “Septons have little power in matters across the Narrow Sea.” 

I read between the lines. The High Septon is a tool of the Iron Throne. Any mention of Pentos risks open war between the Iron Throne and Pentos. 

I wasn’t the Iron Throne. “Where are the other survivors?” It was a rhetorical question. He claimed they separated at Heart’s Home. 

The knight didn’t know. 

I told him I would bring his matter before the Iron Throne. 

He thanked us, we gave him his leave, and another knight came up from the block of household knights. His tale would stay with me, even if his face, and the names and stories of the rest of the preceding and following knights, didn’t. 

Rare did I, a Kingslander, hear of Andalos from a first-hand account. Those exceptions were often peaceful ones, of septons or begging brothers or second sons finding passage to Pentos and traveling the rocky hills of Andalos, visiting holy sites, and returning enlightened. While the tales were inherently spiritual in nature, once I peeled back all the visions of the Seven and the beauty of some rock formation, Andalos was painted in common hues of brown and gray. It’s not to say I discounted their tales. Far from it, I remembered them where I forgot a majority of the lords I’ve met. It’s that, in the grand scheme of the Seven Kingdoms, in the great game between Oldtown and Dragonstone, the pilgrims of Andalos fall by the wayside.

Oh the irony. All those distraught, desperate, and downtrodden commoners bound by faith -or sheer anger- would one day get their revenge. Almost every time I looked at the Dragonpit and heard the dragons roar their dominance, I’d see it in the back of my mind. A smoking ruin. You’ll kill my wife and they’ll kill your kingdom, starting with the beasts that made us divine. 

I sometimes let my mind wander; did they care that the dragons in the pit were ridden by the very woman and children they were prepared to die for? Then I remembered, of course not. From far below, all dragons’ silhouettes looked the same, only differing in size. Inside the Dragonpit, for all the dragons were of vastly different sizes, they were all equally beasts to the untrained eye.

A few minutes after the last household knight and his well-wishes for Maelor returned to his post, Helaena leaned over to me and gave me the signal. “Strike now,” she whispered, covering her face from the side with a handkerchief she’d been using to clean her cheek. 

Lady Arryn raised an eyebrow at us from Helaena’s right, but otherwise had the sense to not intervene in our little familial intrigue. 

I rose. Helaena provided the backup, barking “Silence!” at the crowd. Between the two of us, the feast goers stopped their side-chatterings and gave me their attention. 

“Five days past, reports reached King’s Landing of raiders attacking Heart’s Home. I sought the Crone’s wisdom. She raised Her lantern and reminded me of my duties as a Prince of the realm and an anointed knight, one of which, the defense of my father’s bannermen. Black or Green, all gathered here are my duty to protect, as a prince and anointed knight. I come to you now, to you-” I turned to Lady Arryn, “-to pledge myself to the defense of Heart’s Home and the Sept of Corwyn. In sight of the Seven, my sword and my dragon Sunfyre are yours, my lady.” I bowed my head to the Defender of the Vale. 

I could sense Helaena’s disapproval, too wordy, too revealing. Even so, she maintained the united front, rose, turned to the Lady of the Eyrie, and repeated the same words. “I pledge myself to the defense of Heart’s Home and the Sept of Corwyn. In sight of the Seven, my sword and my dragon Dreamfyre are yours, my lady.” 

I didn’t care if she found it counterintuitive to mother and grandfather’s lectures. I wasn’t Helaena. 

I wasn’t going to be father and pretend that there wasn’t a color war going on everywhere we turned. I wasn’t going to close my eyes and imagine that every single present individual wore black-fringed clothes and black favors. There was nothing illegal about the factions. Factions and faction blocks were part of all governments, from the lowest lord’s landed knights squabbling over a field to the magic-and-realpolitik of the Forty Families. 

We were Greens, the Vale was full of Blacks. The way I saw it, may as well admit the obvious early on, let everyone know that, yes, I knew the men I was fighting for preferred my sister’s claim. They didn’t need to trust me to keep my word, I was going to anyway. 

If they thought of me as some immature boy unprepared for war, all the better. The prince before me did not command military expeditions. In my past life, I led my squadron to success in battles with irregulars. What did that have to do with commanding an infantry operation in unimaginably tall mountains with supply lines made of mules? Absolutely. Nothing. 

In fact, I was unprepared for this style of war. I’d read up on it in the Red Keep, which would be great if books were buttons that, when pressed, granted infinite knowledge. They weren’t in my past life -not that I bothered to read them- and they weren’t in this life, as Orwyle often pointed out to us Targaryens. Dragons helped inflate our egos. True knowledge came from experience. Better to gain the first steps by torching fur-wearing savages in an unfair curbstomp than, say, fighting the Velaryon fleet with enemy dragon support. 

If Helaena brought it up, I’d tell her the truth. No, I didn’t care that the Vale was full of lords who preferred my sister’s claim. Raiders were raiders, Heart’s Home was as much part of the Seven Kingdoms as the Ringlands. 

If she tried to push, I had a defense ready. I was going to be King of All Andals first, not King of the Seven Kingdoms. Andalos was not to be a land where we drew the line at factions, the king would defend his borders and his people, for that is what a knight was supposed to do. Andalos would welcome all Westerosi, even those whose origins were in the frosty north or islands of iron, so long as they pledged to a set of vows inspired by the Seven-Pointed Star. If they were so devout as to be unwilling to break with the offering of prisoners to heart trees or reaving and taking of thralls, then they could go back to their hellscapes of choice. 

I was going to see the words ‘By the old gods and new’ realized beyond a customary saying. 

Why, she may ask, would I be so tolerant, in spite of the name and the stylization? I had no adequate answer for her. I knew that a certain lord would come along in a century’s time, one so honorable and virtuous that he bought the deceptions a little mockingbird sang to him right up until the headsman took his head. His wife’s own honor saw her deceived and tricked by a man she had every reason to believe was a friend. His eldest son attempted to be the man his father wanted him to be, only to, like his father, be killed dishonorably. 

If there existed even one noble individual from the lands where men were -once- sacrificed to heart trees, then there existed many more. The same with the Iron Islands, I refused to believe all of them were interested in doing nothing but reaving and taking slaves. 

Or so I kept telling myself. For every inch I pushed in that direction, my instincts were reminding me that this was the Seven Kingdoms. Guest rites and parley banners and the rest only went as far as the collectively understood agreement known as ‘universal societal norms.’ It only took one ambitious lord to throw the stability of society into chaos. A realm in its infancy like Andalos would be rife with them. 

Helaena was one face in a crowd. A crowd that -if only ceremonially- took speakers at their word. 

They hammered the tables and began chanting. “Prince Aegon!” “Princess Helaena!” “Fire and Blood!” The last one quickly enveloped the rest. 

“Fire and Blood!”

“FIRE AND BLOOD!” 

How long has it been since I mentioned how much I hated my house words? Everyone shouts them for everything. All they do is inform the mortals of what Targaryens bring wherever they go. Why couldn’t we all be Durrandons? ‘Ours is the Fury.’ Now that’s a battle cry. I may or may not have used it in my past life while in operations. I blame the gunner for shouting it before firing his 120mm. 

Lady Arryn seized the furor of the room for her own ends. “Your Graces’ oaths are accepted. In sight of the Seven I swear to give no orders of Your Graces that would go against those of His Grace, nor will I impose any commands on you that I would not ask of myself. I only ask to be included within your councils.” 

The two of us gave our assent. This was the path we were going down, come scorching desert and frozen mountain, it was the path we would see to its completion. 

The room erupted in crazed excitement. Chants of “Defender of the Vale!” and “As High as Honor!” and “Our lady” and “Maiden of the Vale!” joined in the aforementioned trio. 

Lady Arryn patiently waited for them to die down before strategically opening those gaunt lips of hers. The top ones, this wasn’t my elder sister. 

“On behalf of all my Vale, I ask that the raiders be dealt with swiftly.”

“What is your suggestion, my lady?” asked Helaena, as the crowd watched with held breath. 

She clasped her hands together and smiled, relishing the royal question. “Do to the forest the wild savages strike out from as the Conqueror did to Black Harren’s hall.” 

I thought the room was in a frenzy beforehand. That set them into a devoted rage unlike any I could recall before. 

In seconds, the room was screaming “Harrenhal the savages!” “Scour the savages!” “For Heart’s Home and the Vale!” “Death! Death! Death!”, and in the middle of all this, led by Lady Arryn herself, “Fire and Blood!” 

I didn’t have as much as a second to contemplate how the Vale would settle for nothing less, Helaena parried her quick seizure with a strike of her own. “Prince Aegon and I accept. We shall burn them all.” 

“Burn them all!”

“Burn them all!”

“Burn them all!” 

I was grateful when the clamor at last waned. Lady Arryn must’ve hated the quiet, for next she called forth bards and singers. I ignored all their songs of courtly love and the battle-riddled history of Mountain and Vale to blanket my thoughts in Gulltown Red. I found glassing a forest easier to accomplish when my past life’s then-modern sensibilities were drowned in wine. 

There were rules of engagement in my past life. One of those wasn’t ‘take your tank and delete everything between these two coordinates.’ Yet here I was, new life, new world, the kindest soul I’d met here, the rock of my life, the stalwart companion I could always turn to, toasting and cheering to the Harrenhal she’d make out of that army and its forest. 

I drank until my past life’s modern sensibilities disappeared into the Narrow Sea, and joined her cheering. 

Earlier I’d come to terms with these raiders deserving no quarter. That was an easy enough hurdle with them being raiders attacking villages and septs. 

A dragon was, in theory, a clean killing machine. No Valemen had to die. Did that make it right? I wasn’t sober enough to answer that then. 

In a better light, when not forced to make the decisions in place of philosophizing about them from a position of abstract decadence, I might have said ‘no.’ Dragons set a bad precedent in the Seven Kingdoms. Dragons were an addiction. Dragons’ unstoppable natures made them a solution to everything, until they were the only solution left. 

On the other hand, Lady Arryn’s bannermen were calling for it. I had to trust that those knighthoods of theirs were genuinely earned. I had neither the time nor patience nor willpower to investigate each. Westeros wasn’t run by ruthless heartless bastards, or we wouldn’t have one kingdom, let alone seven, let alone one hundred. 

I would fly to Heart’s Home and turn the mountain clans’ encampment into Harrenhal. Immediately after, I would go to King’s Landing and take my confession with Septon Eustace. He gave me wisdom when none -other than Helaena- would, and this was rearing up to be an instance where she couldn’t.

It wasn’t Helaena’s fault, and I wouldn’t go after her. Just like her sister, her views were the product of how she was raised. Our elder sister, for instance, was raised to rule the Seven Kingdoms and delegate everything deemed beneath her. For someone who did as much for the smallfolk as Helaena did, why wouldn’t she be fiercely protective of them? To her, the mountain clansmen, outlaws, and gold cloaks were all of the same breed. I saw where she was coming from. I found myself agreeing with it… up until that Harrenhal point.

Who knows? In time, with more life spent in this seventh hell, I might agree that Harrenhaling is the surest cleanest way to deal with enemies too dishonorable to parley with. 

Helaena pulled me out of my introspective stupor with a tug on the shoulder. “Lady Arryn is inviting us to her solar,” she said in a jarringly loud Eyrie dialect. I turned to find Lady Arryn, who bobbed her head in agreement. 

The three of us departing didn’t mark the end of the feast. Lady Arryn encouraged the feast to continue, citing something about good food and good singers going to waste otherwise. I wasn’t paying that much attention, we two Targaryens had our arms looped through the other as we followed her out of the hall. 

I was paying enough attention to hear her calling for the bards to play “Black Harren’s Fall.”

The ‘solar’ turned out to be in the Maiden’s Tower, in a room that doubled as a guest bedchamber befitting a Lord Paramount. The lack of visiting Lord Paramounts -none of the lesser lords were worthy of the bedchamber- left the room vacant, and capable of being used as a solar. 

The pine round table sat four. Lady Arryn took a far chair, the two of us pushed our chairs next to one another. To some ignorant traveler, with the thirteen year age gap between Arryn and I -fifteen between her and Helaena- we must’ve looked like two highborn adults being chastised by our governess. 

Quite the opposite occurred. 

“My prince and princess!” she beamed, “You should have written to me first! You deserve a feast better than this!”

Good thing I didn’t know what I was eating and forgot the rest of it, then. “Our adventure was not planned out,” Helaena said to my side, all parts humility, as Lady Arryn poured us drinks. Beer. Not the drink I thought the highest of highborns would aspire to.

“It should have been.” She turned to me. “Aegon! I have never seen a dragon as agile as Sunfyre, nor a prince as comely as you. You must forgive my whispers of indecency, I speak for the ladies of the Eyrie.” 

So the lickspittling has begun? I nodded my gratitude. The prince before me enjoyed this.

She turned to Helaena. “Hela! Two births, and you’ve a form to rival the Mother herself!” 

“It was no easy feat.” Helaena tipped her head courteously, she wasn’t that easily swooned. Not in court, I should say. 

“How have you accomplished it? I must know. I count wives among my bannermen. All of them would be envious of your beauty.” 

Helaena, not one to be courted, is this courting?, is this flirting?, is this more lickspittling?, leaned in and turned cunning. “If you must know, it is my husband’s fault.” 

Lady Arryn rotated her whole head as if it was on a ball joint and glared at me. “How?”

I bowed my head, feigning stupidity to hide my ignorance. “The higher mysteries of women are beyond me, my lady. I do what feels right.”

“My husband wishes to play humble, that’s how he gets in his mornings.” Underneath the table, she prodded my shin with her shoe. “In truth, I would have laid in bed all day after Maelor, but for Aegon. He took me and insisted we go for rides and walks around the city.” She thrust a thick hand at Lady Arryn. “This is my counsel for your ladies of the Vale. After they have given birth, once they are fit enough, go for long walks and rides.” 

Her advice was far from controversial or original. As it was her giving it, and Lady Arryn here to lick some spittles, it was twisted into being the sagest of wisdoms. Lady Arryn thanked her, repeatedly, and called for a toast. “To the Seven-Who-Are-One, for bringing His and Her Grace to my Vale.” 

The two of us plus the two ladies-in-waiting of hers joined the toast. 

We drank. The mention of the Seven reminded me of Ser Templeton. 

“You have a knight in your service. He has seen with his own eyes the suffering of the faithful in Andalos.”

Helaena put her goblet down and set me with a quizzical look. 

Lady Arryn exhaled slowly. “Your Grace,” she was as smooth as butter, “every other knight in my ranks claims to have been to Andalos. All they have to show for it is a crystal pendant.”

I’m sorry, what? I slipped out of my courtly intonations for a moment. “You would name him a liar?” 

“Far from it,” she calmly retorted, “a wanderer sees what he sees. Last I knew of my maps, Andalos is not part of my Vale. Take your grievances to High High Holiness, the Shepherd of the Faithful.” 

 I was struggling to keep my calm. “Those are your brothers and sisters named in the light of the Seven, dying one week’s sail from your domains.” 

She inclined her head and laced her fingers around her goblet. “The death of a septon is a tragedy, to be sure. Septons die every day in the Seven Kingdoms, killed by bandits, followers of the old gods, drowned men, and one another.” She finished her cup, set it down, and set me with a lord paramount’s cold gaze. “I rule the Vale, not Andalos. Would that I had any additional men, they would be sent to guard the Bloody Gate, Gulltown, or Runestone. They would not be sent to die for a land of grass and rocks.” 

“A land of grass and rocks populated by septons and commoners from your lands.”

“There is no law being broken by taking a sword and opening one’s own throat. Sailing to Andalos is a similar fool’s quest. Any who brave it, their fates are theirs. Not mine. No son of the Vale will march to die to defend some rocks. If they wish to die, I would rather they die defending Runestone.”

Runestone. My Andalos rant was derailed then and there. Helaena and I held our breaths at the same time and turned to one another. Runestone. 

I saw her eyes flicker with fear. Him.

As one, we faced Lady Arryn once more. Lady Arryn, the woman in her thirties with the gaunt face and sunken eyes. 

“You have been poisoned before,” I started, in a low timbre to match my grandfather. 

“Many times,” she japed, “we Arryns are hard to kill.” 

“By who?” Helaena inquired, feigning confusion. 

“There are many men and women who would prefer I depart the Eyrie through the Moon Door.” 

“Ser Arnold?” I asked, like Helaena, pretending to be unsure. 

“Arnold has many cruelties. Poison is not one of them. The man who believes he is the rightful heir does not need to resort to poisons, he needs only press his claim.” 

“Who, then?” 

She reached into her chest and pulled out a silver locket. Opening it revealed a woman’s portrait. She had gray eyes, red-brown hair, and wore a small bronze coronet. The artist was detailed enough to give the coronet little black runes. The woman had her lips set in a tight scowl.

“You are not too young to have known her,” Lady Arryn almost seemed to goad as she handed us the locket.  

“Lady Rhea Royce,” Helaena reminisced.

Lady Arryn’s smile didn’t extend to her eyes. 

“He is the one poisoning you,” we both said simultaneously. 

Lady Arryn took another drink of her wine. “Prince Daemon hates me nearly as much as he hates our Queen. I am a memorial to his Bronze Bitch, you see. Rhea grew up in the saddle. She liked riding ahead of her hawking parties, ‘I need the wind in my ear, not the gossiping of maidens.’ I was the fourth one to find her there. Her horse that had carried her from the Fingers to the mountains of Strongsong had lost its footing next to a stream. The maesters have their tale, the horse was old. I have mine. For as long as I live-” she picked up the locket and let it dangle, “-for as long as I live, the Vale shall never forget this. Prince Daemon would rather I did, permanently. Arnold is one of his tools. Poison is another. Mountain clans are a third for all I know. His fingers are everywhere.” 

“Why… have you never taken this to… to my father?” Helaena spilled out, no longer the Princess, now just Helaena. 

Lady Arryn let out a derisive laugh. “Your father would never believe me, no more than he would if you told him. Neither of you knew Prince Daemon in his youth. He was a man of easy smiles and bawdy japes, until he was denied that which he coveted. Then, then, then the real prince would emerge. No god nor man could save those who stood between the Prince and his wants. If I leave my Vale, I will never return. My own Eyrie is dangerous enough.” 

Like Helaena, I was beside myself. “How can you be so… open… if you fear him?”

“I do not fear him. Were there a law to accuse him of killing someone, half the realm would need to lose their heads. No, this is gossip. Gossip preached by an unwed maiden living in the clouds.” She thrust a bony finger at the doorway. “I had that tapestry of Queen Sharra at Gulltown made after Rhea died. Let him come and claim Runestone. He and House Velaryon will water the Narrow Sea.” 

Why is she telling us this? I had an inkling. She wants us to fight for her against him. 

Helaena, stupidly, opened her mouth. “How could you support his wife?”

Arryn’s blue eyes darkened. “Your father is Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. Lord Royce can bluster and bellow all he wishes, he has no right to tell me who I name heir to the Eyrie. Lords Paramount and Wardens may boast and threaten, none of them were coronated by His High Holiness. None of them sit the Iron Throne. Who he chooses as heir matters not to me. I will follow his choice, for he is my liege, as Lord Royce must follow mine. Rhaenyra is a fine woman and a capable administrator. The realm needs someone as decisive as her to counter the Triarchy.”

Helaena, still stupidly, still kept her mouth open. “You’d be giving the realm into the hands of the Prince.”

Lady Arryn nodded. “Prince Daemon is a cruel man. Cruel men do not last long on the Iron Throne, no more than they do on any throne. Cruelty shall see his line fall as quickly as it rose. Honor keeps one’s dynasty alive for all time.” She tapped the table with her fingers. “This matter is resolved, is it not? You did not come to turn me green.”

I had to save some face before Helaena torpedoed us both. “We did not, my lady. The Vale is my father’s realm, you are my father’s bannerman, as is Lord Corbray. I would swear this upon the Star if I must.” 

She held up a hand. “There is no need. Men are men of their words until they are not. When they are men of their words, they need never swear oaths. When they are not, no oath can save them. You did not swear a vow to me, you swore it to the realm. Take Sunfyre and go save the realm, my prince.” 

I couldn’t tell if she was being extremely sarcastic or if she had stones the size of the Mountains of the Moon. Point is, don’t get drunk while talking to royals. Or talking to drunk royals. 

Since Helaena had discovered her idiocy in the past tense and clamped up, I had to try and formulate a plan. “Will you convene a meeting of knights to command the defense of Heart’s Home?”

She considered it briefly, before answering “I shall, though I know not what you mean to accomplish.”

“A campaign from the Gates of the Moon launched at Heart’s Home.” 

“That you shall command?” She tilted her head. “Begging Your Grace’s pardons, how many battles have you seen?” 

“None. I need to start somewhere.”

She pursed her lips. “Find some other region. Knights of the Vale are not toys to be thrown about at will.”

“I intended to oversee it,” I corrected myself, “not command it.” 

“As you are. Any man from the Gates of the Moon would take weeks to reach Heart’s Home. Shall you desire a mustering, you must account for all the days it will take for the levies to arrive, then halve the speed of the campaign.” 

Weeks. Heart’s Home was all of forty leagues away, or so I’d been informed. Weeks. In a flat open country, without any need for supply trains, riding alone, forty leagues was doable in two days. A campaign did not consist of one man and no supplies. Campaigns moved as fast as its slowest link. Mules were not known for their speed. 

“What about forming a small band of knights? I will take Sunfyre, provide aerial support for Heart’s Home, and they will arrive to bolster the castle’s defenses. Once they have arrived, we may ride into the Mountains and go hunting.” 

She looked at me like I’d gone mad. “This is the Vale, all bands of knights are small bands of knights.”

Right… I took another drink. Five hundred men was an army. 

“Forgo my want to call the lords and knights to a council. We will fly to Heart’s Home… on the morrow.” I needed time to process what Lady Arryn had revealed. 

At last, Helaena returned to reality. “We will fly to Heart’s Home now.” 

Lady Arryn threw her head back and chortled. “Just as your saddlebags have arrived!” 

Was that her trying to keep us around? 

Helaena wasn’t interested, for she yanked my hand. “Tell them to load the bags onto the dragons. My husband swore us to the defense of Heart’s Home. We cannot defend Heart’s Home from here.” Beneath the tugging, there was a look in her eyes. We should leave. 

What did it say about me that I bought her suggestion without question? I agreed with her. 

So ended our unceremonious visit, with Lady Arryn laughing at our diligence. “The realm needs more princes and princesses who live in their saddles!” 

Lady Arryn called for one of her ladies-in-waiting to escort us back to our quarters, for it would be unseemly to vanish into the skies without a send-off, and I used the -genuine- excuse of wanting to pray. 

Lady Jessamyn Redfort looked less like a corpse. Her blue dress and blue veil complemented her fire-red hair, or what little of it I could see. 

“Your Graces, may I ask a question?” 

“Go ahead,” I bade her, while Helaena watched. 

“Was this a royal command?”

Helaena glanced at me, I took charge. “No. I-” I, not both of us, I wouldn’t have her be blamed for this, “-heard reports of raiders attacking Heart’s Home, and took Sunfyre up here.” 

“Has His Grace permitted you to intervene?” 

No, no he hasn’t. By now he knows we’re no longer at Stokeworth. I took too long to answer. 

“May I offer some counsel?”

“Go ahead,” Helaena waved her on. 

“Tell them the truth. The commoners love a prince and princess who fly to save them from their enemies.” 

Yes, yes they would. It’s right out of a song. That begs the question, why is she, a black-trimmed confidant of Lady Arryn, telling me? “Boasting of such matters is undisciplined,” I answered, half-heartedly meaning it. 

“Better to tell them before your father sends a royal command to have you return.” 

Yes, let them all know we’re defying their laws. That’s an excellent idea. Thanks, Lady Redfort. I donned the court smile. “Your insight is appreciated, my lady.” 

“My lady, I have a question for you,” Helaena implored. 

Lady Jessamyn bowed her head. “Anything, Your Grace. I serve at your pleasure.”

Oh, you shouldn’t have said that, Helaena’s going to mock you to death now.

Close enough. “You are skilled with sums and known to be honorable. How have you avoided the surfeit of suitors?”

“I was taken on as a lady-in-waiting by Lady Jeyne in her youth.”

“Come now, my dear, we both know you are not built for pouring wine. You are built for more than that.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “What am I built for, Your Grace?” 

“Ruling a castle. You would make a fine Lady of Harrenhal or Oldtown.”

I heard Jessamyn’s breath quaver. “In a single stroke… you’d make me… the Lady of Oldtown?” 

Helaena’s eyes glinted as she dropped her voice down to a sultry whisper. “And you’d never have to have a single man touch you for the rest of your life…. Cousin Ormund took a vow of chastity when his Myria perished.” 

I had no idea if Cousin Ormund took a vow of chastity. He’s been widowed for four years. Some men remarry, some do not. He has three sons.

“I must consider this, Your Grace…”

“Try not to consider it for too long, the Lord of the Hightower has more suitors than your Maiden.” 

We returned to our chambers to refresh ourselves before the flight and prepare for it. The Eyrie’s maester brought maps of the Vale for us to refer to and take along with us. Lady Arryn, by way of handmaidens, gave us a pair of rainbow-threaded belts, cloaks, and crystal lanyards.

The saddlebags that had recently arrived were brought over to the courtyard and loaded onto Sunfyre and Dreamfyre. The two dragons had gone for their flight and come back, calmer than before. 

“I told you, Aegon, let them fly out in open spaces and they are happy.”

Happy and dragons were not words that belonged in the same sentence. I wasn’t in the right mind to disagree. 

Nobles crowded into the windows facing the courtyard to watch us mount our dragons. 

Ser Erreg and all his knights raised their swords as one and yelled “May the Seven give you strength!” 

The dragons lowered their serpentine necks enough to let us climb on. We tied ourselves into the saddles so we wouldn’t fly away, tied the whips to our wrists so they wouldn’t fly away, and raised our whips to the highest balcony, where Lady Arryn, Lord Redfort, and Lord Hunter stood. 

We saluted them -her- with the whips.

For ten seconds, dead silence. 

Then, a pair of quick cracks, the two of us lashing our mounts across their necks.

“Sunfyre, up!” 

“Dreamfyre, up!” 

The dragons opened their wings, roared defiance at the heavens, and took flight. I couldn’t hear the nobles’ cheers over Sunfyre’s roars and Dreamfyre’s screeches. 

Sunfyre rose like an arrow, Dreamfyre coiling around us. 

Thousands of feet above the Eyrie, we set off eastwards. Even that high, the Mountains of the Moon towered over us. 

After what couldn’t have been more than half an hour of flying, Dreamfyre darted ahead of us, screeched, and began circling. 

I looked at the ground. We were somewhere, that much was certain. Ten thousand feet above a landed knight’s keep, if my difficulty adjusting to the lightness of the air was anything to go by. Said keep and the string of villages it lorded over sat in a heavily-farmed plain. A tiny squiggle cut through some of the farmsteads, that was their brook. If this is Heart’s Home, I’m a master of intrigue. 

I whipped Sunfyre into hovering next to Dreamfyre, who had halted. 

I couldn’t hear anything Helaena was saying over the wind. I could and did make out her using her whip to point down at the plains. 

Ah. She wants us to land. 

Dreamfyre began to descend, I had Sunfyre give chase. 

Sunfyre won and landed in a fallow field. Dreamfyre landed a few seconds later, hissing and snapping at the two of us for ‘cheating.’ 

We weren’t cheating, Dreamfyre wanted to go dance around the skies, Sunfyre wanted to land. 

“Why have we stopped?” I asked as Sunfyre hissed below me. I wasn’t going to unstrap myself from the saddle if I didn’t have to. 

For all that I asked, I knew the reason once I saw her circling. It’s time for a debriefing. The true question was, what are we being debriefed about? 

She walked Dreamfyre up next to me. Dreamfyre raised her neck so that the two of us could look eye-to-eye. Our dragons, meanwhile, were disinterested.

“Mother taught that we should solve our quarrels before they are used against us,” she clarified.

I scratched my head. Not how I thought this would go. “What are we quarreling over?” 

She took a deep breath and looked off at the mountains, not me. “I know not a more cordial means to say this, so I ask for your forgiveness if I come off as cruel.”

Why, we’re halfway to a confession here. “You have it.”

“What madness -” she boomed, “-inspired you to bring up our sister’s faction and ours in the High Hall?”

Dreamfyre did not match her emotion. Dreamfyre was nuzzling Sunfyre’s head. No wait, not nuzzling, pulling a piece of meat off it. 

I did say I’d tell her the truth. “Everyone in the High Hall knew we were Greens, and we knew they were Blacks. What, what is the point of pretending that we’re all on one side? I said what everyone knew, said that they were all my enemies, and still swore to fight for them.”

“Is this your idea of being honorable?” She barked. 

“It’s what Artys Arryn did. Tollett was not his ally, yet he led men to defend Torgold’s lands from Darklyn’s sellswords all the same.” It was the right course to take then, and it was the right course to take now. I’d been thinking of it during the short flight from the Eyrie. 

All the anger drained from her, replaced with a sort of sorrow. “Oh, Aegon, my sweet Aegon. Artys Arryn has been dead for a thousand years. We do not live in an age of knights and songs.” 

“Why don’t we?” was my answering challenge.

“Dragonstone wants to turn the Seven Kingdoms into the new Valyrian Freehold. That is the foe we must rally together to fight. Any man who supports Dragonstone is supporting that…” she curdled with disgust, “...that and those… those Braavosi… and their… statues.”  

Really, now? Everyone supporting Dragonstone supports my elder sister’s behavior, which itself is due to his grooming? I wasn’t quite convinced. “Do you think I am mad, Helaena?” It was a heartfelt question. 

“Misguided, not mad.”

“Why? You just denigrated me for being a thousand years in the past.”

She sighed, yearning. “I too want to rule in a land of the songs, where knights ride out to fight outlaws, and maidens build cities for the poor.”

“We can make it so, Helly. You have been, with your work in King’s Landing.” 

She looked on the verge of tears. “I tell myself that every night, in my prayers before bed. ‘We can change the realm.’ Can we, Aegon? Can we? Are we going to fly from the Arbor to the Wall, fighting every band of raiders we see?”

“If Sunfyre has the energy for it, I would want nothing more… right, that’s a lie. I’d want one thing more than that, and that’s playing with the babes. Take Jaehaerys, Jaehaera, and Maelor with us everywhere; fight raiders by day, set up toy armies, fly around on broomstick dragons, and read them to bed by night.” 

Her smile lasted all of a few seconds before a cloud covered it. “Grandfather will not agree with us. He wants us serving the Greens.” 

I excluded the irony of that statement. We are the Greens. “We are serving the Greens. Do you see our sister climbing onto her fat dragon and coming here? Of all the lords and ladies in the realm, Jeyne Arryn’s her strongest supporter, and she hates our sister’s husband.” 

Helaena ran a hand through her hair. “So… all of this is a scheme?”

“No. When I said I’d fight for the Vale, I meant it. I will fight for the Vale. I will fight these mountain clansmen. It is the just act. Justice has no factional alignment. That said, I will not play the dullard. Not to you. There’s an opportunity in everything, that’s grandfather’s words. Fight for the lords and commoners, win their support, and our sister will lose before the first sword is drawn.”

“She has dragons.”

“Dragons are hard to kill. Dragonriders are not.” 

She took a minute to think it through, then bowed her head in conciliation. “I agree with you. I agree with you. I do not go around King’s Landing ignoring those who defend our sister’s claim. They are welcome in my street councils as much as those who defend yours are. However, we must be mindful of grandfather and mother. We should inform them of our, of your, intentions. We could do with their support. If naught else, mother can soothe father’s wrath.”

“Was that all for why you wanted us to stop?” I pointed at the sun. “Sun sets early in the high mountains.” 

“Jeyne Arryn hates him. Why hasn’t mother tried turning her?” 

I had a vague memory of mother telling me about Lady Arryn and Lady Royce’s friendship. It was during one of our bathing plotting sessions. I’d compartmentalized it and filed it into a cabinet somewhere, as mother said that Lady Arryn was Dragonstone’s strongest supporter. “That is a question for mother, is it not?” 

Helaena growled. “If she had told us! We could have come up with a plan! A way to convert her!” 

Ah, right, thanks for reminding me. “Why were you trying to convince her to join us?” I’d say ‘did you take leave of your wits’ but we all did.  

“It was one of mother’s lessons. When someone confides, take that and use it to help our house.” 

I ignored the implications of the lesson. Mother had to be ruthless to keep her standing in King’s Landing, and, most of all, stay father’s advisor. Helaena was good-natured, not naive. 

She might be a tad stupid, though. “Why did you think it would work? Lady Arryn hating him doesn’t make her a supporter of us.”

“It could,” she refuted, “it could and it has. I’ve seen mother do it with lords from the Stormlands. I tried, she gave the answer I hoped she wouldn’t.” 

Wonderful plan, that one. “She’ll think of us as ambitious graspers.” 

“Everyone thinks of everyone else as ambitious graspers.” 

That’s a justification? Maybe she’s right, maybe that is a justification. No. No, she’s wrong. That’s just stupidity. Words said cannot be unsaid, however. Anything Lady Arryn came to conclude she came to conclude. I had other places to fight. Other people, too.

“Why did you propose that marriage with Jessamyn and Ormund?”

She smirked. “I felt like it. The whole feast’s formality after formality, arse-kissers who’d rather eat Maelor than give him dolls. I felt like having some fun.” She ‘poked’ at nothing. “I felt like bothering her, so I did.”

“Do you have any power to control such a marriage?”

“No. Grandfather knows she’s an advisor to Lady Arryn. If she can be made to pull her head out of her maiden’s maiden’s place, she leaves her maiden up in the cloud kingdom.”

“Lady of Oldtown… that sort of power…”

“Did you see her when I offered it?” Helaena’s own eyes lit up with excitement. “That wasn’t some mummery. She wants to go beyond the Eyrie. She’s been a handmaiden since she was a girl. Even if the two are in love with one another, she’s thirty, she’s been dreaming of a legacy beyond ‘handmaiden to the Maiden of the Vale’ her whole life. What woman wants to die having done nothing?”

The modern part of me shoved open my mouth. “Some people are content with nothing… or love.”

She shrugged. “I’m sorry her mother dropped her on her head.” 

Right, we were getting off-topic. I was. 

I went back to the topic at hand. “Let’s say she becomes Lady of Oldtown. Is there not the potential she uses that power to serve our sister and hurt us?”

“She’s welcome to try,” she bantered, “she won’t take it.” 

“You just said she wants to go beyond the Eyrie.”

“Yes, and tonight, as she’s licking her favorite sheath, she’ll confess to my suggestion. Her liege-sheath will hold her in that way those Lysene do and whisper sweet pleasantries into her ear. Mayhaps she’ll name us ambitious graspers-” she inclined her head at me, “-and reassure her with promises of her own. None of her liege-sheath’s promises will succeed at usurping my words. As she lays in bed, she will doubt herself and her liege-sheath. She will wonder, ‘is all of life worth this liege-sheath, or am I built for more?’” Helaena gestured to me. “At that point, she will go beyond the Eyrie. Recall grandfather’s words, ‘all men have a price.’”

All men have a price, and we’re made of gold. “To Oldtown? She’d go to Oldtown?”

“Harrenhal. Oldtown is far away. Harrenhal lets her ride back and forth to the Eyrie to lick her favorite sheath. Lord Larys Strong has no interest in women.” 

Well that’s not something I’d ever heard before. “He’s a sword-swallower?”

“No, he has no interest in either. He has even less interest in ruling Harrenhal.”

“Harrenhal would give her power.”

“Under Lyonel it had power. Under Larys it’s a ruin. If it did turn to our sister, our allies along the Red Fork would kill one another for the chance to take it for us… and them.” 

I could see sense in her reasoning. Was it honorable? No. Was that the metaphorical hill I’d die on? No. I had a mountain to go die on instead. “Do you believe Ser Templeton?” I asked, as Sunfyre fell asleep. Dreamfyre was still up and lively, moving around, making Helaena rock back and forth. 

“Yes, yes I do,” she answered, before barking some command in High Valyrian at Dreamfyre, who knocked her head into Sunfyre’s neck, making him wake uo. He hissed and roared at us… and went right back to sleep. 

“Do you agree with Lady Arryn?”

She gave it a few seconds of thought. “From your perspective, no, I don’t agree with her. From hers, yes.” 

Oh this is going to be a curious one. “Why is that?”

“You want to protect our brothers and sisters of the faith in Andalos. It’s noble, it’s knightly, it’s courtly, it’ll make every maiden you meet need new smallclothes. She fears the Blood Wyrm coming to take what he wants. Were I her, I’d want to protect Runestone first, even if Lord Willam is a boy of six-and-ten with no affinity for me.” 

“You are not her, you are you.” 

“Why, you’re halfway to being a maester with that poetry. Aye, I’m me,” she coiled up her whip and cracked it on Sunfyre, who bolted awake and screeched at her. She didn’t even flinch. “I’m with you, Apple,” she played up the false sardonicism, “we should be defending them. Yet we aren’t. Father would never risk war with Pentos.” 

A lightbulb exploded inside the cavity of my skull, giving me a migraine. No wait, that’s the alcohol. “Who said we had to go through father? The Stepstones were taken by thieves and pirates, and he welcomed its conqueror back. If thieves and pirates could fight a war, why not holy men sworn to the Seven?” 

“We do not have the gold to field a sellsword army.”

Ah, that’s where you misunderstand. “We don’t need a sellsword army, Helly! Look around you. What do you see?” 

“Mountains.”

Thanks, I’m not the only sharp one here. “What else do you see?”

“A handful of farmers ogling us from a distance.” 

“Men named in the light of the Seven. Eighty years ago, the rainbow star rose over the Seven Kingdoms. The dragons could not break it. They had to make concessions.” 

“Father would send you to the Wall for this” she warned, suddenly aware of what I was implying. 

At that, I laughed. “You’re not Father, and who said we needed to arm the Swords and Stars? The Seven Kingdoms are full of followers of the Seven. How many of them are landless hedge knights?” 

“Thousands,” she murmured, picking up on my implication. 

“There’s hundreds of second, third, and fourth sons out there who stand to inherit nothing. If you could choose, wouldn’t you rather they not go off and join sellsword companies in the Disputed Lands?” 

“If I had the choice, I’d rather see them return to their mothers alive,” she replied, distantly. “That’s what any mother wants.” She inhaled slowly. “I am not made for war and conquest. Bring this up with grandfather.” 

“If they agree?”

She leaned over. “You want to hear me say ‘Why yes, Aegon, I’ll follow you to Andalos.’”

No point in lying. “Yes.”

She closed her eyes. “I will not say it. Aemond buys them toys and takes them flying, he is not their father. The Queen spoils them, she is not their mother. The three of them need us. Would you, in your quest for Andalos, be willing to leave them fatherless?”  

That was a question I never considered. I had to, and there was no better time than now. “If I am still adamant?”

Her orchids drilled right through me. “Go to the twins, tell them you will fly off to Andalos, and that…” her voice cracked, “...they may never see you again because some Pentoshi burned you alive to appease his red god. Tell them!”

Dreamfyre roared. 

“I will,” I avowed. 

“Yes, you will. Yes, you will. You will fall to your knees and tell them everything.” 

“And if they say yes?”

“Then they are stronger than I am.”

You don’t want me gone. I would have offered her my hand had we been closer. It was better that we were a few feet apart, it made us look one another in the eye. “Do you fear my death?”

Her eyes blanked out. “I have dreamt it a thousand times.” 

“And if I told you that I had no plan of dying?” I quipped. 

Her face didn’t shift. 

Fine, this haunts her, I won’t push. “Why tell me to go to grandfather, why tell me anything, if you are that afraid of my death?”

“What would you rather I say? ‘Sit in the Red Keep,’ ‘Don’t go flying,’ ‘Don’t uphold your vows of knighthood.’ He is coming for us all. Mother’s children and the strong boys alike, so that his own Aegon may sit the throne.” 

“You have dreamt that?”

She found some of her old voice. “It was a few nights past. The boy sitting atop the Iron Throne, Syrax and Sunfyre coiled about one another at its base, dead.” 

I didn’t want to think about her dreams. Her dreams sent chills down my spine. “Why not… why not advise me to… not go to Andalos?”

Life finally flashed through her eyes. “Why would you go to Andalos, Aegon?” she worried. 

“To reclaim it in the name of the Seven.”

Dreamfyre hissed at me. “Enough mummery,” Helaena cut in. “Why? Why, truly?”

“To defeat him. The Seven are stronger than any dragon or mortal. I may never live to be Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. I will live long enough to see him die.” I tipped my head to her. “For this, I shall have Andalos. Let the Seven Kingdoms know, not all who fly dragons are him.” 

“You are not going to Andalos to reave and pillage, you are going to rally support for the coming war.” Her validation didn’t make much sense. 

She might not be trying to agree with me, she might be justifying it to comfort her. “Yes. That is why.”

“You will tell the twins,” she commanded. 

“I shall, and I shall go to grandfather to heed his counsel.”  

Her orchids smiled. 

She raised her whip, and struck Dreamfyre into obedience. “Let us make for Heart’s Home. Lord Corbray could use our assistance, and we could use his.” 

“We could use his? Forgive me, what do we need from him?”

“The nourishing kind.” She rubbed her stomach. “Did you spot any aurochs there?”

“I did not.” 

“Good. We could do with some aurochs.”

Dreamfyre screeched. 

“You can’t cook, Dreamfyre. I want real food.” 

I whipped some sense into Sunfyre. He hissed at me and didn’t move. 

Dreamfyre took off. 

Sunfyre all of a sudden forgot he was sleeping and took off after her. 

The night before, I hadn’t imagined the visit to the Eyrie would go the way it did. I thought we’d be spending weeks there. No, dragons are dragons, not horses. For two, I thought Lady Arryn wouldn’t be as amiable as she was. For three, I thought we’d end up talking to Arnold Arryn, not talk our way right back out of the Eyrie. 

The rest of the flight to Heart’s Home, I tried to be less incompetent at planning. Good luck with that. 

We were about to take dragons and curbstomp some raiders.

What could possibly go wrong? 

Chapter Text

Prologue, VIII: The Defense of Gwayne’s Sept

7th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.7.127AC)

7th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.7.1590AV)

Misty River more than earned its name. The short ride from Donnel’s Hold to Gwayne’s Sept was done entirely in the mists, with no more than a half-mile visibility in any direction. Between the thick fog and the nighttime, flying Sunfyre was impossible. Nor would he take wing in the mists. Sunfyre and Dreamfyre stayed behind outside the castle, roaring at the distant noise. 

From the moment I stepped off Sunfyre to meet Ser Maladon Steelshield, I heard them.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooo. 

Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom. 

The mournful horns and the deep drums. 

They were faint in Donnel’s Hold. Even so, the cadence stirred the dragons into responding with answers of their own, deafening roars and howling screeches.

At Gwayne’s Sept, the dragons’ roars were themselves barely audible, usurped by the unending cacophony that, when at the Sept, seemed to come from all directions.

Ser Maladon confirmed my assumptions. “They are coming from all directions, Your Grace. Up ahead past the sept, though we can’t see it, lies Gawen’s Wood. They’re likely right on the edge of it, sounding their horns an’ drums. They mean to scare us.” 

“They scared the dragons,” one of the knights behind us half-japed. 

“The savages cannot win on an open plain. They must resort to rogue’s tactics.” 

“Do they work? Do the horns work?” I asked, forbidding any fear from slipping through my lips. The only one in the company that saw my hands shake was Helaena, while we were inside changing. 

She had no counsel. For all her talk of Dreamfyre and Harrenhaling, she wasn’t made for fighting. She wouldn’t bring herself to say it then -she needed a cup of black beer to steady her nerves- but she didn’t belong here. She belonged in King’s Landing, reading stories and playing games with the twins, rocking Maelor to sleep, holding councils in the streets, and visiting every grocer and baker and butcher and alehouse to patronize their wares. 

I, on the other hand, had seen conflict before. The enemy of then did not sound drums and horns. They launched rockets by night, rockets that would sound the sirens, sirens that would keep families in their bunkers night after night. 

The rockets’ primary purpose was fear. Drive the citizens into a panic. Break their spirits. Destroy the morale of the soldiers. Cripple a country’s infrastructure. Put on a performance for all the cameras of the world. 

My hands shook for all of a few seconds in Donnel’s Hold while I rationalized what I was listening to. An endless wave of unchanging noise. Fear. 

Was I afraid? Yes. Who wouldn’t be? These men in these woods could strike us from all sides, they had the perfect cover, and unless the mists cleared up so the dragons could take flight, we had little in the way of countermeasures. 

Did I let the fear cripple me? No. All those drums and horns were sounded by mortal men. Mortal men tended to die when their heads were cloven off.

In conclusion, yes, even on the ride to Gwayne’s Sept, fear ebbed at my extremities. Fear always did, that is his nature. I did not give in to fear, no more than I would have given in to the sirens. 

I had my discipline to fall back on. I was not leaving this region until the enemy was sufficiently dealt with. It was as straightforward as that. They could sound all the instruments they wanted.

Thus did the shakes stop, never to begin anew. Fear, like the cold, would continue to prickle me. Only that, a light pricking, for what was fear next to purpose? 

I counseled Helaena with the advice my commander had given me in the long-gone past: Fear cannot break duty and faith. A man fighting for his homeland, for his cause, can march into any battle. 

I didn’t mention the other part of his speech, for it would have revealed me as not being Aegon. The commander cited our ‘national’ ancestors, who were brave -or stupid- enough to rebel against kingdom after kingdom. They rebelled under impossible odds and often lost. The few successes lasted a dozen years, or if they were lucky, a century, before being rolled over by the next invading kingdom. Even in death, their unwavering spirits lived on. The lesson in the speech, none of them gave in to fear, they fought on and on until the bloodiest end. 

She listened and smiled, as she often did, but she didn’t hear me. Not truly. 

She wouldn’t understand my advice either, not until she’d seen someone die by her hands. Not at the hands of the headsman or in the noose of the gallow, her soft chubby hands. 

Ah, but then when she does, she’ll wish she was back in King’s Landing, cradling Maelor.

“For a knight of the Vale?” He puffed up with pride. “Nay, they do not intimidate us. We are weaned on their taunts.” 

“I’ve seen sellsword companies break and run from ‘em,” bellowed one of the knights behind us. 

“I’ve seen you break and run from ‘em,” answered another, and the rest laughed. 

The Vale had its share of dialects. ‘Heart’s Home’ wasn’t one of them. ‘Heart’s Home’ and ‘Gulltown’ were accents, not dialects. I understood the knights as clearly as I had Lady Arryn. 

“Gwayne’s Sept, it is a castle?” It was hard to think coherently with the long echoing horns and percussive drums. 

“It’s a fortified septry with the village at the hill’s base,” he answered courteously. “Two walls, the big one around the septry on the hill, the small one’s around the village.”

I tried visualizing it and ended up with concentric circles. The image was too symmetrical to be possible. Still, walls were walls, and if the mists were anything to go by, our foe had no shortage of flanking to exploit. “Have the raiders attempted an encirclement?” 

“Not as yet, Your Grace.” 

Really? Am I missing something? We’re in prime flanking territory. “Why?” 

“These savages do not think like us. They know if they’re caught out in the plains, our towers and patrols will spot them, and we’ll fall on them ere the dawn.” 

I wouldn’t underestimate these ‘savages’ if I were you. Men willing to die in the name of rebellion have this tendency to be creative. On the other hand, I hadn’t been training my whole life to fight said ‘savages.’ “Are they so fearful of the knights of the Eyrie and Heart’s Home?”

“Cautious, not fearful,” he warned, as his horse nickered. “The savages have no lack of courage or bravery. They will not risk battle in an open field, no more than I would risk riding into their forests.” 

“How would you defeat them?”

“Allow them to come to us. Gwayne’s Sept is a fruit ripe for the plucking.”

From my other side, Helaena gasped. “We’re riding into a trap?” 

“Don’t you fear, Your Grace, tis not a trap. The savages want to get to Heart’s Home. Gwayne’s Sept is the only path there within this valley. They can’t go south, the Misty River runs swiftly in the fall. If they try to go around us, we have hunters and hounds of our own, up there-” he jabbed his mailed fist off to our right, “-waiting to pick up queer scents.”

“Hounds can be thrown off,” said Helaena, “it’s damp.” 

“Six leagues to our north’s Lord Hersy’s Newkeep. Between his household and ours, we’re watching for every sign of attack.”

Helaena, thanks to her own nerves, replaced cordiality with audacity. “How did they make it this close, then?” 

Ser Maladon dressed in plain practical armor without any adornments. His own private quarters and those of his wife were little different from a peasant’s hovel in King’s Landing. Even he had his limits. He brandished a wide smile, like the two of us were children. “The Mountains of the Moon begin to our northwest, Your Grace. This range we call the Steel Mountains, for it was in them that the first Ser Corbray found the metals to forge his armor. It may be hard to tell from atop a dragon, but we knights of the Vale do not rule the Steels. There’s no high lords that way, not for half-a-hundred leagues. Half-a-hundred leagues of thick forests and high mountains and narrow gorges.” 

Heart’s Home’s population was centered around a small area, the leagues of land around the Bay of Corwyn. ‘Small’ in Westerosi scale, with the continent being thousands of leagues in length. Gwayne’s Sept was treated as the border between the ‘dense’ lowlands, a village every half a league, and the ‘sparse’ uplands, a village every league and a half. Misty River was the exception, it had a village every league without fault. 

The Arryns didn’t just build a cloud palace and codify the feudal contract, they found the equivalent of city planning. The lush expansive lowlands of the Vale were a blank canvas. Tribal hill-forts became stone castles. Villages were founded at specific distances from one another based on the soil’s fertility. This simplified administration, according to Orwyle. Why? I hadn’t the slightest idea. I had to get through lessons on every single region of the Seven Kingdoms, it was hard to pay attention to every last detail.  

Lord Corbray had decided to pitch his defensive line along Gwayne’s Sept and down to Hersy’s keep, so Ser Maladon told us. This had the unintended side-effect of telling all his villages west of Gwayne’s Sept, all twenty five leagues of them, that he was willing to abandon them to the mountain clansmen. 

Ser Maladon defended his liege’s action by saying that the ‘savages’ were focusing on Gwayne’s Sept and on breaking through to reach Heart’s Home. “They want to reach the Sept of Corwyn. This is no common band of savages.” To further defend his liege, he mentioned that the raiders hadn’t yet attempted to ford any of the bridges across the Misty River, which lent credence to his liege’s theory that they were single minded. 

I’d learned it unwise to make such broad assumptions about a foe, especially a foe composed of irregulars whose very concept of warfare differed from ours. “What are their motivations?” 

“They want what all savages want, to kill the Hearttaker and burn the Great Sept.” 

Helaena leaned over to me, confused. “The Hearttaker? You mean Lord Corbray, good ser?” 

The knight scoffed. “The savages call him ‘The Hearttaker.’ That’s their title for him. The Hearttaker. Been their title for him for a thousand years.”  

“What else?” I pushed, while Helaena mused to herself. 

He glanced at me like an adult would at a child asking for another treat. “Your Grace-” he said in tones as icy as the air around us, “-we have captured savages in Gwayne’s Sept. Why not ask this of them?” 

I didn’t speak for the rest of the ride. 

Helaena continued to ask questions with obvious answers. 

A mile behind us, the two dragons were restless. I’d asked whether they’d stay outside Donnel’s Hold or take flight, to which Helaena answered “They’ll do as they wish. They might come walking after us.” 

Now that’s a sight I wouldn’t want to see. 

Gwayne’s Sept was better thought of as two locations than as one, the septry on the hill and the village at its base. The septry and its hill sat at the eastern end of the settlement. There, the two walls were a stone’s throw apart. The outer stone wall was twenty feet in height, the inner thirty and half as thick. It wasn’t that easy to get a reading of a location -how else would I utilize tactics- when said location was surrounded by mist. 

The septry itself was home to all the dispossessed. Hundreds of villagers, their families, and their pack animals stuffed into a three hundred foot square. Three hundred feet of wailing babies and crying children, for it was here, atop the hill, that the clansmen’s drums were heard the loudest. 

BOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOM. 

Ser Maladon shouted “Make way for His and Her Grace!” as many times as he wanted, each time was punctuated by the heavy drum beats. 

The panicked smallfolk didn’t move at his cries, they moved at the sight of a column of steel-clad knights. 

Like the bursting of a dam, all it took was one grateful woman to cry “Knights of the Vale!” to send the entire gathering to cheers. “Seven blessings!” “Knights of the Vale!”  “Knights of Heart’s Home!” “Lord Corbray!”

Men-at-arms took our horses outside the sept. I helped Helaena off. Maladon and his escort fell into a small moving cordon around us as we went inside. 

The sept was packed with families praying. 

“The prisoners are downstairs, Your Grace,” Ser Maladon informed us, as he motioned to a side door, guarded by two more knights in plate. 

Helaena was aghast. “You’d hold prisoners in a sept?”

“This sept’s a castle of its own,” he glanced back over his shoulder at her. “Why, Your Grace, shouldn’t we hold prisoners in a sept?”

She was too caught up in her own particulars to see his almost-amused expression. You stupid outsider. “It despoils the sept,” she said. 

We began going down the stairs, double file. “A sept despoiled by holding savages as prisoners is no true house of the Seven. Gwayne’s Sept protects us from their sorceries.”

“Sorceries?”

You stupid outsiders have come here to command us, his eyes said, but he smiled, like an uncle forced to be nice to his spoiled nephew and niece. “The savages can transform themselves into goats and horses. This very snowstorm’s from their witches.” 

He stated it with such confidence, it was hard to find it in myself to discount him. This was Westeros, I’d remembered enough of the books to know that magic was not a matter of rural folklore and village superstition. That’s besides how I came to Heart’s Home. On the back of a dragon. That I controlled. 

Helaena made the sign of the seven, and kept quiet the rest of the descent. 

“Your Graces. Forgive us, we did not know of your coming.”

I waved the wheat-haired man with the viper-covered surcoat up. “I was told there were prisoners here.” 

He bowed his head, not wanting to look me in the eye. “Only the one, Your Grace.” 

We went from plural to singular. Curious. “What happened to the rest?” 

“They died of their wounds, Your Grace.” 

Wounds. Would I go so far to accuse the holy knights of resorting to unholy means of extracting information. No, no I wouldn’t. That was a case for another day. “And this prisoner, he isn’t wounded?” 

“She was captured alive and unharmed.” 

I wasn’t the one to be surprised. Helaena was. “A woman? You’ve captured a woman?”

“Don’t let her form trick Your Graces, she is a chieftess.” 

“And a witch,” called in a knight off to the side, earning grunts of agreement. 

“Show me the prisoner.” 

“Right this way, Your Grace, Your Graces. Honor compels me to warn Your Graces, she wears only a loincloth.”

I didn’t like the idea of keeping an almost-naked woman in a cell guarded by, presumably, only men. Men fresh from fighting at that. I wasn’t going to open my mouth and counter their methods. I didn’t have the full picture or anything close to it. 

The prisoner was kept in a windowless room with a straw-covered floor. The walls were full of tiny carvings of seven-pointed stars and axes. Her hands and legs were bound in heavy chains extending from the walls. They need ten foot chains to restrain her? Then I saw her, and I understood why.

The woman was covered in tattoos. Red eyes tattooed across her chest and abdomen, up and down her arms and legs, and on her back. She had a small red eye tattooed above the bridge of her nose, giving her the appearance of someone with three eyes. The patterns were best described as being ‘vein-like,’ in that real veins were not straight. The lack of any tangible correlation I could make -to clan markings from Orwyle, to patterns found in nature- made her all the creepier.

“Your Grace, this is Thyme daughter of Trand, Chieftess of the Blood Eyes.” 

Ser Lynderly -the wheat-haired man wasn’t just any wheat-haired man, he was Lyn Lynderly, heir to Snakewood- gave her a mocking bow. 

Thyme opened her real eyes and rasped at us. 

Ser Lynderly yelled at her in the same foreign tongue. 

Ser Pearse provided the translation from the old Clansmen tongue to Eyrie Common. “Thyme said ‘Get out you bastards, I'm sleeping.’ Ser Lyn said ‘Now’s time to wake up, you have guests.’” 

Ser Lynderly introduced us. I didn’t understand Clansmen, I still made out the words “Aegon Targaryen,” “Helaena Targaryen,” and “Viserys.”  

Thyme studied the two of us. Her eyes widened. She rasped for a few seconds. 

“‘Dragon-king, the fat dragon-queen next to you has more hair on her upper lip than you have between your legs.’” 

“Shall I break her teeth, Your Graces?” asked Ser Lynderly with a grin. “It would be my honor.” 

“No need,” I answered. “I would hear what she has to say about us.” 

“As would I,” agreed Helaena. 

Is this why we came here? To listen to some woman shout nonsensical mockeries at us? “What information have you learned from her?” I asked Ser Lynderly in Kinglander, a dialect he knew well. 

He provided all that they had gained from her.

Two moons past, a man named Duron, of the Black Ears by birth, claimed to be the Griffin King reborn. He extinguished many clans and formed an army of his own.

The Griffin King, Duron Clanbreaker, brought his host down to Heart’s Home to purge the land of the invading Seven. He gained the support of the Black Ears, Howlers, Blood Eyes, Steel Boars, Lightning Sons, River Chosen, Lake Wailers, Saltdrinkers, and Bluehill. 

Thyme, daughter of Trand, Chieftess of the Blood Eyes, was captured in a skirmish the day prior. Knights present claimed she brought the heavy mists and cold winds down on us. 

She herself claimed the Griffin King rode a 'griffin.'  The knights dismissed the story, as griffins hadn't been spotted for decades.

I was intrigued by the history. Helaena was intrigued by the trivialities. “Why do they have such strange names?” 

“The clans name themselves to sound distinct from one another. The Howlers imitate howling wolves. The Blood Eyes are named for the eyes they carve into their flesh, like the Chieftess here. The Lightning Sons camp atop barren ridges. The Saltdrinkers live near the ‘water who knows no end,’ what we know as the Narrow Sea.” 

“Why would the Blood Eyes mark their flesh?” Helaena inquried.

“Every clan has its markings, so that all know the other’s fealty. Most paint their bodies with dyes. The Blood Eyes mark their bodies by carving out their flesh.” 

It reminded me, in a very vague way, of Orwyle’s tomes on the Swords and Stars. 

“Could it be for their religion?” I put forth, thinking of those tomes, not willing to bring up the reasoning behind it. For one, it’d be sacrilegious to suggest that they were inspired by us. For two, tattoos were not a custom any one culture invented. For three, the mountain clans and Valemen didn’t seem to have any cultural cross-pollination, what with being in a constant state of war. 

Ser Lyn answered in the affirmative. The Blood Eyes were attempting to emulate their weirwoods. He went on to provide further detail on the Griffin King.

“Duron Clanbreaker claimed his kingship in a godswood beneath the last waning crescent.” 

The clans worshiped the moon’s phases, Orwyle had explained in passing. 

It was a short leap from there, for me, to conclude that the thin crescent carved across her back was meant to venerate either the waxing or waning crescent. Both of which were only visible for a short span of time, as they set right after or rose right before the sun, respectively. By night, the moon turned red when nearing and at the horizon. On the other hand, I was a man from a completely different time period and understanding of the heavenly bodies, so all my conclusions were just that, abstract observations. 

We returned to the captive chieftess. 

I glanced at the knights and Helaena before settling on the chieftess herself. She sat meditatively, legs underneath her, head bowed at the ground. She’d likely have her hands with her had they not been outstretched off to the sides. 

“Would this Griffin King be willing to parley?” I asked the knights in the dialect of the Eyrie.  

The chieftess opened her eyes and gazed at me. She painted false eyes over her eyelids. The false eyelids had white pupils, her real pupils were stone gray.  

“Why would we want to parley with him?” countered Ser Lynderly, respectfully. 

“I like to know the men I will face in battle.” 

Ser Lynderly bowed his head, and spoke Clansmen. 

The Chieftess peered at the heir and growled words back. 

“‘We do not parley with Clan Hearttaker,’ she says,” Ser Lynderly informed. 

Helaena cut in with a question of her own. “She called us ‘dragon-king’ and ‘dragon-queen’ before. Why was that? What does the Chieftess know of our clan?” 

Ser Lynderly cleared his throat and spoke to her. 

She rasped for what sounded like a full minute. 

“‘The dragonkings rule to the south, in the lands of the long summer and flatlands that go on evermore. No dragon has ever claimed the godswood… her lands, and no dragon ever will.” 

Helaena snorted. “For a wise woman, she is quite the dullard. Does she know who rules over ‘Clan Hearttaker?’”

Ser Lynderly asked.

The Chieftess answered. 

“‘The dragonkings rule Clan Hearttaker. The heart trees remember. The dragonkings will perish.’”

The knights behind us exploded into a furor. “Witch!” “Treason!” “Take her head!” “Cut her throat!” “Show her ‘the water who knows no end!’” 

I raised my hand to stay their deluge of opinions. “Her head will be taken in time.” In King's Landing or in Heart's Home. Not here. 

Helaena strode right past me and knelt in front of the woman. 

The woman snapped at her, Helaena didn’t flinch. 

Helaena rose, went back to me, and switched to Oldtowner. “She is with child. Look at her chest.”

Not the best suggestion when concerning a naked woman, but very well. I looked and couldn’t tell the difference. I didn’t doubt that there was one, Helaena had more experience in Flea Bottom hovels -and being pregnant herself- than I had. “And? And so?”

She laid a hand on my shoulder and leaned in to whisper “Have you met a mother who would bring harm to her unborn babe?” 

I went from her to the chieftess -gritting her teeth at Lynderly- and back to her. “She doesn’t seem too bothered by dying. In fact, I’d say she welcomes it.” 

“She must put on a mummer’s show for all the knights here. I am not a knight.”

“You are a ‘dragon-queen.’” 

“A hairy one,” she chuckled. “I say, let us give her wine. Wine makes men spill more than barbs.” 

“You’d get her into her cups?”

“I’d rather that than sit here and endure her attempts to get herself killed.”

“She could be a witch.”

“And what, enthrall me?” She smirked. “When I think of being intimate, I don’t think of having a hundred red eyes staring at me. Oh, and she’s not my husband.” 

Great, more rumors for Mushroom. “Witches don’t care about marital laws.”

“I recall Eustace teaching that witches bleed.” She patted her thigh, right where the stiletto was kept. 

Out in the corridor, Ser Lynderly fell to one knee. “Your Grace, do not be alone with the savage.”

The other knights fell to their knees and murmured their agreements. 

The Princess stared down at the knelt heir. “It was not to be discussed, good ser. You will force that wine down her throat if you must.”

I had a counterpoint. “Ser Lynderly, what could she yet provide?”

“She would know King Clanbreaker’s order of battle and his strategies,” he proposed from his knee. 

“Do we know of his captains?” Captains. What a strange way of referring to his tribal chiefs. 

“All these savages fight the same,” Ser Maladon interluded confidently. 

Ser Lynderly provided what I wanted to hear. “We know of them in name and in feats captured Blood Eyes regarded them with. Naught about battle experience.” 

“If there is some tactic they mean to use,” I wagged my finger in thought. “A feint to allow a flank. A set of quick charges and retreats to hold us up. Fording of the Misty River. Whittling at our numbers with attrition. Drawing us into Gawen’s Wood for a fatal chase. Even something as common as prestige, a fight in the name of fighting.” 

“Lord Hersy up in the belfry is better read on the clans’ battles. Honor compels me to advise Your Grace, clans and their warbands are not lords and their banner knights. The Howlers may number one hundred, the River Chosen ten.”

Ten men can do as much damage as one hundred. “Do as the Princess commands,” I ordered. I planted a chaste kiss on her cheek. “Ser Lynderly, call a war council up in the belfry.” 

“Your Grace,” he bowed his head. 

Helaena caught my arm as I turned away and planted a chaste kiss of her own on my cheek. “I’ll have numbers for you, my prince Apple,” she whispered in the barely-coherent mumbling known as Pyke.  

When I imagined the fight against the clansmen -and how could I stop myself, there was little else to do on dragonback- I saw myself inside a castle’s great hall, overseeing a regional map covered in tokens and figurines, with ‘commanders’ all around. If not there, I reasoned, since the fight would be in the clansmen’s terrain of choosing and they wouldn’t choose a castle, in a broad cloth pavilion. 

Not for a second would I have pictured a cramped room one floor below a sept’s bell. In place of dozens of capable commanders, I had Lord Gerold Hersy, Ser Leobar Corbray, and two knights, Ser Rodrik Manderly and Ser Andar Sevenstar. Ser Manderly and Ser Sevenstar were part of Ser Corbray’s tail, the former as a master-of-arms, the latter as one of the castle’s captains of the guard. Lord Hersy was Lord Hersy, summoned from his keep and thrown to Gwayne’s Sept like a prized hunted dog at the white stag. 

At first I pondered whether that was a wise choice, seeing as Lord Hersy’s lands were likely to be inundated with raiders, either deliberately or as a result of routing. I punted said thoughts into the nearest well, as, no matter what I thought, I wasn’t the one charged with defending Heart’s Home. Everyone’s a general until they’re in the thick of it. 

Lord Hersy, by precedence, took charge of briefing me. “Your Grace,” he bowed his head. “We have four hundred and fifty three knights fit for battle in and around Gwayne’s Sept, along with two thousand one hundred and eighty commoners packed into this sept’s grounds.” 

“Can any of those commoners be levied in defense of the castle?” 

“We have not taken a count of heads, Your Grace,” answered Lord Hersy with a head bow.

“Your Grace,” Ser Corbray interposed himself, “smallfolk will not stand against savages in a fight.” 

“They can be levied to stand on the battlements and loose quarrels, can they not?” I questioned.

“Meaning no disrespect, Your Grace,” Lord Hersy responded, with a hint of mourning, “they would be picked off by the clansmen. The chiefs know they can win if they strike our charges.” 

The other knights acquiesced. 

Am I hitting some stumbling block? Is there something I wasn’t told? I kept my calm, set my eyes on the map, and asked, as directly as I could, “What are we to do with them?” 

“Ser Maladon of Steelshield has been given the task of escorting them back to Donnel’s Hold, Your Grace. Would Your Grace have us amend that?” 

If they haven’t conscripted men yet, there has to be a reason. They’re not just waiting around for me to do it like a pack of ambitious segens. “Take every man of fighting age, give them arms, and make them ready to die for their fatherl- for their father’s land.” 

The knights took their dumbfoundedness in different ways. Lord Hersy’s eyebrows rose, Ser Corbray scratched his goatee, Ser Manderly kept a watchful gaze, and Ser Sevenstar narrowed his eyes.  

“Your Grace, they would die for naught to be gained.” 

“And if this castle is overwhelmed on the morrow, they will die all the same.” 

“I was told Your Grace would be bringing Sunfyre-” Ser Corbray exploded. 

Ser Manderly and Sevenstar gave their “Ayes.” 

“Sunfyre is walking here.” That wasn’t completely a lie. Helaena speculated that they’d follow us earlier, as ever citing Barth and the rider-mount bond that makes the latter want to go to the former.

“He cannot fly?” Ser Corbray shouted. 

“Not in these mists, no.” Was it worth going into Sunfyre’s unwillingness to take flight? No, it wasn’t. Was it worth it mentioning that I, as much as he, did not want to fly in terrain I didn’t know? No, it wasn’t. For all that, I was too late with a response.

The knights had come to a unanimous agreement, and cursed the witch in the fortified sept’s basement. 

Their uniformity was the right kick in the pants. I gave up on the militia plan. If they said the commoners weren’t capable of dissuading the clansmen, then they weren’t. 

“What stops the commoners from fleeing in a mob?” I inquired, casting a look at the arrow slit. Outside of which sat the tightly packed villagers of a dozen different villages. 

“We gathered the aldermen and casted lots, Your Grace,” Lord Hersy said.  

Stop bothering with them, the voice inside me was translating from Polite Eyrie Speak to reality as I knew it. The knights have their protocols, you’re just intervening in matters you have no qualification for. 

With that sort of logic, I shouldn’t have been in this sept to begin with. Where I could justify the commoners, it was a culture I wasn’t familiar with, to question why men did as they did would be to question why this world has decade-long seasons. I couldn’t lawyer myself out of fighting the clansmen. Battle was battle, and all battles operated by rules.

Most of the old rules, deterrence, early warning, defense, were useless here. We weren’t engaging in peace negotiations, nor were we obligated to start everything by calling people’s phones and politely requesting them to leave the impending bombardment zone. Likewise, there weren’t fifteen billion cameras watching us. Oh, those lovely cameras, with their ‘military experts’, none of whom had ever been in the same area code as a main battle tank, sitting in nice comfortable chairs, waiting to throw every accusation at us for failing to do our jobs to their standards. 

No, here, it was us against the tide. If we failed, the tide overwhelmed us and we perished. The Vale knights would settle for nothing less than a rout, preferably the destruction of the raiders’ fighting force. 

That mindset allowed me to come up with a set of rules. Add a sprinkle of information, and I had a plan. 

-Objective: Destruction of the Griffin King’s offensive wing. By way of morale-breaking first, as this was permissible by the ‘state’s’ laws. By way of inflicting casualties second, as this was ‘preferable’ -insofar as a council of officers could levy a decision- by the ‘state’s’ laws. Both led to the same end, tactical resolution with enemy forces weakened. 

-Secondary objective: Capture of Griffin King and all other commanders. 

-Means to approach objective: 453 ‘knights,’ combat-ready soldiers drilling daily. All men are trained to wield their standard arms, to fight on foot, from horseback, and in all terrains relevant to this battlefield; open plain, thick forest, hilly thick forest. 

We had advantages and disadvantages. 

On the advantages, our forces were of what I would deem ‘elite,’ as they are practicing every day. Without delving too deeply -thus revealing my ignorance- and with recalling lessons from the Grand Maester, I knew that the knights were equally capable on horse and foot. They could fight in multiple formations, formations that they have drilled for since their days as squires. Said force was bloodied from prior engagements with clansmen and pirates coming up the Bay of Corwyn.

On the disadvantages, numbers and equipment. 

We had no logistical support in men or arms. Heart’s Home wasn’t fielding tens of thousands of men. Lord Corbray had the rest of his detachments up and down the Newkeep road, an easy to find easy to rally around road that ran north from Donnel’s Hold to Newkeep. Lord Corbray, just prior to our arrival, had a rider come bearing a promise of fifty more knights, brought up from the Bay of Corwyn. 

On the equipment front, everything was tied to what the knights had in their kits, excluding arrows, javelins slings, and slingstones. In arrows, we had just shy of five thousand, the product of prior engagements. In javelins, around two thousand, they were a common sight in every village’s armory. In slings, ‘every commoner has a sling.’ Sling stones weren’t worth mentioning. Additional arrows, javelins, spears, and shields could be brought up from. Donnel’s Hold. Elsewise, nobody had gone around taking a census of Heart’s Home’s weapons, or however many were in reserve, so we relied on what we knew. What we knew was that we were limited in supplies. 

The old tactic of using the enemy’s weapons barely counted here. Their daggers, axes, clubs, staffs, spears, bows, and shields were of a lesser quality to ours; being made of wood and stone and bone and rarely metal. The commodities they had in great supply -as speculated by Lord Hersy- were arrows and sling stones. 

To put it simply, our knights were cohesive, organized, disciplined, and battle-tested. We traded off in lacking reinforcements or supplies. 

This was all before factoring in the weather. “This passing morning,” Ser Sevenstar lamented, “skies were clear enough to see the sun rising over the crystal towers of Corwyn’s Sept from this here belfry.” 

Overcasts and fog banks were common. Rain and snow were common. 

That canceled any planned counter offensives. We couldn’t attack what we couldn’t see. 

I was not going to be dissuaded by all the weather storms put together. A decisive defense was sufficient enough as a goal. “We have a duty to break the Griffin King’s alliance. This is how I propose we go about it…” 

The clans loved battle, everyone agreed. We would give them battle, not hide behind our walls.  

Hours passed. Knights came and went with reports. Plates of food entered, were consumed in their totality, and removed. A Princess even arrived at one point, to divulge us all the secrets the Chieftess of the Blood Eyes had kept hidden: 

It was not five hundred raiders, it was five thousand. 

The Griffin King’s coalition was held together by the titular Duron Clanbreaker. Saltdrinkers quarreled with Bluehill, River Chosen, and Lake Wailers. Steel Boars hated Lightning Sons. Howlers hated Blood Eyes. Black Ears were the only ones everyone accepted, this much could be surmised; anyone they did not approve of, their Duron would extinguish. 

The Chieftess passed out before she spoke of the Griffin King himself. Not that it mattered, I reasoned with her, he was a warlord, I’d get my measure of him soon enough. 

After planning, I proposed to the gathered knights -and the Princess, who had made herself present by virtue of rank, but had the maturity to keep out of our matters- that we go to the sept to give thanks to the Seven.

Septon Triston led the knights’ vigil to the Seven. Each knight chose the aspect he wished to venerate, as, to quote Triston, “The Seven are one, to pray to any one aspect is to pray to them all.” I picked the Mother, to guard us and guard those we were sworn to protect. We laid our arms down at their bases and knelt for the fullness of one of the sept’s candles, supposedly seventy seven minutes. 

The 7th dawn since the month's new moon, did not touch Gwayne’s Sept. We watched the sky to the east lighten, from black to the three bands. Those three bands along with the rising sun disappeared into the overcast. 

Gawen’s Wood was half-shrouded in fog. The upper slopes, the hills that would go on to become mountains, were covered. The lower slopes, those portions nearest to us, were clearly visible from the walls of Gwayne’s. 

As the three bands broke to the east, the endless drums and horns came to an abrupt end. So sudden was it that I had, in a moment of panic, yelled that I had gone deaf. That moment of mortal idiocy brought about a burst of laughter from all along the walls. I quickly relearned in this life what I had seen in the past; men liked it when their commanders occasionally revealed their humanity. Men also liked it when those commanders reassured them. 

I was not one for speeches, not in my past life, not in this one. I didn’t need to give any. I was there with them through the night, shivering from the cold, eating their sausage rations, and prostrating myself before the Seven-Who-Are-One. Not a single prince in their lifespans had done half of that. Nor was I alone. Helaena, the physical embodiment of that which we who swore vows were sworn to protect, was there with us, silent and smiling. 

Helaena, acutely aware of how the knights -some of whom were marching to their last battle- viewed her, took on the mantle of being the Princess, like the Princess in the songs. She bade each knight kneel in turn, tied a favor around their shoulders, and blessed their drawn swords or maces with a kiss. There was no plan or secret plot behind her order, the first knight she saw she had kneel, and on and on from him, while the rest of us waited our turns. The remaining peasants offered their additional clothes to be used as favors, and for the chance to be blessed by her hands. This resulted in an army of knights wearing drab green favors, an irony not lost on me. 

When my time came, she produced a rainbow favor. I recognized it instantly, because all the colors were either too bright or too dark for the ‘standard’ Faith rainbow hues. Jaehaera had helped make it, ‘helped’ in that she picked out seven bolts of cloth of her choosing. Jaehaera liked her brights and darks, which meant I had a bright red, dark orange, bright yellow, bright green, bright vivid blue, dark sapphire blue, and burgundy-flavored purple. 

She bade me kneel, same as every other knight, tied it around my shoulder, and blessed my mace with a kiss. I was given special treatment, I also received a peck on the lips. A quick noble peck between wife and husband, barely long enough to taste the mead she’d had. This wasn’t our other sister. 

Helaena had decency, and deeper than that, respected the impending battle. Even if she did desire more, which I truly hoped she didn’t, this wasn’t the setting for such romantic nonsense. Men waiting to fight and give their lives in the name of their land were the same in the damp hills of Heart’s Home as they were in the scorching sands of the Negev. 

The two groups wouldn’t know or be able to communicate with one another, but they shared the same sentiments. 

In my past life, they might have formed lines and bowed while reciting from the Siddur, crossed themselves and recited Psalms, or in some cases, faced southeast, dropped to their knees, and knocked their heads to the ground while reciting their Testimony. It was an army of three religions. The coming dawn had a way of making us all brothers. 

Here, the men were more uniform. Oldtown had long since broken Gulltown and the other sects. The septons came and went, blessing men right up until the orders were sent out. Those not holding their crystals and praying -or making the sign of the seven- watched the forest with held breath. 

In said forest, the impoverished heirs to the weirwood kingdoms moved in silence. The tribes had unified under a Griffin King, who claimed to be sent by the old gods themselves, and had come together to cleanse the land of the Andal. They would not spare the Royces, Redforts, or any other houses, for they had long since become indistinguishable from the exiles of Andalos. The Griffin King had held a grand ‘meeting’ of all his army a moon past, to tell them that they would either defeat the Andal or die, swords in hand. 

I may even have seen the fight from their perspective, had their perspective not also condoned the indiscriminate reaving, pillaging, and violating of villages. 

The orders went out, and the knights marched forth, dismounted. 

Their trusty steeds remained in the septry’s courtyard, tended to by stablehands who’d volunteered to stay behind when their aldermen and families left. Had the battle gone against us, the horses would be used to help the commoners escape. All the lords and knights agreed, better for them to have a means to escape than us a means to go on an offensive. 

I marched out the lower gate in the same full plate as the men around me. The only distinct differences were my dragon-and-hightower surcoat, one of a kind on the battlefield, and visored armet. The rest of the knights wore surcoats displaying the three ravens clutching red hearts, the moon-and-falcon, the silver chalice on pink of Hersy, the field of green vipers on night-black of Lynderly, or the red hammer on white of Breakstone. Their helmets varied from visored armets to visorless bascients to closed greathelms with ornamentation to closed greathelms with flat-tops. 

They carried tall kite shields over their backs, six foot spears in their hands, and daggers at their waists and boots. Some had longswords at their belts, some maces, some flails. Precisely one hundred and ten of our number carried longbows, the rest carried a pair of javelins. The surplus longbows went to able-bodied hunters and foresters on the walls. Like the stablehands, they were volunteers. Helaena’s suggestion to only allow volunteers paid dividends. While we lost most of our potential recruits, commoners who weren’t required to stand and fight demons pouring out of the dark woods won’t, the ones who stayed behind were as hardy as the knights themselves. 

It wasn’t intended -least of all by me, a nonnative- for our battle array to carry a religious significance. I’d gone to the commanders and derived for a number that allowed versatility in all directions, large enough to provide reinforcement for other units, small enough that we could have more than four of them, and they came up with this:

Seven groups of forty nine knights. 

The front line was four companies, the reserves three. 

Ser Mathos of Newkeep, one of Hersy’s captains, commanded the left company, all knights of Newkeep. 

Ser Andar Sevenstar and Ser Rodrik Manderly were charged with the center companies, knights of Heart’s Home.

Ser Lyn Lynderly commanded the right company, knights of Snakewood.

The left reserve went to Ser Benfrey Breakstone, freshly arrived in the night. His were knights of Heart’s Home. 

The center reserve was commanded by Ser Leobar Corbray, knights of Heart’s Home.

The right reserve went to Ser Harlan of Snakewood, one of Lynderly’s captains. His knights were of Heart’s Home.  

Lord Hersy held tentative control over the archers, in addition to being supreme commander. I was there as a witness, for my part to play was not among them. 

A single wail sounded from the mists. 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The forest answered.

AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO  AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO  AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO  AAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOO

The forest began to move. 

Hundreds of figures crept out of the forest. They wore an assortment of furs and skins and rags. One in twenty might have worn armor, boiled leather. Much as the sight of hundreds wanted to steal my breath, I needed to look and I needed to see. They had a communications system. Banner-bearers held staffs of weirwood, atop them, animal’s heads, single-color pennants, weirwood masks, among others. These banner-bearers were scattered amidst the rank and file. Most of the clans were barely distinguishable at a glance, barring one. 

Leading the ‘army’ were no more than fifty individuals. They were naked above their waists and covered in massive black tattoos resembling tree branches. They kept their hair short, wielded longswords, and wore tall spiked metal helmets. A few of them were women, women who were just as topless as the men. 

According to Lord Hersy, they were the Lightning Sons. The clan venerated one of the innumerable old gods, a figure referred to as He-Who-Rules-The-Storms.

The army came to halt just outside of the forest, the Lightning Sons taking up a ‘vanguard’ position.

Not hundreds, thousands. 

A tall man wearing a wolf pelt, wolf’s head above his own, emerged from the rank-and-file. The Lightning Sons parted for him. He climbed up a low rise just in front of the Lightning Sons. 

He drew a dagger, raised his hand, and slit the palm open in sight of us. 

Then he smeared the hand across the dirt, threw his head back, and howled. 

The army began to scream and chant and bellow. A thousand separate cries and chants, combining into one incoherent deafening miasma. 

Septon Triston raised his quivering voice to the heavens. 

“The Father’s face is steeeeern and strooooong, he sits and judges riiiiight from wrooooong. He weighs our lives, the short and long, and loves the little children.” 

The knights pounded their shields with their spears together, and joined the song. 

“The Mother gives the gift of life, and watches over every wife! Her gentle smile ends all strife, and she loves her little children!” 

Across from us, the enemy army intensified their own screaming and wailing.

The knights stomped the ground as one. 

“The Warrior stands before the foe, protecting us where e’er we go! We sword and shield and spear and bow, he guards the little children!” 

The enemy army started advancing. One step to a second. A wave of weirwood spears and shields. 

The knights beat their chests to the cadence.

“The Crone is very wise and old, and sees our fates as they unfold! She lifts her lamp of shining gold to lead the little children!” 

Helms of horn and antler, clothes of deerskin, weapons of weirwood and stone. Howling and screeching. 

The knights pounded their shields. 

“The Smith, he labors day and night, to put the world of men to right! With hammer, plow, and fire bright, he builds for little children!” 

The army continued its advance. 

The knights beat their chests. 

“The Maiden dances through the sky, she lives in every lover’s sigh!”

“Your Grace, they are within range,” Lord Hersy whispered to me. 

“Her smiles teach the birds to fly, and gives dreams to little children!” 

Watching the enemy wave approach, I whispered a hymn of my own under my breath. “Oh you who dwell in the shelter of the Most High, shall abide under the shadow of Him. I will say of Him, ‘He is my shield and my castle, my Master, in Him I will trust.”  

I turned to Lord Hersy. “May the Stranger give a swift death, to them and to us.”

He bowed his head respectfully. “Your Grace.”

I looked one more time at the oncoming army. “Begin.” Forgive me for what I must do.

“Your Grace,” he half-smiled. 

I turned around, and marched towards the gate. 

“Archers, nock,” cried a captain.  

“ARCHERS, NOCK!” bellowed a knight. 

I walked past the archer line. They nocked their arrows. A few glanced at me from the corner of their eyes. 

“ARCHERS, AIM! TWO HUNDRED PACES!”

The archers raised their bows.

“ARCHERS, DRAW!”

The archers drew their strings. The time between this command and the next was less than a second. 

“ARCHERS, LOOSE!”

One hundred and ten arrows took wing, flying high over the ranks. 

Not ten steps later, the drums of hell started up.

Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom. Booooooooooooooom.

I went underneath the portcullis, peering up through the murder holes at the hunters. They had orders to wait until the enemy had reached a specific distance, fifty paces out, to begin. Had they engaged now, they would have wasted their arrows. Walls were a height advantage, and like all advantages, it needed to be saved for the right moment. 

The two dragons rested on the village pastureland. Helaena stood next to Dreamfyre. 

The two raised their heads from ripping apart a dead cow, and snapped at me. 

Sunfyre and Dreamfyre proved their intelligence this past night. They walked -then flew when the mists cleared- over to us. At our beckoning, they stayed quiet for the whole night. Only a creature as smart as a human could understand our desire to keep the element of surprise. 

They were duly rewarded for their patience with slaughtered livestock. In hindsight, that might have done the trick . We’d been bribing them with food from the second they landed. Dragons loved to eat. 

I preferred to think that they were smart. 

The drums gave way to harrowing screams and cries and taunts. The sounds of death. 

Battle was joined. 

I went up to Sunfyre, who bent his neck for me. “Come, Princess, mount your steel chariot, and follow mine.”

“Steel chariot?” 

Ah, you wouldn’t know her. How I miss you, my trusty Merkava. I was on Sunfyre and fastening my straps before I finished the thought. “Get on Dreamfyre! Stay with me! We attack in formation!” 

She climbed onto Dreamfyre, fastening herself in.

I tied the whip around my arm and lashed Sunfyre across the neck. “Fly, Sunfyre,” I said in little more than a whisper.

He spread his wings and took flight. 

As we rose into the sky, I called out the corps’ words. “The man in the tank will win!”

Sunfyre, while not knowing what I said, picked up on my excitement, and roared. 

Dreamfyre roared from behind us, off to our left. 

I’d love to say that there was some elaborate buildup, from when we took off until when we attacked. I couldn’t. The battle was on within moments. 

We flew south past the Misty River, using said wide watercourse as a landmark. At an arbitrary distance -I counted to ten- I banked right to start us back towards Gwayne’s Sept. 

The two armies were distinct; steel lines and fur mobs. The steel lines were locked in shield walls, the fur mobs were ebbing and flowing. I strayed west, aiming to strike the land between the steel lines and the forest. Said land was packed with fur mobs, reinforcements. 

As we settled on the attack vector, I snapped the whip on Sunfyre. 

“Give them a swift death, boy.” 

He let out a throaty rumble.  

The vector was lined up and we slowed down.  

As I would shout into the radio, so I shouted then. “Nua, nua, SOF!”

He hissed. 

Ah, hell, he’s not a tank. Tanks needed to be yelled at to listen. 

I cracked the whip. “Fire!” 

Sunfyre let forth a pillar of fire. 

Fire the color of gold. Not yellow, gold as the rings on my fingers. 

Fire that blanketed all in its path. 

Behind me, Dreamfyre bathed the forest’s edge with blue fire. 

The blue fire turned yellow when it hit the ground.

Little yellow candles, dancing back and forth. 

Quick as that, we were beyond the battlefield. 

I banked Sunfyre around once more, eyes forward. 

We came back in for another run. Two hundred feet above the ground, no more than that. 

“Totach! Essssssh!” Crack once. Crack twice. “Fire!” 

Sunfyre drowned lines of attackers in golden fire. 

As we reached the Misty River, I looked around for my second. 

Dreamfyre was flying east. Not after us. She hadn’t attacked again. 

Instinct had me yell “Where the fuck is she going? San Fran, with flowers in her hair?”

Sunfyre screeched. 

There was something in his vocalization that registered with me. She could be wounded. 

“After her, Sunfyre,” I ordered.

He did not comply. 

Instead, he let out a deafening roar and dove for the ground.

“Sunfyre, what in hell are you-” I raised the whip.

A blur passed overhead, roaring like a lion. 

That’s impossible. 

We neared the ground. I craned my head back. 

That’s impossible. 

And it’s right there. 

A flying animal with the wings and beak of an eagle and the body of a lion. It hovered high above us and roared. 

Sunfyre pointed his head up at the beast and let out a deafening screech. 

The griffin closed his wings and dove at us. 

God in heaven. I whirled the whip about and jutted it at the legendary beast. “Attack!” 

Sunfyre gave a roar to shatter the skies itself, and took off. 

As the beasts closed in and Sunfyre opened his maw to let forth a gout of fire, the griffin spread his wings, pulled back, and veered out of the way. Sunfyre blasted at nothing. Fire wasn’t a projectile, it was a substance. He himself had to take evasive maneuvers, to avoid flying right through his own fire. While Sunfyre was immune to the blaze, I very much wasn’t. 

As we spun around to renew the pursuit, my mind started working of its own accord. 

On the second pass, the griffin pulled back at the last second. I caught a glimpse of the rider. Two emeralds glared at me from under the weirwood mask. The king pointed his double-headed axe at me. It glinted purple-black. 

On the third, he dodged Sunfyre’s blast, swerved around, and came in at us from the side. I ducked -clinging to the saddle at one point- to avoid the griffin’s grasping talons. 

We charged for five more rounds, the griffin daring us forward, Sunfyre baiting it, the griffin dodging quickly, coming in from the flank, and almost striking us. Sunfyre had tried to change his tactics, breathing fire where he thought the king would go. It was to no avail. The Griffin King never went the same way twice. 

It was after the eighth pass, the griffin getting behind us, the king swinging his Valyrian axe at us, that reality finally clicked. 

The man in the tank will win. 

“Sunfyre, steed of the usurper, get our asses up to the clouds! Now!” 

Sunfyre rumbled his comprehension, and took flight. 

“Faster, boy! Faster!” Crack. Crack. Crack. 

Sunfyre bashed the air with his wings and propelled us up, almost at a vertical. 

Was looking over my shoulder as we went up at an eighty degree angle really a good idea? I thought so. 

The Griffin King was unable to pursue us directly. The ascent was too steep for him. 

Sunfyre slowed down up by the clouds and hissed at me. 

“Through the clouds!”

He reluctantly obeyed, ascending into the cloud sheet. 

“Listen to me you lizard, and listen well,” I shouted, my consciousness trying not to slide off him. 

He let out a throaty rumble.

I nodded, that was good enough. “You’re my steel chariot, and he’s a T-series fresh from the Moskva in the Sixties. We have a slower acceleration and a higher top speed, he’s got a faster acceleration and a lower top speed. We have superior range and superior armor, he has agility.” I’d say I was looking around, but that was a lie. We were in the clouds, everything was clouds. “When we charge at him, we’re forced to slow down, which lets him swing around us and attempt to hit us in the side or back. We have the range advantage and the armor advantage. We cannot let him negate that.” 

Sunfyre had no answer.

Bad. I like it when my vehicles talk back to me. Every commander does, even ones who didn’t belong in one to begin with. “Show don’t tell, they like to say. Kahalani showed ‘em all, atop the heights, he felled four for every one he lost. We don’t have heights, ‘less the griffin has some ceiling I’ve never heard of. We can’t abandon him either, he’ll cut through our ranks. Here’s what I need of you, my faithful friend. Hit him at range without compromising your range.” 

Sunfyre hissed. 

That’s a fair sentiment. I don’t like the sound of my voice either. “We’re, you’re, going to descend towards him. Stop when you are close enough to burn him, and burn him. If he comes at us, increase speed. I don’t care. Speed right past him. Don’t stop until I say so.” This was harder because I didn’t know the range of his fire. It seemed like it was in the hundreds of feet. It’s better than nothing. When one tactic fails, make up thirty more. “Do you understand?”

Sunfyre rumbled. 

I’m glad we’re in quorum. I cracked the whip on his head. “Attack!” 

Sunfyre turned around, closed his wings, and dove.

From this high up, I made out Sunfyre’s prior strafes. 

Long gashes of fire cut into the land between the forest and the village. 

The Griffin King was hovering above one of those gashes. 

Sunfyre stopped hundreds of feet above him and roared. A lance of gold went forth… and missed.

The Griffin King had nimbly spun about and dodged it. His own fur-clad bannermen, including those brazen enough to run through dragonfire itself, weren’t so fortunate. 

The Griffin King rose to meet us. 

Sunfyre obeyed my command, and picked up speed, forgoing any gouts of fire. 

In tank warfare, there existed one flavor of lunatic that stood out from the rest. The man that first decided to use tanks like rams must have, himself, been rammed by a tank one too many times. The tactic was so unorthodox that it was mentioned as a footnote during our course on the War, disregarded for how insane it was, and never brought up again, except, perhaps, as a joke. 

The Griffin King went to that school, for he rammed his beast into Sunfyre’s left wing. 

The griffin dug its talons into Sunfyre’s pink membrane. The dragon let out a high-pitched wail and began spinning. All those instructions I gave him went flying out the metaphorical window. 

Sunfyre shook the griffin off, rolled over -causing me to be upside down, sending all the blood rushing to my head, which absolutely helped my cognition- and clawed at the griffin. 

I couldn’t tell what was happening on or to Sunfyre’s underbelly. Dragon and griffin screeched and roared. Sunfyre tried snapping his jaws at something. 

All the while, we were descending. Dragons weren’t supposed to fly upside down with a griffin-sized griffin clawing at their underbellies. Even I knew that. 

The whole ‘duel’ lasted five seconds. 

“Sunfyre, roll over!” I screamed at the pinnacle of my lung capacity. I didn’t want to become one with rock, root, and stream. 

Sunfyre spun over and spread his wings. We glided over the treetops of Gawen’s Wood. 

I looked over my shoulder. 

The griffin and Griffin King were gone. As were the contents of my bladder. Becoming an Aegoncake wasn’t on the menu this morning, or the one before that, or even the one before that. 

We circled around Gawen’s Wood, buying us space and time to reassess. 

Sunfyre lost foot-long shaft-sized pieces of his left wing membrane. That he was still flying was a testament to the anatomy and adaptability of dragons. 

Oh, who was I kidding? Sunfyre was roaring the whole time. He was simply too angry to stop flying. 

Sections of Gawen’s Wood were on fire. 

The battle had ended. The clansmen were gone or smoldering. 

My instincts knew better than to assume the victory was at hand. The air was too thick. 

My instincts were right. 

As we neared the treeline, Sunfyre went silent. He swerved out of the way of nothing… until the beast darted past us. He’d been trying to get at Sunfyre’s tail. 

“Forward!” I bellowed.

Sunfyre didn’t. Nor could he, for we were a hundred feet above the ground. A hundred was being generous. Sixty. 

Because Sunfyre slowed down, the tank destroyer was able to get behind us, ascend a hundred feet further, and overtake us. He dove, I cracked the whip and shouted “Turn right! Evade!” 

Sunfyre ‘turned,’ dodging the griffin. 

I waited to see the griffin next to us, to continue our new engagement at twenty feet above the ground. I’d already had a plan in the works, too. We’d drive the griffin towards Gwayne’s Sept, allowing our archers to feather him. 

I looked up. 

A she-dragon had bathed rider and mount alike in blue fire. Her own agility saw her stop at the treeline, bank on a silver stag, and come back in with fang and claw. 

There was no need. 

The burning griffin plummeted to the earth, crashing ten paces from the blocks of men. In seconds, the knights were surging forward. 

The Griffin King, himself on fire, jumped off his dead mount, and charged them.

“After him, Sunfyre!” I shouted, knowing, knowing in my gut, that we were about to lose good knights to him.

Sunfyre beat the ground and took wing. 

The Griffin King planted his Valyrian steel axe in the head of a knight before a dozen more surrounded him. 

By the time I reached them, the battle was over. 

The Griffin King resembled a burning log of wood. Said burning log was full of spears and given many feet of clearance. 

Two dead knights were being dragged away.

The gathered knights burst into cheers as Sunfyre lowered his neck to let me off.

“Aegon Griffinslayer!” “Fire and Blood!” 

Sunfyre crooned lowly as I climbed off. 

I sensed he liked having me in his saddle, even if I didn’t make sense ninety nine percent of the time. 

Nobody was kneeling. There was still the threat of battle all around. In the distance, Dreamfyre was sweeping back and forth over Gawen’s Wood. Not burning, watching. 

Ser Breakstone was the exception. He’d passed off his long warhammer to a squire, dropped to his knees, and presented me with the Valyrian steel axe. 

The weirwood shaft was covered with runic inscriptions. 

The Valyrian steel double-bladed axehead was Norvoshi in origin. I recognized the design. How a Valyrian steel double-bladed axehead had gone from Norvos to a Griffin King was a question for another day. 

“For Your Grace,” Ser Breakstone bowed his head, raising the weapon. “The Griffin King’s blade.” 

“AEGON GRIFFINSLAYER!” the knights called and shouted. 

“His weapon belongs to Sunfyre-” who, upon being mentioned, rumbled, “-and Dreamfyre,” who was too distant to hear it, “and one of you. The Griffin King did not impale himself with spears.” 

“Your Grace, please accept this.” 

“GRIFFINSLAYER! GRIFFINSLAYER! GRIFFINSLAYER!”

I looked around at the gathered men. I knew what had to be done. “Who landed the killing blow?” 

Part of me expected every knight present -and those not- to cry out that they had done it. 

The crowd parted, allowing a teenager with a merman surcoat -speckled with blood- to step forward. Behind him came Ser Sevenstar. 

“I did, Your Grace,” said the teenager. 

Ser Sevenstar went to one knee, lowered his head in deference. “My squire saved my life, Your Grace. The Griffin King lunged at me, Ben stepped between us, caught the blade in his shield, and stuck his knife in the King’s throat.” 

A hush fell over the knights. They knew, they knew before I opened my mouth. 

From how I studied the knelt squire, they knew. 

Even Sunfyre knew, for he turned his head to the knelt squire and let out a low hiss. 

“Ser Sevenstar, your sword.”

Sevenstar rose, unsheathed his blade, laid it in his hands, and dropped to his knees, presenting it to me. 

I stepped up to the knelt squire. “What’s your name, lad?” 

“Benjen Manderly, Your Grace.” 

“How old are you?”

“Five-and-ten, Your Grace.” 

Rodrik Manderly appeared, to stand next to his cousin. He had the largest smile I’d ever seen. 

I gave a slight nod, more to myself than anyone. Sufficient. The boy slew a king. A burning king. 

I touched the blade to Benjen’s right shoulder. “Benjen of House Manderly.” It moved to his left. “In the name of the Warrior I charge you to be brave.” His right. “In the name of the Father I charge you to be just.” His left. “In the name of the Mother I charge you to defend the young and innocent.” His right. “In the name of the Maid I charge you to protect all women.” His left. “In the name of the Smith I charge you to be diligent.” His right. “In the name of the Crone I charge you to be wise.” His left. “In the name of the Stranger I charge you to die before dishonoring your vows.” 

I raised the blade to the heavens. “In the name of His Grace, Viserys the First of His Name, King of the Andals, Rhoynar and First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm, in sight of the Seven-Who-Are-One, arise, Ser Benjen Manderly, and accept your new blade.”

I handed the knight his Valyrian steel double-bladed axe. 

The knights around him erupted in cheers and calls. “SER BENJEN MANDERLY!” “BENJEN THE  GRIFFINSLAYER!” “BEN GRIFFINSLAYER!” 

None were happier than Rodrik, who, once Benjen put down his one-of-a-kind weapon, enveloped the newly-minted knight in a bear hug. 

Sunfyre, not one to be left out from anything and everything pompous, threw his head back and roared. 

The battle had ended with a rout. 

No words I wanted to hear less than “They will return,” said by Ser Corbray. But, like any briefing, it needed to be said then and there, not a moment later. And so it was. I met Lord Hersy and the other commanders atop the outer walls, where the counts and tallies came in. 

We lost two dozen knights that day. That was two dozen despondent wives and grief-riddled mothers. The last two, Sers Josten and Yorbert, died fighting the Burning Griffin. 

The Griffin King was dead. Hundreds of his warriors joined him. Andal discipline, shield-walls, and volleys of archers held unbreaking. They were estimated to have killed two hundred on their own. Sunfyre and Dreamfyre’s passes -few as they were- took up the majority of the kills. Hundreds torched where they stood. Dozens more died of their burns. We captured ten men. 

Black Ears did not take casualties, for they were not present. 

Howlers lost their leader and much of their fighting force. Chief Dyre was bathed in golden fire.

Blood Eyes took light casualties. Chief Boradir, the son of Thyme, was not captured. 

Steel Boars took casualties and fell back. Chief Thall eluded capture. 

Lightning Sons died to the last, to arrow and spear. Chieftess Haran was one of them. 

River Chosen took heavy casualties. Chief Eyron was slain by Ser Breakstone.  

Lake Wailers did not engage. 

Saltdrinkers did not engage. 

Bluehill were obliterated to the last. Chief Borroq, the last of his clan, slit his own throat over being captured. 

Estimates varied wildly, from the Griffin King’s army breaking in its totality to having four thousand men left. 

As the day went on, the fires of Gawen’s Wood spread. We waited on the battlements with held anticipation and nocked bows, waiting to see if any would be flushed by the fires. None were.

At Ser Maladon’s suggestion, Chieftess Thyme was brought up to the belfry to see the effects of her liege’s attack. Thyme collapsed into cries when she saw the burning forest. She cursed us. Me, in specific. “‘That wood lived since the first dawn. You shall be swallowed by the water which goes on without end, and your line shall be swallowed by the fire of dragons.” 

When the last words escaped her lips, she fell over. 

By the time the maester arrived, she was dead. Her heart had stopped. 

On account of her bravery, she was wrapped in a cloak and given a shallow grave between Gwayne’s Sept and Gawen’s Wood. Her staff was planted to mark it. 

Most of the clansmen didn’t get that much. Sunfyre gorged himself on their bodies. Dreamfyre, in defiance of her rider, went to do the same. 

Sunfyre sustained four cuts to his left wing membrane. None were longer than a foot or wider than a spear’s shaft.  The griffin’s talons were not strong enough to pierce his scales. 

Sunfyre could still fly with ease. He needed more time to take off, and could not go as vertical as he had before. The Princess said he would fully heal within the moon, for he was “young and still growing.” 

Young and still growing. 

Then there was the Princess herself.

The memories of those hours with her in the alderman’s house faded into a fog. 

After all the fighting and dancing and briefings were done, I found her in our new quarters lying underneath the covers of our bed. 

I’d seen her reaction before. It was a human reaction. 

I shed all my armor and held her to my chest. 

I listened to her murmurs. Dreamfyre’s ease of attacking. The screams of the clansmen as they burned. Sunfyre -and I- almost being killed because of her departure. 

Dreamfyre snapped her out of her stupor… only for her to fall back into it right after the battle ended. 

Hours later, while I held her, she claimed to still be able to hear their screams. 

I looked her in her tear-riddled orchids, and I believed her. 

I pieced together the story when I first set eyes on her. Listening to her half-garbled words only solidified it. 

When she rode Dreamfyre into battle, she was so horrified by what she had done, she broke. She broke and ran. Men trained to fight have discipline.

She was not trained to fight. Watching men be beheaded or hung from gallows was not the same as taking their lives. 

Few weapons were as shattering to morale as a flamethrower. She had a flying flamethrower with unlimited fuel. 

Another man may have hammered sense into her. I didn’t, as she’d already proven she could still fight. If she wanted to curl into a ball and cry, I wasn’t going to stop her. 

I will not lie, there was a side of me that was furious with her. I just didn’t show it. 

My duty, for better and for worse, was to sit there by her side and comfort her. I did not whisper any sweet pleasantries to her, nor did I wax poetic about the nature of war like some professor of draft-dodging. 

I could not and would not have done either. I kept my true thoughts to myself and held her closely. She needed me, not some philosopher. And so, I held her to my chest while she sobbed, and murmured, and sobbed, and murmured, and sobbed, until she fell asleep. Even those murmurs of hers were forgotten by me, for what she said did not matter. Her reaction could easily have been mine. 

While those minutes and hours wore on, I thought of my own place in this. Not much to think of, as I’d already certified it with my deeds. 

I hated using Sunfyre as a weapon of war. When the time came, I mounted him, and rode him into battle. The Seven Kingdoms were speeding towards war. House Targaryen was going to get pruned by an evil man whose ambitions were only matched by his decades-long lust for his niece. 

What I didn’t explain to her then, for she needed me for other reasons, was that we were all heading towards a conflict of extermination, and had to prepare for it. Whether it was by his hand or in the generation after, there were too many dragons, too many ambitious dragonriders, and an heiress whose decadence was going to bring about rebellions. Tens of thousands were going to die, one way or another. We were going to be among them. 

Was Westeros getting to me? Justifying actions with what would occur in the future? 

I liked the Westerosi way of warring. Up close and personal. I’d grown to dislike my past life’s, living room generals ordering strikes on targets thousands of miles away. 

What the hell was happening to me? 

After she fell asleep, I tucked her in like she did the twins, I left to go to the sept. 

Septon Triston wasn’t Eustace. He showered me with praises for my tactics and for my duel with the Griffin King, which he claimed was “waiting for a bard to compose a ballad for.” 

I didn’t repeat what I said to the knights, but the victory belonged to Sunfyre, not I. I wasn’t down there, killing men one at a time. Had I been, I would have been proven as mortal as the rest of the Seven Kingdoms. 

I lit a candle to the Warrior and stood vigil before his statue. Superficially, externally, it was to give thanks for granting us the victory. Many knights and commoners that took part in the fight did the same. It was custom. 

There was a deeper purpose. 

Guide me to being a true knight.

I picked the Warrior, because he was the aspect of all knights. Lawfully, I was a Prince before I was a knight. Between me and the Seven, I was a knight before I was a Prince. 

Helaena’s breakdown struck a chord in me. Dreamfyre and Sunfyre naturally liked burning raiders. We didn’t. When she sobbed that she didn’t want a repeat of this day, I didn’t say it for a multitude of reasons, but it resonated with me. We’re going to have to repeat this day, one day, I couldn’t bear to tell her then. I wouldn’t have to, she knew it already. 

True knights did not need to burn armies with dragons. 

After I finished my vigil, I went to listen to Septon Triston. Within a few hours, he had shoved me and my fight into parables. Needless to say, I didn’t lounge around and listen to the septon tell me how great I was. If I wanted that, I could go back to King’s Landing.

As I strode back to the alderman’s house, a pair of Corbray household knights tailing me as guards, I ran into a certain merman.

Rodrik Manderly went to one knee. “Your Grace, Seven blessings.”

I waved him up. “Seven blessings, Ser Manderly.” So far, so cordial. Two men conversing in the dialect of the Eyrie. 

He took a step closer. “Your Grace, begging your forgiveness-”

I raised a gloved hand. You’re not forgiven. “You have a question for me? Go ahead.” 

“A request.” He reached into his sleeve and withdrew a bright green cloth. 

Oh. A request. One of those. If only Helly was here, she’d make quick work of this. I’ll have to do. I nodded. 

“I have sent a raven to my lord uncle. In it, I wrote of the duel with the Griffin King and Your Grace’s knighting of my cousin Benjen. I am not as wise as my lord uncle…” he trailed off.

Yes, yes, I’ve seen this immature nonsense before. “But. You’re not as wise as your lord uncle, but.” 

He hesitated for a moment, peering at both of my guards, then spoke his mind. “The Princess of Dragonstone did not come to the defense of Gwayne’s Sept. Your Grace and Her Grace did.” 

Where’s the part where I have to make a stupid deal? “It is our duty to the realm,” I said, probably sounding like some spoiled brat. Deep down, I meant it. 

He didn’t care, because I was here, and my elder sister wasn’t. “With Lord Corbray’s leave, I would like to go to White Harbor to talk to my lord uncle.”

“Your lord uncle has an issue?” Would we be here if he didn’t? I had to give some credit to Ser Manderly’s poorly-disguised intriguing. This was Lord Peake levels of obnoxiousness. 

“My lord uncle is a… grieving man. His Grace of blessed memory made promises to the Manderlys.”

Can you be any less obvious, Rodrik? “You want me to see these promises kept by my kingly father,” I pretended to sound all noble about it. 

He lowered his voice. “No, Your Grace. You are the first prince to involve himself in the mountain clans since the days of Prince Aemon.” 

What he’d already been trying to hammer home was hammered home further. He wants me on the Iron Throne. Should I have commended his utter honesty, or laughed at it? I commended it. I liked when men were blatant with their plotting. It made sleeping easier. “You may thank Princess Helaena.” It was in theory the truth, she was my bulwark with which none of this would have happened with the speed it did. 

He extended the green cloth to me. “I would be your man, if Your Grace would have me.” 

Please don’t mean that in a Loras sense. I don’t need more rumors to feed to Mushroom. I clasped his hands, as a lord would when receiving a knight’s oath of fealty. “I accept you, Ser Rodrik Manderly.”  

I let go and he rose. “Your Grace, go to White Harbor. My lord uncle would like to meet you.” 

Oh he would now? I thought he was busy grieving over ‘promises.’ Everyone’s grieving over promises. There’s seven kingdoms and only one king and he’s feasting and drinking himself into an early grave. Since I was feeling particularly tired, I said “Why would he?” as if I was dropped on my head a few times. 

“House Manderly remembers those who uphold the vows of knighthood.” 

Why I’m so proud of you merpeople. It’s not like every house ‘remembers’ that, what with it being included in the lord-vassal pledge. “Was there some… reason… this could not wait?” Until another time. Or when I can pull Helly out of her trance and throw her at you.  

“As Heart’s Home faces raids by savages, so does the White Knife.”

“Savages? Along the White Knife?” I couldn’t tell if this was the setup to a bad joke, or if I truly did bonk my head on the sept’s low-hanging doorway earlier. 

What followed was a heavy subject. Heavy enough that I regretted making japes before. 

Ser Manderly spoke of fighting between followers of the Seven and followers of the old gods in and along the White Knife. Lord Hornwood being the primary belligerent on the old gods’ side, Lord Manderly on the Faith’s. Lord Stark has ridden forth from Winterfell many times to behead breakers of the King’s Peace. Said beheadings only inflamed the Manderlys, who accused Lord Stark of siding with the Hornwoods. No doubt the Hornwoods would say the same of the Starks and the Manderlys. 

I cut through all his detailwork. “You would ask of me to go to Lord Manderly, hear his case, and bring it before my father the king.”

Now that he’d revealed the grimy secrets of Northern realpolitik, he found it even easier to speak his mind. Not that that was any hardship for him beforehand. “Yes, Your Grace.” 

“You must understand, to ask this of me is not to ask me to rule in favor of your lord uncle. I am not His Grace. If the Hornwoods are right-”

I made him turn into a Bracken for a few seconds. “The Hornwoods are not in the right, Your Grace! Their raiding knows no bounds!” 

“I will consider it, Ser Manderly,” I honestly admitted. White Harbor was as much a part of the Seven Kingdoms as Heart’s Home. 

He thanked me, thanked me again, and then I walked past him before he thanked me for a third time. 

I found a mound of cream-colored tangles lying in bed. I took a deep breath, for part of me wanted to let her sleep there, let her recover. The other part was stuck in the Seven Kingdoms, and needed her acumen. The latter won out. 

“Helly, on my way back from the sept, one Ser Rodrik Manderly, nephew to Lord Desmond, approached me. Rodrik’s one of ours now, and wants us to go to White Harbor to treat with-”

She may have been a mess of hair and tangles and needed a bath or five, and only clad in a crumbled green shift. She sat up as the Queen’s daughter. “Tell me everything,” she barked. 

So I did, but not before fetching her a cup of small beer. Wine wasn’t the best idea, what with her having a migraine. 

When I was finished, she pointed her comb at me. “I say, let us make for White Harbor. If Lord Desmond is as… reasonable… as this dullard would have us believe, it would be a great boon to our cause. Manderly has influence in half the Northern courts.”

“As for the conflict with Hornwood?”

“I never heard of any ravens from the North. It’s possible Manderly or Hornwood sent them and the Lord Hand ruled in favor of Lord Stark.” 

Seeing as we didn’t know much of this ‘conflict’ or its scale, it was hard to determine if that was within grandfather’s nature. I imagined no, as he’d have wanted to use the Manderlys to acquire allies, akin to the Stormlands. Yet, by giving leave to Lord Stark, he was showing Lord Stark his own power as Lord Hand. The power of the Handship -compounded by a weak king- was enough to solidify our position over some houses. If nothing else, I could see grandfather saying ‘Lord Stark has been given a taste of what our family can offer. If he comes to court, we can find a place for him.’ 

“What promises did he want?” I asked as I combed my own hair. 

“The Conciliator offered the Manderlys recompense for their feud with the Peakes.”

“We cannot grant those. Lord Peake holds-”

“Half the Reach’s titles, yes. The Iron Throne holds the other half. What we need to discern, would grandfather be willing to part with a few castle charters, and a lord gaining an exclave on the other side of the Seven Kingdoms.” 

“Is that even lawful by the Hand?” 

She put her hands on her hips and gave me a look. “Father would send a strongly worded letter to the Lords to encourage peace between them. Then he’d invite them to a feast to celebrate eight hundred years since the Manderlys were thrown out of the Reach.” 

The Hand rules the Seven Kingdoms, except when it concerns rumors of his daughter’s high treason. I would’ve laughed had it not been true. 

“Your counsel, Helaena?”

“We fly to White Harbor and find out if Lord Manderly has the wits the gods gave a Peake. If Lord Hornwood is in truth fighting with Lord Manderly, we send letters of our own to the Red Keep.” 

“Is that from a desire to end it peacefully?” I left the other half unsaid, ‘or has today broken you into never wanting to ‘Burn them all’ again?’

She retrieved her comb, turned to the side, and brushed her hair. “They’re lords. Mountain clans are outlaws under the Iron Throne’s laws. Lord Hornwood is not an outlaw. We’d need father or grandfather’s seals to attain and arrest, and royal men-at-arms to bring either of them or both south.” 

Do we need them to go south? All we would need, to take this theory and run with it, was to bring them back to royal-held lands. Any attacks would constitute war. “Where is father’s nearest castle to White Harbor?”

“We have a garrison at Oldcastle under the castellanship of Ser Allard Cargyll. Biteskeep. Yes, that’s the name.”  

The two of us ended up sitting back in bed, against the poorly-made headboard. “Grandfather would be proud of us,” Helaena said, rocking her head for the fun of it, “flying to castles, winning allegiances.” 

“Proud of me,” I corrected, smirking, “I fought the Griffin King and I brought Ser Rodrik Manderly into my own.”

“No, haven’t you heard the septons? Ser Benedict Manderly fought the Griffin King and slew him with two hands tied behind his back and missing one leg.”

“Benjen Manderly,” I countered, wagging my finger. “Benedict’s not a name for a Northman.” 

She took my finger and stuck it in my mouth. “Here’s to Ser Bennard Manderly, a knight at five-and-ten. Wait!” she exclaimed, and rotated to face me. A wry grin emerged. “He’s better than you.” 

“That’s a given. For one he knows how to fight with a sword.” Or spear, or dagger. I forgot. 

She bobbed her head at me. “You were knighted at six-and-ten.”

“For the feat of living to six-and-ten,” I added. The feat was hard to achieve for Targaryens. All that Exceptionalism, and they died in the womb, died in the cradle, died of broken necks, and died of illness. At least I didn’t live in the next century, when one angry Blackwood would go around kinslaying Targaryens and Blackfyres. 

She rested her head on my shoulder and yawned. “How many golden dragons would you be willing to lose?”

I assume she means the coinage, not Sunfyre. “What’s the gamble?”

“Father receives a raven from Heart’s Home. ‘His Grace and Her Grace, titles titles, slew the Griffin King and his flying griffin.’ Father reads it, gets so excited he falls over and breaks his leg.” 

“That’s not fair,” I pretended to whine. He’ll break both his legs, just you see. 

With that, she fell asleep, deciding I was a better pillow than the alderman’s pillow. She was right, his pillow was made of hay, my bunched up shirt she’d stuffed between her head and my shoulder was made of cotton. 

Gawen’s Wood burned.

Men watched from the battlements, watching the forest burn in silence.

In a week’s time, the drums would sound again.

By the rising of the moon, they would.

Chapter Text

IX: The Rising of the Moon

14th day, 7th month, 127 after Aegon's Landing. (or, 7.14.127AC)

14th day, 2nd month, 1590 after Artys' Victory. (or, 2.14.1590AV)

“Apple.” A quiet voice was doing a terrible job making me wake up. Elbowing me in the side, conversely, was an excellent means with which to stir me from pretending to sleep. 

If I didn’t wake up, she’d continue elbowing me. I woke up, sat up, and glanced around to make sure I hadn’t slept in. The shutters were open. It was nighttime. “Yes, Helly?” I asked, louder than the ambience deserved. 

“My smallclothes are damp.” 

Have I been transported into a sitcom? After being flung into Westeros, I occasionally found myself pondering if I’d die and end up in, say, Gondor, or the Earth Kingdom. I’d given a Talmudic amount of thought to the possibility of going to sleep one night and waking up in a different universe. Likewise, I’d pondered if Aegon and I had somehow traded places. How’d that tale go? ‘I am Aegon Targaryen. War with Gaza? Economic strife? The Usurper is out there!’ 

I turned to the other side and spotted Helaena sitting up in bed. Right, you. “We did talk for hours about that knight of famed firmness. I don’t fault you for having lingering thoughts. His esteemed hardness was notable for piercing my other sister’s smallclothes.” 

She punched me in the upper arm, playfully. “With moonblood, not maiden’s water, you dullard.” 

“What do you want me to do about it?”

She pretended to pout. “Where’s my kiss to make everything feel better?”

I’d rolled my eyes further had I not done so already. “Very well,” I gave her a gentle peck on the forehead, much as either of us would to Jaehaera when she inevitably scuffs her knee from riding her broomstick dragon a bit too quickly. 

After that, I took her by her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “Do you feel better, princess?” I mocked in pompous Highgarden. 

She crossed her arms over her chest. “No, I’m bleeding between my legs. Why would I feel better?” 

My thoughts precisely. I tried not to laugh. I vaulted, read: rolled, off the bed, stood up, and doffed the hat I wasn’t wearing. “How may I offer my assistance, oh princess of flawlessness?” 

She sat up straight and smirked. “Be a good cuckold, and fetch me some cloth,” she ordered in Kingslander. 

“Where would I find it, my princess of holy virtues?” 

“Third saddlebag from the dresser.” She snapped her fingers. “Now, servant, before I have you flogged.”

Playing a game of sworn shield and Princess of Dragonstone was entertaining enough in its own right. Sadly, I had to cut the performance after a minute. 

I lit a candle, set it down on the dresser, and went picking through my sister’s clothing for linens to shove between her legs. Not something I ever thought I’d do in any lifetime. 

I tried my best, digging around the correct saddlebag -three over from the dresser- and didn’t find anything. “You don’t have any… cloths in here. Just clothing.” 

In her confusion, she cut her own act short. “Why not?”

“I haven’t the slightest inclination why. I don’t go around your bags.” Seven save me for having had to say that. I hoped the guards outside the door didn’t speak Oldtowner. 

“You think someone came in and stole them?” she asked, completely calmly. 

That sort of nonsense made me spin around and look her way. She’d clambered out of bed, presumably to confirm that her possessions were gone. “Truly? Why would someone come along and steal your… moonblood stuffings?”

“You make them sound like they’re part of a dinner.” 

I snorted. “Aye, what was that rumor they spread in King’s Landing? You bathe in the moonblood of your maiden ladies-in-waiting.”

She threw her head back and laughed. “Yes! That’s it! It’s for my form!” 

Some time during her bout of amusement, a thought wiggled its way into the cavity of my skull. “You had them given to the knights.”

“Knights have moonbloods?” she went deadpan. “Where? Hyrkoon?”

“No, to wear as favors, with your blessing.” 

She blinked, processing the revelation in real time. “At no point did you pick me up, carry me somewhere else, and tell me ‘Helaena my dearest, why do you now have cheese between your ears? You need that for your moonblood.’” 

“First, you’re too large for me to pick up. Second, I’m too weak to pick you up. Third, you always have cheese between your ears. Fourth, I told you that, and you said ‘Apple, the knights come first, I’ll find a solution to the cloth later.’” I waved at the saddlebag, then at her. “Now, later is now,” say that five times fast. 

She tapped her foot on the ground. “The alderman has rags lying around. I can use those.” 

“Stuff someone’s unwashed rags between your legs-” I knocked my knuckle to my head, “-that’s great thinking.” 

She put her hands on her hips, irked. “Would you rather I bleed out all over the floor?” 

A fair point. It wouldn’t be ladylike, or regal. “I’ll find the rags, and I’ll wash them. Will you be needing anything else-” for a moment, I switched back to Kingslander, “-my perfect princess?” 

“Yes, smallclothes. And a pail to wash myself.” 

Welcome to Westeros, where digging into my sister’s undergarments was normal. I noticed an issue immediately, besides the whole ‘fishing through my sister’s clothing.’ “Will you be having light green, moderate green, grass green, oak green, or white?” 

“I don’t have any dark colors?”

I snickered to myself. “Seems to me, the Queen wanted to make sure you remembered your allegiance.”

She stifled her own laughter with her hand. “Ah, yes, I need to remember my allegiance while relieving myself in a privy, or changing, or getting bedded by my husband.” 

I shrugged. “She’s not that wrong-” she’s far from right, “-a certain man of acclaimed ferocity was out there. Who’s to say, mayhaps if she wore the right colored smallclothes, she wouldn’t have given birth to so many formidable youths.”

“We finally discovered the truth of the matter!” She clapped, making my ears ring. “It’s all the fault of the smallclothes! He’d never have pulled them off with his teeth if she was wearing black! I understand now!” 

A minute later, she returned to normal. Normal as she could be. “Nothing darker than oak green?”

You really just want me to dig through your clothing, don’t you? Oh, hell, this wouldn’t be in the top hundred weirdest things to see or do since coming here. “I found dark green, almost black.” 

She snatched it out of my hand and grinned at me. “Now be a good knight and give your maiden some privacy to go retch her dinner into the nearest chamberpot.” She drew an imaginary circle with her finger. 

I had to say, I was surprised. She held herself well. “You’re that sick?” 

She tried shoving her tangles out of her face. She failed miserably, they fell back in front of her eyes. She grunted, at me and the hair alike. “Do you ever wake up feeling like someone stuck a flaming knife in your stomach?” 

“Can’t say it’s a familiar sensation.” 

“I am fortunate. Some of my ladies have cramps so terrible they’re left lying in bed groaning all day.”

I nodded, keeping a straight face. “Unlike you, standing up and groaning at me.” 

She crossed the whole room, snatched up her hair comb, and flung it at me.

I ducked to the side. “Missed me!” I called, popping back up. 

I took her second comb to the chest. 

“Go on, Ser Apple, turn away so I can disrobe in peace.” 

“I’ll do you one better. I’ll get that pail and water.” 

As I left to prove my words, she called out “And a candle from the sept!” 

For her prayers to the Mother, right. “Would you like me to get one of the septas as well?” In how I phrased it, I mentally pictured picking up one of the septas, one of the twenty-something pretty ones, hefting her over my shoulders, carrying her back to our bedchambers, and plopping her down in front of the princess.

“A candle, and the Star, if you’d be so kind.” She then proceeded to go retch her dinner into one of the chamberpots. 

I would be so kind.  

When women have their moonbloods, they hold private vigils to the Mother. I’ve heard, by way of ladies-in-waiting from across the Seven Kingdoms going to the royal sept, that some chose to venerate the Maiden or the Smith instead, and some like Highgarden all three. In Oldtown, it’s the Mother. 

Helaena would recite her appropriate prayers from the Book of the Mother and the Book of the Maiden, then offer her own, all while in sight of the sept’s incense candle. What she prayed for, I didn’t know. It was between her and the Seven. I could make some guesses: shield her children’s innocence, shield her siblings from cruel deeds, keep her parents healthy, defend me from harm on the battlefield, give all the knights present the wisdom to be merciful and kind, and give herself the wisdom to be a better mother. 

I returned with the candle, holy text, and pail of water. Would that that was the setup to a bad jape. After washing herself, washing those rags, wringing those rags out, wringing her hair out, and half-a-dozen other activities that I was forced to witness because I chose to break my fast there as opposed to listening to in the belfry, she got to praying. 

Before anything else, I had to commend her willpower to tolerate the cold. The past week had been nothing but cold wind after cold wind. Someone else might have donned layer after layer of furs to combat this. She undressed, donned a thin white shift, and knelt before the little statue of the Mother she set down on top of the dresser. The set of seven statues were once the property of one of the last High Septons. On his passing, he had his possessions donated to House Hightower, for their faithfulness. They passed down from Lord to Lord until they became the Queen’s, and from there, given to the future Queen. 

The septry-made candle quickly filled the room with incense. While I, like any reasonable person with a predisposition towards hygiene, preferred having sweat and blood and basic human density wafted out by way of better scents; I, like any reasonable person not looking for to go on a special kind of trip, was none-too-pleased with the candle that smelled like a certain familiar substance from my past life. I had no way of proving that the incense was giving me a slight high, but I also had no way of disproving it. 

Once she lit the candle and the intended effect -filling her nostrils with the most potent of incenses- occurred, I threw open the shutters to spare my mental acuity of whatever potential damages would result. 

The few instances I could hear her prayers, she was speaking in High Valyrian of all tongues. 

I didn’t judge. There was a celestial-level irony in one of the last vestiges of the Freehold being used to commemorate one of the religions they persecuted and nearly drove extinct. 

Knowing Eustace, there would have been a lesson in Helaena using High Valyrian. ‘The Seven hear every tongue and dialect the same,’ I’d recalled him saying one time. Even the tongue that once held the world under its fiery grip is just that, a tongue. Tongues are no more evil than men are. 

When at last she finished her prayers, she went to our bed. She lied down, threw the cover down to make it welcome for me, and waved at me. “Come to bed, Aegon, I’m tired.” 

I didn’t blame her. I was tired, too. Sitting there, trying my damndest to become a glutton, that’s no easy task. I climbed into bed, stretched myself before bed…

…and was tackled into the headboard.

My first thought was this is a strange sort of courtship. 

My second thought was I hope this isn’t her making up for almost a year of no intimacy. 

My third thought was look at her eyes, you buffoon. 

The orchids were merry. “You promised a match the other day. I’m calling in my debt.” With that, she punched me in the stomach -no real weight in the punch- and sat back on her legs. 

Debt. Wrestling time. 

It’s always wrestling time. 

The wrestling match was as fair as any match with her. That is to say, she walloped me to an embarrassing degree.

I went for her shoulder, so she headbutted my hand, kneed me in the torso, ‘fell’ backwards, and used me as the equivalent of a springboard in swimming, kicking off me to vault away. By the time I regained my composure -ha, what composure, I’m fighting a half-naked princess on a bed in the middle of a warzone- up was down, down was up, and I was lying back on the bed, a knee positioned square in the middle of my chest. Attached to the knee, towering over me, was the ‘kind’ princess, cackling maniacally. 

“Do you yield, Prince Aegon?” She couldn’t have sounded more full of herself if she tried. And how she tried. 

“Never give up, never surrender!” I shouted, and punched her in her privates. 

She winced and wobbled and complained about being sore. 

I threw her off me, got to my feet, and jumped onto her. Not tackled, jumped. I jumped into the air and came down, ground-pound slamming her right in her other private place. 

Fully on top of her, I held her shoulders down and glared into her eyes. 

“Do you surrender, Princess Helaena?”

“Hightowers don’t surrender, you fool.” She headbutted me, shoved me off her, and rolled to be on top of me.

She weighed much more than me, the exact number I’d long since lost since I wasn’t a tailor. I’d give her a fair estimate and say five stone. In the instance of ground fighting, she knew exactly how to throw her weight around. Here, it was a matter of giving me the false chance of escape, watching me wiggle for a few seconds, then ‘hopping’ forward. Because her center of gravity was focused and mine was more like a pancake, she knocked the air out of me, and won. 

“Your Grace-” I drawled in my best Flea Bottom impression “-please, allow this to be the best of five.” 

“Four more chances to castrate you?” She beamed. “Why didn’t you say so?” 

“I’m going to castrate you,” I gritted back.

She snorted and let go of me, perhaps to admire my insanity. “Really now? How will you go about that?”

Hm. I should really think these things through. Ah, well, if I did, would I be a Green? “I will rip your lady bits out. With my hands.”

She wagged her finger at me. “Careful, Apple, you’re confusing me with the whore of Dragonstone. She’s likes shoving those Braavosi torture devices in between her legs. I prefer more civilized forms of intimacy. Eye-to-eye, kissing, hands don’t go touching all the gross messy bits, slow-”

I took her off guard by tackling her into the bed. 

“Seven hells, Aegon-” she grumbled, failing to writhe out from under me, “-that’s not fair. I’m sore.” 

A sore loser. “Your soreness is conveniently timed.” 

“No, I just don’t complain about it.” 

I eased up slightly, to better contemplate her statement. “What would you like me to do about it? Rub your belly?”

“This,” she shoved her legs between mine, breaking my lock. Before I could wrap my legs around hers, she shoved me off. I went rolling to the side, and she sat up.

I’m dead. It wasn’t even to be decided. I lunged at her, she caught me, and threw me over her shoulder. I landed face-down on the bed. Next thing I knew, she was lying on my back, spread out as wide as she could get. No, there’s no breaking from this lock. 

I conceded while I still had air in my lungs. 

“Another win for the Princess,” narrated the Princess.

She kindly allowed me to get to my knees to prepare for the third round.

She rolled her shoulders. “Are you ready to make this three-aught?”

I cracked my knuckles. “You mean two-one.”

“In your dreams, my prince.”

Ah, you’ve prepared yourself for the perfect counter. “Up yours.” 

We charged one another at the same time. 

I’d forgotten how, exactly, we ended up in the positions we did. I’d gotten her resting on her front. She was grumbling about moonblood and her chest being sore and that soreness getting worse because I was putting my entire body weight on her back. Meanwhile, I sat there, patiently waiting for her to try something funny to then break out my secret weapon. 

Tickling. 

That shift of hers wasn’t enough material to keep her sides safe. 

The tickling would get her. The tickling would win where all other utensils lost. When the maesters searched for tales from the three eldest children of the Hightower Queen, I’d see to it that Helaena’s weakness to tickling would be at the top of the list. 

The silence was shattered by the drums and horns of the fifth hell. 

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM. 

In less than a second, both of us were on our feet, rushing for our clothes. I for my armor, kept in a stand in the room, Helaena for her riding leathers. 

I deposited the arming clothes -for arming clothes are needed to wear armor- by the shutters. Why? Visibility. This was an ambush, I needed intelligence gathered yesterday. 

As I was tying on the green arming doublet, I peered out the shutters. These faced west, towards what was once Gawen’s Wood. For two days did the forest burn, such was the power of the dragons’ wraths. Every day afterwards, Gawen’s Wood and the hills behind it were clearly visible. 

Not this day. 

This day, the world was shrouded in mist and fog. I can see the mist and fog. Day is here. I called for knights to tell me what they could see of the east. 

“Clear skies, Your Grace,” reported one of them, some White Harbor man who’d been part of Rodrik’s retainers. “Dawn’s almost upon us.” 

Helaena and I exchanged a look.

Clear to the east, clouded to the west. As good an advantage as they’ll ever get. 

Was there some rational explanation for the weather? Most likely. I wasn’t a meteorologist. Fog covering the ground by dawn, I could understand. Fog covering all the ground in one direction and not the other… less so. That wasn’t the time to ponder it. Nor did I. 

Victory belonged to the commander that chose his battlefield. 

It was foolish to think we chose this battlefield. No, we were here because we had to be here, because this was a pivotal strategic point we could not lose. 

The southern Golan was all flat. All of it had to be held, or they’d rain steel on the Galilee. In spite of holding it for half a decade, it was we who had the permanent disadvantage, not they. Even if we could match them for tanks, we needed to defend the whole front, whereas all they had to do was break through at a single point. And so we engaged along a whole front, and were rolled up and overwhelmed as a result. Our defensive positions, bunkers carved into hills, chosen because they were the only defensive positions, were laid siege to. 

Without any defensive positions and with the whole country at the risk of collapse, we’d made plans to blow the bridges across the Yarden.

The reserves arrived, piece-meal at first. After days of intense fighting, the assault was thrown back. 

Gwayne’s Sept was not some position of tactical superiority for us. It was a hill blocking the way to Heart’s Home and the way to Newkeep. The Misty River hugged its southern shore, treeless hills its northern. If the clans tried to outflank us, there wasn’t anything stopping them, they’d be spotted by the watchtowers, and our reserve knights would come pouring down from every holdfast in the area. As the gathering of knights had established seven days past, so still applied on this one. They gained nothing by trying to flank us, only risking being struck on multiple sides.