Archive of Our Own ^beta

Her husband.

Alicent had to remind herself of it.

This rotting corpse wrapped up in linen, this rigid figure, liquid dripping through flesh sockets the Gods themselves had seen fit to create. The smell of burning lavender oil covering the cursed scent.

That smell of his that clang to everything.

That had her bathe herself in scorching water twice a day. That had her drench herself in damascus oils, if only to keep it at bay. That sour smell that followed. The smell that had Helaena shy away from her mother's touch each and every time.

Her children’s sire lay dead on a table, and she felt as if...

"Your duty has ceased."

Her father’s words collide against her like a wave, as she covers the King’s face once more.

It was Otto Hightower that bound her to the Iron Throne. That bid her to join her blood – his blood – with that of dragon riders. That commanded her to watch the fire unfold. He commands her now to step away from it, as he did.

Her father had always found it detestable.

The smell.

He hid it well. A raised eyebrow. A pursed lip. Anything to keep from upsetting his King. The Lord Hand imported Myrish scented oils, for her, for himself, in hopes of tempering it. Flowers were picked daily to adorn every barren surface of the Red Keep, in an attempt to mask it. To deceive it. To war against it.

The Hightowers were of Oldtown, where cleanliness was godliness, and while her lord father wasn't so devoted as she should believe, his need to cleanse himself from the remains of the King's sickness that followed those closest to him, was nothing short of ritualistic. Nothing more than a desire for purity. A shortness of breath, a prickling in the skin, that urged one to be cleansed.

The fear of the rot.

Alicent had always feared her father would contract it. By sitting the Iron Throne. The maesters, after all, had claimed it its cause. A thousand swords – all of them having tasted blood. All of them riddled with something unknown. The Queen feared that after her King, she should have to care for her father. And yet... Never did the Iron Throne shed a drop of Hightower blood. And it led Alicent’s thoughts to wonder.

Queen Aemma's screams had been heard all throughout the Red Keep, that faithful day. By a blade King Viserys had ordered. Wasn't it justice that a blade had unmade him, the same way he had his wedded wife? The one he had sworn to protect? Yes. There was justice to that, surely. That same justice that had him to lose the eye that was robbed of her son, the theft he had condoned.

"My duty has only just begun."

There was little more of a reaction to her father other than a quirk of his lip. Relieved that he shouldn't have to waste his time to sway her, of damned souls. Then again, why should he doubt Alicent, when she had the room sealed and placed under guard. The small council summoned, and the Lord Hand brought to her.

You’ll make a fine Queen.

Alicent hadn’t known where her mind was at. She didn’t believe Rhaenyra would. In that same way she didn’t believe Aegon could. Both of them, disregarding their duty in their search for fulfilment. They believed the fruits owed to them but not the labour. Duty, sacrifice, nothing more than small words, for small men.

They were dragon riders. They were owed nothing less than the skies.

Let the worms keep to the earth. What weight bore the law against dragon fire? What weight bore the faith against those who trusted themselves divine? What could the foundations of the earth mean to those who lived in the clouds?

Nothing. It meant nothing to those who believed themselves Gods.

And yet, Aegon had one thing Rhaenyra didn’t – voices reeling her in. The voices of those who had rose through skill and service. Those who, while having inherited their standing, had laboured to earn it. Those who quenched the fire instead of feeding it. Wise and capable council, that same council that had ruled Westeros peacefully for nearly twenty years, in the King’s frailty.

To rule was to serve.

Alicent had believed, above all doubts, that Rhaenyra would have made for a fine Queen with their council. The moment Alicent’s sons were born, it wasn’t to be. It couldn’t.

If the Kingdom could not accept Rhaenys Targaryen, her father’s only child, the rightful heir by all known laws, it couldn’t stand to reason that they would accept Rhaenyra Targaryen when all of her brothers lived.

At the first moment of discontentment, the people would call for rebellion and Rhaenyra would have no choice but to put her sons to the sword. That the Princess should commit high treason by claiming her bastards legitimate and placing them in the line of succession to the throne would only hurry that discontentment along. Alicent recognized those as her father’s words, though it made them no less true. It made them no less her own.

In her heart, it had only been made clear when Rhaenyra demanded Aemond – her precious boy – bleeding and aching from her son’s blade, be tortured for having called attention to Rhaenyra’s errors in judgement. That others should be called to bleed for her sins.

It didn’t mean Alicent loved her any less, she assured the Gods, she assured herself. It didn’t diminish Alicent’s love. It only tempered it with fear. It only sharpened her wit. It only kept her from blindness.

"Our hearts are as one, my daughter." His words – unrelenting.

She could not deny him. She couldn’t attest to the honesty in his voice either. Alicent knew not of her own mind, of her own heart. She couldn’t conceive of her own desires, of her own thoughts. Only one thing was clear..

“And the will of the King?”

It was nothing more than morbid curiosity that led her to ask. Alicent knew her father had prepared for this moment, the same as she had.

Whispers in dark, musty halls.

Exchanges in heavy, fearful breaths.

Knowing looks, freeing, and overbearing, all at once.

Her reasons were set in stone – for each and every one.

For Aemond and Daeron.

For Jaeherys and Maelor.

Viserys' words...

Alicent had considered them nothing more than delirium. That once again her husband should confuse her with someone who mattered to him. But in his words she had heard the Gods. The faithing hum that drove her anguished ringing in her ear ever since blood, blood she claimed as merely her own, was spilled at Driftmark – it is you, you are the one, you must do this.

Only she could protect her children. Only she would endeavour to do so. Born of her body. The inheritance of her blood. The remnants of her duty. She would spill blood for each and every one. She would carry the blood of its spillage. She would allow it to stain both her hands and her soul. The Mother would forgive her nothing less than her duty.

“The King is no more. And when the King fades, the kingdom remains. With a will of its own. All the louder, my daughter.”

Alicent, at times, was left to wonder how this stranger she called father, could be both the rock she had built her life upon and yet the nature of the stone unknown to her. She understood the meaning of the crease of his forehead, of his raised brow, of his pursed lip, and of a flicker of his hand. And yet... His reasons were as unknown to her as those of the Gods.

Alicent believed her father had loved King Viserys.

In that silent way Otto Hightower could love. That same way Alicent loved the King's daughter.

The thought had united them in her mind. But in this light, eager as he was for her to leave the room, to cleanse herself and devote her hands to a new purpose... Alicent could no longer be sure. Perhaps her father loved only the man who bore the crown. The way a stallion loves its rider, no matter who it is. Mayhap he should love Aegon this way, when the crown graced his head. Mayhap it would mean as much to Aegon as it would have for her.

Alicent prayed it would.

“I need a moment to gather myself.”

Lord Otto frowned in thought. As if he could not understand what it was, that she wished to mourn.

A mad thought overwhelmed her at such a pace that her words gave it form.

“Do you not desire me to grieve the King, my lord?”

“Whatever for?”

Her duty to the King was nothing more than a reflection of her duty towards her father. Lord Otto had been well aware of that, painfully so. Alicent had always been frightened of it, of how well he knew her. That he might be able to read her thoughts. Even when her lady mother had been alive, Alicent remembered his eyes following her, paying attention, deciding what to use and discard. The daughter remembered the father catching her before she fell, she had always believed that, in spite of it all, he always would.

Did Aegon trust the same about her?

“A heavy weight has been… lifted. I suppose it bears some accustoming,” Lord Otto conceded, faced with her heavy silence.

The way he almost smiled, in that soft way of his he could muster, at times, for her. For Helaena, always.

The way that instead of grieving his King, he should… congratulate his daughter. For having survived her husband. For having endured him. It.

“You mustn’t battle too long with his memory, my child. The King will have his own ghosts to war against,” he advised her, taking a gentle hand to her face. Both cool and heavy. “I leave you with the Lord Commander. And a reminder that time is of the essence, and we mustn’t waste it at the feet of a dead man.”

His daughter nodded once more, and Lord Otto Hightower spared his King a final look – it would be the last time he would ever think of Viserys Targaryen. Such a blessing. That the rot wouldn't follow him, as she feared it would cling to her.

With the Lord Hand’s removal from the room, Ser Criston stepped forward from the shadows, taking his place by her side. Unbothered by the scent, if it should bring them closer. And his own familiar scent – apricot and leather – soothed something in her.

Alicent ventured to take a deep breath, for strength and courage.

There had been some concern, she could barely deny it.

Upon her father’s return to Kingslanding, that he should see the trust between her and Ser Criston and consider it… impure. Unadvised. That he should find himself threatened by the confidence she had placed in another, other than himself, in his absence. That it hadn't faded with his presence.

He never did. Ser Otto seemed only amused. That she should have taken someone for herself, that had once belonged to Rhaenyra. That the Gods should have sent her a champion to keep.

Alicent had fretted he would find it odd, the position Ser Criston occupied in her children’s lives. The devotion he should inspire in Aegon and Aemond. The trust he was afforded by Helaena. And yet Lord Otto saw the knight as nothing more than an extension of her, a reflection of her.

It was helpful that Ser Criston knew when to step away. When to fade into the shadows.

He reserved his thoughts to her, and although his eyes were heavy when he found Lord Otto too harsh, too demanding of her, he followed her lead. Every time a blessing.

Alicent fidgeted with her hands for some semblance of control from her thoughts.

“I would understand that… I pledged to ask no service of you that might bring you dishonour, Ser. And I failed you once,” Alicent recognized. Having long ago promised herself that she would always tend to his honour as he tended to her duty. “I would… I would find no fault in you if you wished to be released of your oaths and be given safe passage from the Crowlands. It is treason we speak of after all, to the wishes of a dead King.”

Ser Criston nodded slowly, his eyes going over the King’s frame.

Alicent wouldn’t know what she would do with herself if the knight were to leave her. She wouldn’t know how she would breathe in his absence, what she would do with her hands. He had been at her side for almost two decades now. The only person she dared to depend upon that wasn’t bound to her by blood. The only bond that she claimed to be all hers. By virtue of her words and actions.

The only one whose loyalty she had never questioned, whose hands she had never feared.

“Ser Harold Westerling once asked…” Ser Criston furrowed in thought. “How was it…” He hummed. “When a sword comes. And rest assured that a sword will come. Who will you place yourself in front of, Ser? The King, or the Queen?”

The knight laughed in recollection.

“He never expected me to answer that.”

Alicent held her breath in anticipation.

“What did you say?”

Ser Criston turned to her, held her eyes with the utmost gentleness and smiled ruefully.

“The Kingsguard are plenty. But there is only one shield to Alicent Hightower.”

A giggle burst through her lips.

That he should be so bold. That he should be so free with his…  with his devotion. And then she remembered where it was that they were. What sombreness was expected of her. That should always be expected of her now. And then her laughter was replaced with tears.

“Do you think the King will haunt me? For betraying my duty to him? For not carrying out his will?”

Ser Criston allowed himself a deep sigh, the pity weighing heavy in his eyes as he looked upon her unabashedly.

“May I speak plainly, Your Grace?”

Alicent nodded vehemently.

“Haven’t you given His Grace enough? Will you permit him, even in death, to take any more from you?” the knight questioned. “Will you permit him to take your sons?”

Alicent closed her eyes for a moment.

“Yet, is it fair that…” Alicent swallowed harshly, eyeing the closed doors behind them. “My words, in that room, might take his daughter?”

“Would the King remember he had another one? Would he remember Daeron’s name if you did not whisper it in his ear?” Ser Criston asked instead, permitting himself the forbidden rage. The forbidden mention. After all, they did not speak of him.

Daeron.

Ill as the King was, relying on Alicent as he needed to, unwilling for others to see the extent of his weakness, she had given him to foster in Oldtown, to her father at the time. And then to the Lord of Hightower, upon his return. She could not think of him without weeping. And she could not look into his father's eyes without doing so.

Alicent longed for Daeron as a child longed for home. She hoped he longed for her. All the same.

“If the Princess Rhaenyra chooses not to press her claim, she will never present the same challenge to Aegon as he would present to her, as any of your sons would present to her. She might yet choose to live a comfortable life in Dragonstone as befit her station, unbothered by the dangers wearing the crown would present to her own bastard boys,” Ser Criston reasoned, without malice or impatience.

It had never been in Rhaenyra’s interest to rule. She desired only to fly and live. Was that not why she went away? To Dragonstone. To abscond from the shame and the accusing eyes. The failed expectation that like all other rules, the ones regarding bastards shouldn’t apply to hers. Could it not be so that Rhaenyra should wish to be shielded from them once more?

Alicent would.

She would shield the Strong boys of the stain of bastardy upon their name, grant them keeps and honours as trueborn children of a beloved princess. Even Lucerys. As long as Rhaenyra accepted to remain the same she had been all her life – a dragon rider – free from the obligation, the duty, and the shackles of the throne.

As long as Rhaenyra protected Alicent’s sons by not pressing her hollow claim.

"Aegon will not wish to challenge his sister," it demanded to be said.

Aegon was the only one of her children who had ever known Rhaenyra as his sister. Who had ever called her as such. Her eldest son searched her eyes when she entered a room, wishing to find hers staring back at him, with fear or affection it wouldn't have mattered to him. And yet they never were.

"Prince Aegon will do as he is told."

Alicent would have taken offence to it, if it had been her father saying so. That a child of hers should be considered a puppet of strings. As she was.

And yet it was Ser Criston who spoke. The man whom she was certain loved her boy. Though Aegon hadn't done anything to deserve it. He hadn’t needed to do anything to deserve love. A firstborn son of a king was owed love by taking his very first breath. And yet, Aegon had been the first one not to receive it. Perhaps the reason for his crooked nature. She might have deluded herself into thinking so, if only Prince Daemon wasn’t just so.

Her father had been outside the room when she had given birth. Alicent had only known it because the moment she heard Aegon's cry and looked up she was met with his green eyes, his cool lips upon her brow with a gentleness so foreign to him that it rattled the fear in her chest.

You have pleased the kingdom in your service, my child, he had said.

You have pleased me, dearest, was all that she had heard.

The relief that washed over Alicent in that moment had been so thick that she never forgot the feeling. It was to it she returned, in moments of doubt.

There was never so much fondness in his eyes as in that moment, when Lord Otto took his daughter's hand and assured her of how well she did. Alicent herself hadn't felt the need to ask for Aegon, so entrapped she was in her lord father's care and attention. It had been the most peaceful she had ever felt.

That moment.

Hidden away in a feathered bed, neither a queen nor a lady, a child crying in the distance – whose, she could not tell – her lord father holding her hand, praising her to the skies. Nothing seemed to hurt in that moment, nothing that could not be soothed by her father’s pride in her.

Lord Otto never held Aegon.

Years had passed and Alicent always found it curious. That having known it a boy he wouldn't have wished to hold him and attest to the blessing, as the King did upon arrival from his hunt, gratefully barely casting his eyes upon her. The hunting party her father had set out. Alicent had to wonder... Was it to protect her, should a choice need to be made, or was it to protect the King? She had been thankful for it for the lack of intrusion, all the same.

"I don't believe Aegon will take kindly to my lord father-"

Ser Criston narrowed his eyes on her. As if there was something amiss.

"Prince Aegon will do what you tell him to do, Your Grace."

Alicent shook her head decisively.

Aegon never heard her… his father’s son. She blamed herself for it. By the time she had been taught how to hold him the right way, how to sing and comfort, it had been too late for him to recognize her voice as that of his mother. To give it the proper weight.

Helaena, unusual as she was, always did her duty, without complaint or delay. A steadiness to her in the formalities and obligations of her role that mesmerised Alicent, that honoured her mother. Aemond and Daeron, her pride and joy. They welcomed her touch and shone under her eyes.  They would never… ever draw blades for the sake of their own amusement.

The Targaryen blood, he got the most of it, her father had once told her, his lip curled in aversion.

Alicent shook her head vehemently, "You mistake my son's obedience, Ser."

"I do not mistake the strength of his devotion," Ser Criston said with such conviction that it scared her. That there should be something of her son that she had not yet understood. That there should be something about Aegon that she overlooked.

Alicent had kept it from Ser Criston. The things that went on, at times, in the keep. The fires that she couldn’t extinguish. The maids that she couldn’t exchange fast enough, after they caught his eye. The first time it had happened, three moons after his wedding to Helaena, Alicent had him whipped. She had done it herself. Hands shaking and lips trembling. Ashamed that anyone should try and excuse him for it. That they should try and turn it into less than what it was.

Aegon allowed her to.

She reminded herself of it often – her son had allowed her to punish him.

A man grown had kneeled to his mother’s judgement over something most wouldn’t have considered a crime. It was the only time Aegon had ever reminded her of herself. His doe tear stained eyes avoiding hers. The blind obedience of it. The eagerness to please. The honesty in the acceptance of punishment.

Aegon hadn’t uttered a sound and Alicent shed all the tears that she had kept to herself during her wedding night and some more for his soul. They had both left that room bleeding and silent.

The holiest Aegon had ever been.

It was never known. Aegon kept his ventures to Fleabottom until Helaena became pregnant with the twins and it started again. Alicent had feared that… that he might… She wasn’t sure that her sweet girl would have shared with her if her firstborn did her harm, the same way Alicent had never shared with her father all the ways the King harmed her. Alicent couldn’t leave it to chance, and she was so tired… from caring for her husband, for the realm, for the family. It seemed natural that she would start caring for the girls as well.

Alicent had never told Ser Criston for he was the only one that ever looked at Aegon with… affection. With care. At times… even a hint of pride. She couldn’t bear to take that from her son. No matter that she could not bestow it upon him. That she would never be able to bestow it upon him. She couldn’t bear to take that from Criston either. That he should mourn what Aegon had become the way she did.

A Targaryen.

“It might be what leads him towards the right path. The weight of the responsibility. Aegon always stands tall when he is entrusted with something to protect,” Ser Criston urged her to remember.

Certainly, the incident at Driftmark… Aegon had done well. He had met her harshness with protection. He had understood what was needed from him, at that moment. What his kin needed from him. Turned his father’s suspicions from her to the whole of the Red Keep. To the whole of Kingslanding, need be. Would have allowed it all to burn to the ground. For them. For her. There was a devotion in his eyes, every time he turned them to Alicent for a little while after that she had dared to hope upon.

It faded upon his wedding day.

Alicent had hoped that Aegon would understand. It. Her. That her daughter would forgive her. If Viserys wouldn’t allow Helaena to marry outside House Targaryen… Alicent had believed that... that her brother wouldn't hurt her. That any man in the world would present himself as a danger to her, as they had to her mother, but surely not her brother. Surely not Aegon. Rebellious as he was, naïve, he was not cruel. He hadn’t been – at the time.

The only thing Alicent had ever entrusted him.

His sister.

And even in that task Aegon had failed her.

“You think too highly of him, Ser.”

One of us has to.

Ser Criston need not say it, she saw it in his eyes. If she should present the sword, he must offer the shield. If she should doubt, he must give assurances. The knight shorted his Queen’s faults, each and every time. And he did so without judgement.

“All of them would live and die for your love,” the knight assured her with a soft smile.

“And you?” It came out of her lips before she could catch it. She did not dare to take it back, not when she wished to hear it. Not when she wished him to say it. Yet she looked away all the same, willing to have him forget the words.

Yet he did not.

Ser Criston lowered himself only a little, only enough to slip his hand in hers, crossing their fingers.

“It has been my privilege, my Queen.”

“And my blessing, Ser,” Alicent pushed herself to whisper, to overcome the heaviness in her throat, adding her other hand to cover their intertwined fingers.

They stood there for a little while. It was the most peaceful she had ever been in the King’s chambers. The least frightened she had ever felt.

“What do you require now, Your Grace?”

Aemond, was what she wished to say.

Aemond who was built for this. Aemond whose safekeeping had prepared her for this. She was stronger when he was in the room. She knew what needed to be done when he was in the room. When Alicent looked at him, she understood all that she was required to do and why she was required to do it. Etched on Aemond’s face were the consequences of Rhaenyra’s actions and the lengths others would allow to be reached to keep her from them.

The first time Alicent had ever disobeyed the King. And gave foundation to all the others.

And his rage. Aemond's reaction faced with Lucerys Strong’s laughter had shown her that no matter the hope she tried to gorge herself on, there would always be a need to protect them. Her sons would not fade away into the shadows and the ones that wished to wouldn't be allowed.

“Aegon will need to be found. He’s not in his chambers. I’m afraid he’ll be…” Alicent sighed. “Nursing his drink somewhere in the confines of Fleabottom.”

"I'll bring him to Princess Helaena’s solar, after the council, if he’s decent enough to be presented to you” Ser Criston proposed, aware of where her heart would lead her first. “What else, Your Grace," Ser Criston asked of her. As if there should be more. She should need more. She should ask for more. Demand more.

“Might you… call me Alicent,” she asked, turning towards him, searching his eyes for any doubt. “When we’re… so I might remember.”

That there was more to her than what her marriage had built her into. That she might return to it. Not the King’s wife, his devoted nurse and keeper. She was neither a reflection of Viserys, nor his extension. She wore green to remind herself of it. To bind herself to more than the marriage that she was subjected to. She was a Hightower of Oldtown.

“What else, Alicent,” Ser Criston asked once more, with a smile.

He said it with a lightness of someone who believed himself to have said those words a thousand times, when he certainly had not. Alicent would remember, if he had.

The use of it prickled her skin, as Alicent realised no man, that was not bound to her by blood or marriage, had ever called her simply by her name. Ser Criston was the first. And it sounded… right.

“I will need the windows opened. The whole of the Red Keep aired.”

The smell exiled.

The light once again allowed entry.

The cool wind offered safe passage.

“And I need…”

“Yes?”

The words wouldn’t come out, and so, she merely looked at it.

Old Valyria, in all its feigned glory.

That monstrous work of stone and white clay that had demanded more attention from the King than both the kingdom and his kin. That thing he bent himself over when his attention was requested. That thing he looked to when his children attempted to engage him in conversation, to share with him their day, to ask for his opinion, to exchange some words. Any words. That thing he cared for more than the legacy and the wreckage he would leave behind.

Alicent remembered a time she had been thankful for it. That he paid more attention to it than he did to her. It faded away when her children began to beg for scraps of his attention, morsels of his love, and he could spare them none. All efforts consumed by something that was nothing more than child’s play. Aegon had tried, Seven bless him. He had tried to show interest in it, in an attempt to please his father, that in turn he should show interest in him. Viserys never did.

She had to tend to this rage as a flower. For too long she had suppressed it, while tending to Viserys, afraid her gentle hands would turn into claws. She could feel it now. She could allow it to strengthen her.

“Have it broken down and thrown into Blackwater after Aegon’s coronation.” She sneered at it, as she only could have dreamed of sneering at its architect, and not even that thought had she allowed herself while he lived. “I shan’t give it another thought.”

Ser Criston stood at hilt, bowing deeply before accenting, “Your will be mine, my Queen.”

Yes, Alicent nodded to herself, they ought not to give Viserys Targaryen another thought.

The council convened in her apartments within Maegor’s Holdfast.

As the body of King Viserys grew cold and brittle.

Alicent didn’t bother to have her hair carefully arranged to exude a piety she felt robbed of. An austerity she had armoured herself with as if it were a shield. No one could touch her now, the thought came as a relief.

As Queen consort she had always felt herself endangered by Viserys' eyes, though certainly his illness came to her both as a release and another confinement. A consolation that came to her most shamefully. More a nurse than a wife, from the moment the Maesters had urged the King to keep from her, when the lesions spread further down his body. She could have wept when they said it, she would have wept for the kind eyes that met hers while they said it. But she had never taken it for granted – Viserys' mercy. The fear never ceased that one day, he might see her in some favourable warm light and think her contagion with the disease a worthy risk for his enjoyments.

As a widow, she was released from the confines of her marriage. From the vicious eyes of men.

Nevertheless, Ser Criston's eyes were a comfort. For they saw and did not seek to claim. They held and wished for nothing more than to pay homage, to grant fealty.

The weight of Lord Larys' eyes though… was unsettling beyond reasonable doubt. There was an urgency in them that frightened her. She had believed the King stood as a barrier to them, even a shield. That while he had never touched her – he wished to. Worser still, he sought to.

Now as she looked to him, as she looked to Ser Criston, who had always found him loathsome at her heels, a hound eager to be kicked, she comforted herself with the knowledge that should he ever reach out his hand a mere whimper from her and Ser Criston would have it cut off.

No whispers from Lord Larys Strong, no particular cleverness could save him from an untimely end should he presume too much from her, other than her attention and acknowledgement. Her respect and gratitude.

Alicent did not seek to hide the youth still clear upon her face and hair now. To make herself older for these men, more worthy of consideration. Alicent Hightower was the King's mother – the Dowager Queen. Young for her husband took her as a child. Strong for she had endured the four children forced upon her.

"My lords," Lord Otto mournfully began. "The King is dead."

They all bowed their heads in grief and respect. Began by whispering their condolences to her, to loudly praise the King for his arduous battle against the disease that ailed him for most of his life, before more practical concerns overtook them. The customary tasks and procedures expected after a King's passing.

His final rites.

The announcements, the vigils, the bells.

"If Her Grace should wish to write the missive to be sent to Dragonstone. To soften the sad tidings to the Princess Rhaenyra," Lord Beesbury offered. "At once the preparations for the Queen's coronation must –"

"Forgive me, my lord Beesbury," Alicent spoke with a degree of confusion. "By all rights the Iron Throne must pass to His Grace's eldest trueborn son."

At once the air in the chamber shifted.

All lords leaned forward in their chairs and whatever feigned surprise they had managed to muster at the disease that should have taken the King years ago, was firmly placed aside.

"Indeed, Your Grace," the Master of Ships spoke out, holding on to her gaze. "Both law and precedent are clear on this matter."

Queen Alicent appreciated Tyland Lannister. She always had. He was a reasonable man, not given to extravagances, not given to outbursts of pride, no matter his name.

He had been the first to support the King in having her in his council when his health began to deteriorate. And in a feat of good health from Viserys, he never dispensed from showing her the same respect he did when the King was gone and she, the one who ruled in his name.

Ser Tyland took his duties with the seriousness they were owed, he never rested nor relented, much to Viserys' chagrin during celebrations. Alicent had always respected him for it. A war did not cease only because the King threw a feast. If the people still bled in his name, then he should not be given space to forget them.

Alicent expected him to be the first to turn in her favour.

Lord Jasper Wylde the second to turn in favour of her father.

"Hundreds of lords and landed knights swore obeisance to the Princess Rhaenyra, solemn oaths to defend her rights in accordance with the King's will. Her Grace was in attendance, if she'll recall," Lord Beesbury spoke up once more, in a waspish tone, demanding their attention.

“To defend her rights against Prince Daemon’s, I recall,” the Queen Mother shocked him by saying.

"Most of them dead and all of them sworn before the birth of His Grace’s sons," Lord Wylde reminded him. "Most in this room swore no such oaths at all."

Lord Beesbury snorted.

"You swore to serve your King!"

"Do you recall why it was sworn, my lord? I understand that memory should fail you given your age," Lord Otto spoke at last. "The Great Council of King Jaehaerys Targaryen, whom both of us also served, chose to have all male claims precede those of the female claimants, despite their order in line to the Iron Throne. And yet,” he agreed, “King Viserys, in his wisdom, faced with Prince Daemon's nature, chose to have the order reinstated to daughters before brothers, in accordance with the Andal tradition. The primogeniture of sons was never questioned, my lord, much less denied."

Lord Beesbury had no words against it for it was the plain truth of it. The law of it. He searched the eyes of all in the room for support, none would meet his.

"And might I also remind you who is it the Princess chose to take into marriage? The groom that kept her away from court for close to a decade," Lord Otto chose to add for the pure candour of it.

“Make no mistake, should Princess Rhaenyra ever sit the Iron Throne, it will be Lord Flea Bottom who rules us, a king consort as cruel and unforgiving as Maegor ever was. My own head will be the first cut off for loyal service for more than two decades, I do not doubt. The Queen, my daughter, will soon follow after her devoted care to King Viserys, while his daughter and brother hid in shame at their own trespasses after the death of Laenor and Laena Velaryon. In Dragonstone, lost to their own amusements.”

“Nor will they spare my children,” Alicent echoed, meaning every word. “Aegon and his brothers are the King’s trueborn sons, with a better claim to the throne than her brood of bastards. Prince Daemon will find some pretext to put them all to the sword. Even Princess Helaena and her little ones. They’ve shown themselves capable of great cruelty already, my son’s eye slashed and with what justice was Lucerys met with? Off to bed with cake while my son bled. Her boys will show themselves true to their nature, rest assured.”

The words tasted like ash in her mouth, and yet Alicent would utter them a thousand times if she were asked.

"And yet King Viserys never disinherited her,” Lord Beesbury argued, digging his pointed finger into the table before him. “The King's will commands us to raise Princess Rhaenyra to the Iron Throne. Anything else than that is treason, of the highest order."

"Treason. Interesting word that is, do you suppose it applies as well to the bastards the Princess would have us pretend are trueborn? By all laws of this land she should have been confined to the Silent Sisters for the insult alone to her husband. And if it did not stand as an insult to him, with his... proclivities, then to all the law-abiding lords and ladies of this land," the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard spoke with a shrug. “Or perhaps it did, the reason why the Princess and Prince Daemon had Lord Laenor murdered.”

"The Targaryens answer not to Gods nor men," Lord Beesbury was quick to counter, incensed that the Lord Commander should raise his voice from the shadows of blind service. “And I will not answer to a lowborn knight on matters that far surpass his understanding.”

The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard did little else than show his amusement at the attempted slight, and yet Alicent’s hands clenched all the same that Lord Lyman would dare to utter it in her presence.

Against her sworn shield.

"That is no point of pride, my lord. For if they believe themselves above both gods and men it can only turn them into beasts. And we the fools who allow for the bloodshed they command at every turn," Maester Orwyle surprised them by speaking out. The one member of the council whose loyalties they hadn’t been certain of.

After it there was no need for her lord father to speak much. It didn’t matter. Not truly. What words Lord Lyman used, what vitriol he might yet spew. The matter had been settled before the council had begun. It had been settled years in advance, the moment Aegon was born. Every man and woman with half their wits had understood that. And there was no need to keep those who didn’t.

"The law must stand for all or be held up to none. A dead king's desire is not law. If King Viserys had wished it so, he should have made it so," Lord Tyland said easily enough. “And demanded a new oath upon the birth of his son. As he was advised, by all in this room. You among them, Lord Beesbury, if you’ll recall.”

And it was true. In one way or another, Viserys had been requested by all that stood in attendance to declare the succession order once more. For either Rhaenyra or Aegon, but in such a way as it would not be called into question once he perished. The King wouldn’t hear of it. Determined as he was to let the unrest grow.

"We shall respect the favour the King showed his daughter at every turn," Alicent assured the old lord and herself. "Terms will be sent to Rhaenyra at Dragonstone. Terms she may accept without shame and to all those who may find themselves honour bound to uphold their oaths to her. Mercy and respect will be shown."

Lord Beesbury's face contorted with disgust.

"Even a worm will turn, it seems," he seethed, his eyes holding on to hers. "Men of honour, women of true piety, shall not put aside the vows sworn to her and her father. And mercy shall not be shown to those who do. I will not sit meekly while the likes of you plot to steal her crown!"

Faced with the old Lord’s words, faced with her own distraught silence, Ser Criston took one of the daggers from his belt and placed it right in front of Lord Lyman, upon the table. A challenge if there ever was one.

“If you’re a man of honour, then by all means, Lord Beesbury, do not sit meekly by,” the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard prodded.

It happened fast. Surprisingly fast.

The moment Lord Beesbury raised from his seat, strengthened by righteous indignation that helped the old man up with no need of aid. His finger high in the air pointing it accusingly at her, taking the dagger in his hand, was met with the strength of Ser Criston. Who pushed the man down and in one quick movement slashed the man's throat from ear to ear.

Alicent counted the time in her head. The seconds it took for the Master of Coin's laboured breath to cease.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Six.

She reached all the way up to seven.

And it seemed... It seemed something hallowed.

Something the Gods, in their wisdom, had seen fit to create.

Something they could manage to absolve them of.

"The Kingsguard will not suffer threats to Her Grace, the Queen," Ser Criston Cole settled with a grave solemness that would suffer no questioning.

The deafening silence that followed was broken by the measured clearing of Lord Otto’s throat.

"Thank you, Lord Commander," her lord father spoke, a brow raised with interest.

And yet the knight only stood down when Alicent spared him a nod in acknowledgement.

In forgiveness.

The first bloodshed of the night belonged to Lord Lyman Beesbury, Master of Coin and Lord Treasurer of the Six Kingdoms, and it would have been shed in her name, by her sword, while keeping to both of their honours.

"If all are in agreement I would then forth take charge of the treasury. After all, it's been much of my labour for these past years, in Lord Beesbury's old age and loss of sight," Lord Tyland continued, looking away from the blood that made its way down the table. Unconcerned.

"If you would be so kind, Lord Tyland," Lord Otto agreed.

"Storm's End is of concern, given their ties to Princess Rhaenys. I would propose that Prince Aemond should offer to take one of Lord Borros' daughters to wed. A fine honour to grant the Lord," Lord Wylde spoke out.

Aemond would do his duty, of that Alicent was certain. And new blood was desperately needed. She agreed easily enough.

“We also must take note that her dragons far outweigh Her Grace’s children, no matter how great a threat Vhagar poses. That will certainly cause a toll in the loyalty of those whose favour we seek,” Lord Tyland felt the need to consider, tilting his head. “Unless, of course, Queen Helaena were to-”

Helaena was a dragonrider, and a joyful one at that. Yet she was no warrior and to take a life… to command Dreamfyre to take a life would crush her own. Alicent wouldn't the thought of it.

“Of course Princess Rhaenys might yet consider our proposal,” the Lord Hand carefully wagered, “Driftmark for her granddaughters, as the law commands, and as we had envisioned before the bloody affair with Vaemond Velaryon.”

“And pardons for the girls, if their father should force them to fight against their own interests” Alicent added with concern, aware of what would be required for the offer to present itself agreeable to the Queen who never was. “Her neutrality alone would even the scales.”

“A wise motion,” Lord Tyland agreed, feeling no need to push beyond reason so soon in the night.

“The proposal should only be sent once we are certain the knowledge of the King's death has reached Princess Rhaenyra and not a moment before,” the Lord Hand cautioned the Maester. “Princess Rhaenys wouldn't keep the knowledge to herself, even if she were to accept it.”

“And the Vale of Arryn?” Alicent questioned. “The Princess shares their blood, to be sure, yet her marriage to Prince Daemon might prove itself enough to question their support.”

“As high as honour, their words,” her lord father mused. “How could they keep to the Princess, the way she flaunts her absence of it, first with the bastard children she sired and then with the man she took in marriage, the man who killed one of their one, with the sheer brutality to be known of Daemon Targaryen. House Royce never to have known justice from it. We shall ensure it, for them,” Ser Otto vowed, avoiding all eyes.

Ayes were all that was heard in agreement, there was yet to enter a man in this room who would speak kindly of Daemon Targaryen in his brother’s absence.

“A marriage pact might be brokered for Prince Daeron as well. The Maid Arryn requires a husband. That would certainly settle the matter, without the promise of bloodshed,” the Grand Maester ventured, for honour’s sake.

Lord Boros frowned. “Prince Daeron is too young for Lady Jeyne.”

“I wager his age might be to her benefit,” Alicent put forth. “She wouldn’t wish for a husband whose age might embolden him to question her authority.”

“Yes.” Her lord father nodded to himself, seeing the reason in her words. “That would certainly be of an interest to her.”

“The Princess will not meekly stand aside while these loyalty oaths are bought and paid for. Not when she has dragons,” Grand Maester Orwyle cautioned the council.

“We enjoy some advantage, given the Princess’s confinement,” Alicent considered. “The longer she remains ignorant of the King’s death, the greater the odds in our favour”.

It was a cruel thing, to keep a daughter from the news of her father’s death.

It was also a cruel thing, for a daughter to abandon his ailing father as he rotted for all to bear witness to. Only calling out her mother’s name, in the middle of the night, feverish and in pain.

Aemma – she could still hear Viserys’ voice.

Rhaenyra – the walls of the Red Keep echoed.

“Our window is narrow, to be certain,” all agreed, “we mustn't waste it.”

They spent the rest of the night in preparations for Aegon's coronation. Going over all possible allies and enemies alike. It surprised her how polite it all was. These talks of treason. Most council rooms she had presided over had been much more contentious than this, save the... Death of the Master of Coin.

No ravens flew that night. No bells rang. The servants who knew of the king’s passing were sent to the dungeons. Ser Criston Cole was given the task of taking into custody such blacks as remained at court, those lords and knights who might be inclined to favour Princess Rhaenyra.

“Do them no violence, unless they resist,” Ser Otto Hightower commanded Ser Criston. “Such men as bend the knee and swear fealty to King Aegon shall suffer no harm at our hands.”

“And those who will not?” asked the Grand Maester Orwyle.

“Are traitors,” Lord Wylde was quick to say, “and must die a traitor’s death.”

"My lords, if you'd permit me," Lord Larys spoke for the first time from the shadows. "Let us be the first to swear a blood oath, lest there be traitors amongst us," he urged them, drawing a dagger across his palm. "To bind us together, brothers unto death, in service of the realm and Aegon Targaryen, the second of his name."

"Her Grace has no need of blood oaths," her father spoke as the blade was offered to her by Lord Tyland, though he too had opened his flesh of hand.

"She bears the blood of the King."

And so each of the men in attendance slashed their palms and clasped hands with one another, swearing brotherhood, while Queen Alicent Hightower watched on.

“Do you desire me to grieve the King, mother?” the words shocked her for their similarity to the ones Alicent had met her father with.

I want you to see me not as the king, but as your father.

Hadn't those been Viserys’ words? To those children of hers that had been nothing short of orphaned of a father. The children that had remained by his side in spite of it. Left to wander these halls being called by the name of his dead babes. Helaena never called another name if not that of her sister.

Alicent hadn't dared to look upon Aegon or Aemond, afraid of what she would find on their faces. She had feared Aegon would laugh, she had feared Aemond would leave, she had feared Helaena would weep. She had looked to her all the same, searching for direction from her rampant thoughts.

“If you… If you should feel compelled to it, dearest love.”

Helaena nodded slowly, pulling on the teal thread of her embroidery.

“Then I’ll refrain, if it’s all the same to you. You see, the praying mantis devours the male, for nourishment. The offspring do not mourn that which they have never known,” Helaena explained soothingly, nodding to herself, as if it would bring them both clarity.

Helaena had known him. Viserys. She was the only one he could endure exchanging some words with. Although he always called her by another name. In truth it was Helaena that could not stand the sight of him for long.

Viserys had always reeked.

Even before the illness took its full toll on him. A bitter warm smell that always followed him about. A stench of weakness.

Her own father had always smelled of myrrh. A sweet scent. A welcomed one. What remained of her mother’s memory, Alicent supposed. Her mother was a faithful woman and as such she brought with her the smell of the Great Sept, the smell of candles and holy oils. When she was taken from them, her lord father couldn’t abide by her place of worship, but he took to the scent of it. To keep her near. To keep her with them.

Lord Otto had always been most concerned with Helaena. He always took her daughter’s hand into dining halls and feast tables. He always encouraged her to speak and dance and laugh. She didn’t despair in his touch, like she did her mother.

Alicent had felt compelled to ask him why once. Why was it that he should be so affectionate with her. Helaena wasn’t so terribly similar to Alerie Florent. It couldn’t be for the same reason that he loved his daughter, for her similarity to her mother. Alicent hadn't, for she had feared he might cease his efforts if he believed them a show of weakness. But she heard him speak to Helaena once.

Your mother despairs you might be unhappy, Helaena. You must try for her.

One day I won’t be able to, grandfather. I wouldn’t wish to deceive her by giving her hope.

Until that day then, my sweet one.

“I would mourn Ser Criston,” Helaena added, all of the sudden, as if it would grant her mother some solace. “Dearly.”

Ser Criston always brought her whatever insects he found in the training yard, he wrapped them in pretty boxes and made a grand offering of them. Our little secret, he would say to Helaena, just after asking Alicent’s permission. On her name’s day, he would have caterpillars brought all the way down from Dorne to give to her.

Yes, Alicent was quite sure Helaena would mourn him. All her children would. Even Daeron. His first sword, after all, was commissioned by Ser Criston, sent all the way down to Old Town, a fortune it must have cost, a year’s wages, she was certain. Alicent only knew of it when she received her little boy’s letters. She had wept for it. Because his own father hadn’t even recalled he had another son. Much less that it was his name day.

It granted her solace. It did. The knowledge that none of her children had been made orphan of their father. That a worthy man had taken his place long before Viserys Targaryen ever came to perish. And she couldn’t conceive of Gods that would judge her for it. She couldn't conceive of a Mother that would look down at her, for not disavowing it.

“That’s very kind, dearest.”

Helaena nodded to herself most furiously.

“You’ll find it much more natural to mourn then as well, mother, you’ll see.”

And then her daughter placed her sewing circle aside and turned to her. Took effort to place the sweetest smile upon her face as she searched her mother’s face, and tentatively reached out to her, allowing her fingers to touch her cheek, the shadow of a caressing touch.

“You shall sew burial shrouds more beautiful than I ever could.”

Alicent could do little more than look at her and nod, lest she frighten the both of them any further, before the doors were opened and Aemond came through, startling Helaena from her. Reaching them without delay.

At times, it was strange.

To look up at her son, tall as he was. The picture of her lord father, towering above her. They almost looked of a same age. Sometimes Alicent pretended that they were. That he was her brother, no less than Gwayne, even if he was brighter, stronger, wiser. That he as well could shoulder the weight.

And then, Aemond looked at her as if she held the world in the tip of her fingers and Alicent was reminded that it was her son that stood before her. His burdens were hers to shoulder, not the other way round. The weight was all hers to bear. And none could deliver her from it.

“My brother’s been found.”

A bitter disappointment overwhelmed her, so great that no mothering instinct she bore her first babe could extinguish it. Alicent had only to look back at Helaena, in all her beauty, in all her kindness, in all her quirkiness to give it reason.

If anything had happened… Aemond would have been King. He would have taken Helaena as his bride. Aegon’s children as his own. He would have done his duty honourably. Of that, Alicent was certain. Aemond would have treated Helaena with the reverence and the distance, a brother owed his sister.

The thought had served as her only comfort, no matter how fleeting.

Every time Aegon couldn’t be found, lost to the numbness of the ale down an alley in Fleatbottom, she allowed herself the faint, hopeful thought that, maybe, he would leave Westeros with a purse of gold and Sunfyre and never return. Abscond to the Free Cities. Lys. Essos. Anywhere.

Alicent imagined his name never again uttered in her presence. His fate unknown to her and to his children. She would never again expect things from him he could not accomplish. And Aegon would never disappoint her as he had before.

Peace between them, at long last.

Yet it wasn’t to be. Aegon clang to her. He pulled at her skirts, dragging Alicent down, for a shred of approval he didn’t attempt to be deemed deserving of. That he could deceive no one into believing, not that he bothered to try.

“He’s in and out of it.”

There was a contempt in Aemond’s words that sought only to give form to her barely concealed one.

“Aegon asks for you, mother.”

Her unrest grew ever more pressing, as she rose from her seat and placed herself behind her daughter, running her fingers down Helaena’s hair, avoiding his eyes, if only for a small moment.

“Is your brother... unwilling to take the throne?” she ventured to ask.

Aemond might have shrugged, if it had concerned him any less.

“Cole has shown it to be the only way,” her son assured her.

Alicent nodded to herself, grateful for it. For Ser Criston Cole who smoothed her path, her children’s path, without need for violence, treachery or sin.

“Helaena must be dressed. I must attend to her now,” Alicent fretted without need. “Might you..?”

She sighed at herself, at her own weakness.

Might Aemond deal with his brother. As Alicent prepared to place a crown upon his sister’s head. The only part of the whole affair that didn’t burn her insides.

“As you will it, mother,” he acquiesced, dutifully bowing his head.

“And you, dearest darling?” Alicent faced him fully at last. “What do you will of it?”

While their relationship had certainly been made less contentious by the event in Driftmark, Alicent bore no hope that Aegon’s ascension would prove itself joyful for his brother.

“The King’s dead,” Aemond uttered with a bored viciousness. “Long live the King.”

Aemond would rule one day, Alicent was certain of it. His brother’s Hand, to be sure. Aegon wouldn’t even have to be convinced of it. He would demand it, Alicent need not pray for it. Aegon clang to his brother the very same way he clang to her. They both stared back. Unrelentingly. They both pushed him forth, in the ways that they could. In the ways they could endure it.

And then her sweet boy turned to Helaena with the gentlest smile, “And might I be the first to say, Long live the Queen, dearest sister.”

Helaena hid her flustered smile by looking away.

“Long live you all,” Alicent whispered under her breath.

Such sad eyes Aegon had. Her eldest son. Nothing more than a drunken stupor. They revolted against her on account of their similarities to hers. Their similarities to her mother's.

Alicent wanted to claw them out.

“Have the decency to look grateful. For the sacrifices done to give you this day,” she told him between gritted teeth.

Aegon nodded slowly, swallowing the tears heavy on his throat. The ones that she managed to evoke even when she had no intention. If only he could cling to her reproach when he did things she should wish him dead for. If only the memory of her voice could stay his hand and shorten his impulses. If only she was enough for him, as her lord father was for her.

“And were they your sacrifices, mother?” Aegon challenged her, with a tilted brow, emboldened by the ale still upon his tongue. “To place upon the throne the child you despise. Leaving the one you love the most to be scattered to the wind in my service.”

Aegon was the only one that ever poked and prodded at her, at times without any need for words. Only those sad eyes of his that were all hers. He was the only one of her children that did not understand her. That saw the blood on her hands and did not see in whose service it was shed. Or pretended not to. The only one that did not proudly claim it.

Claim her.

Aemond heard her words as if he had been the one speaking them, so familiar they were with one another, with one another’s pain and duty. Aemond, both the soldier and the scholar, learning at her feet, at Ser Criston’s feet, at his grandfather’s feet – learning from anyone that should show the will to teach him.

Helaena, sweet Helaena, the child she had failed the most. The child whose eyes reflected her failures – that her mother should have failed her daughter as she, herself, was failed. But Helaena had no need for words, she saw, and she understood. She always listened. She always would.

Daeron, who welcomed her every word as if it came from scriptures, met her devotion with his own. Both a poet and a septon with his way with words and desire to hear them and pay them homage. A scholar with a sword in hand, a thing of legends.

“That you should wish me to go against my father’s will? The only one he ever had. Steadfastly upholding Rhaenyra's claim against the lives of his sons. A bag of rotting bones holding on to life by sheer devotion to his only daughter.”

Aegon laughed sourly and shook his head.

“I always wondered why Helaena could bear it, to be called by another’s name every day of her life. Do you think she might have forgotten that it was not her own? She answered to it so often. Do you think my sister ever noticed? The shadow she cast upon the ones that remained?”

Alicent swallowed harshly.

Rhaenyra never did.

She resented them. As if they had taken her place. As if the space they occupied in the Red Keep had ever been allowed to be theirs at all. Her ignorance bore the greatest sin. The greatest offence.

“Do you think it was the Hightower blood, mother? That it should make us unworthy in his eyes? Or was it only me? That he should go against law and precedent to keep me away from the throne. His firstborn son.”

“Would his approval grant you solace? Would it make you worthy to sit the Iron Throne?” Alicent wondered, instead of throwing the vitriol that weighed heavy upon her tongue.

Aegon raised an ignorant brow.

“The King’s approval. To take his seat.”

Alicent nearly laughed.

Hadn’t she been the one in the King’s seat for nearly a decade. Not the Iron Throne her father took, in its illusion. But the council seat, the head of the table. The final word in decisions that shaped the Kingdom. That both built up and destroyed. Lord Otto was ruthless, but he was a wise hand, who had raised an able Queen.

King Viserys I Targaryen had been neither wise nor able. And the seat he took an empty one, whenever he was the one to hold it.

“My father. Could you bear the weight of the world, without the assurance of yours?” her son demanded from her.

It was not the same.

Could Aegon not understand that it was not the same? Alicent was his mother. When the Gods should ask who was it, that bore the fault for his sins; when they should ask who claimed him upon his funeral rites, upon his arrival to the afterlife, towards his judgement. His never ending judgement.

It wouldn’t be Viserys Targaryen to come forward, from the Seven Hells and say – that is my son, mine to punish, mine to keep.

It would be Alicent Hightower.

That child – I bore it. She would beg the Mother.

That monster – I bled for it. She would beseech the Father.

“Have you weathered the weight of the world without mine?” the Gods compelled her to ask.

Aegon swallowed harshly, looking away from her, his chin trembling. Nothing more than an offending child under her gaze.

For all his defiance, to admit himself orphaned of her love was too great of a burden to own up to. Too harsh of a punishment to accept. It would create a greater moat than he should ever allow between himself and her other children.

“It shouldn’t be the Targaryen blood that raises you to the throne, Aegon. Nor your father’s approval that makes you worthy. It should be the Hightower duty. It should be in service of protecting your brothers. Of protecting your sons. Of protecting your family. Taking on the duty of defending the house I have always shouldered – alone.”

Aegon loved his brothers. Alicent was certain of it. Driftmark had been instrumental to that. Aegon and Aemond may quarrel, but upon a battlefield or a feast, they shielded one another’s backs. They turned to each other’s voice. They lent support and assurances, if only to destroy themselves when the enemy was out the door.

And he loved his children. Aegon… drunk as he always was with them, he was not as Viserys in his disinterest. He would lay himself on the ground and allow them to walk all over him, laughing as they did. Make himself a monster as he ran behind them, delighting in their joy. He would take them upon Sunfyre and fly, strapping them down so securely it was a challenge to have them freed upon the landing.

So unlike Viserys.

Aegon was a good father.

“Have you ever cared for me?”

A mad sort of laughter erupted from her throat.

“If you think me a wicked woman, if you think me a cruel mother, why don’t I dispose of you? Aemond is my favourite, you’ll agree?” she demanded of him, prodding with leisure.

Aegon nodded furiously. As if it relieved him to have her say it. Yet it wasn’t true. She loved them all the same, in her misfortune. It was only that Aemond loved her back with the same fierceness. And it made it easier between them.

“It is within my power to be freed from you.”

It wasn’t.

“It should please your grandfather.”

It wouldn’t.

“To push for a more natural leader. Best suited to the throne. Why don’t I?”

Aemond would have been better suited. Ever the soldier, ever the student. Aemond would have done his duty and honoured her. Aemond would have pushed himself to understand Helaena, with all her quirks. If it had to be any of her brothers, if Viserys wouldn't allow her to marry anyone outside of her family, Aemond would have been fitter. Aemond would have never disappointed her.

“I’m still your son,” Aegon argued desperately. “You wouldn’t suffer my father for all the years that you did, only to stain your hands with your own blood.”

Alicent nearly choked with the cruelty of it, the tears it summoned blinding her.

“Haven’t I, dearest? Helaena’s blood upon my hands, again and again, and again. It’s all I think of when I look at you,” Alicent confessed, palms raised up as if it was as clear for him to see their spattered stain as it was for her.

Aegon shook his head vehemently, willing her to believe him.

“I never… Not her. Never her, my sister,” he sputtered furiously. “Absent but not… cruel.” 

Alicent swallowed harshly.

Made herself unmoveable, as if the smallest change of air could change the past, if it was to have been written so.

“She’s my sister!” Aegon claimed it as if the thought alone was preposterous, wicked, foul, sinful.

By the Gods, it was, it was all of it and more, and yet she had believed it of him.

“Never Helaena,” Aegon insisted most furiously. “Do you hear me?”

Alicent prepared to forgive him any slight if this one small act of mercy might prove itself true.

“You swear it?” she asked him desperately.

“Ask Helaena, if you cannot take my word as the truth,” Aegon demanded of her, nearly rising from his seat in the carriage, urging her to. “Go and ask your daughter, I beg of you. Ask my sister. Ask my children’s mother.”

She believed him. Gods be good, she believed him.

Alicent reached for his hands, so suddenly he startled. Brought them to her lips, as she did when he was a babe. When he was still all hers – hers and the kingdom’s.

Ser Criston was right.

“My dearest darling. This can be a new beginning for us,” Alicent vowed, willing herself to believe it, to build a foundation over it. “You might rise under the weight of it. You might… You will make me proud.”

Aegon looked her up and down tentatively, nearly shuddering under the weight of her words. Under the sweet, hopeful promise of them.

“And you’ll love me then?”

“Devotedly. Faithfully,” Alicent swore. “As long as you obey.”

She didn’t mean to say it, yet it came out of her lips with a quiet viciousness that was entirely her father’s. She meant it all the same. She had to. For her girls. Hers and the kingdoms.

“A holy oath, mother?” he challenged, the graveness of the moment too severe for anything else. His eyes begging.

It was a hollowing thing. To be made barren of a mother’s love, Alicent agreed. Perhaps even the greatest monsters were entitled to it. Healed by it, one could hope…

Alicent took her firstborn by the arm down the steps of the makeshift hall built by human shields in the Dragonpit.

All of it felt wrong.

After all of this, all of the violence and bloodshed, all that had been and all that would still come of it, they should have walked down the Great Sept, better yet – the Starry Sept of Oldtown, where truly great kings had rose. They should have knelt under the Gods, begged them their favour. Delivered themselves to their will and judgement. Commit themselves to be their instrument as they took on the throne.

It was an ill, wretched thing that such a gathering should have to take place in this hole in the ground that knew only of blood and fire. This dark pit. This festered creation of cells that reminded Alicent of Targaryen blood alone. Of destruction. Of selfishness. Of danger. It spoke nothing of creation. Of hope. Of freedom.

She was overwhelmed by the familiar feeling of being led towards the altar.

So that the beasts could proceed with their slaughter.

Yet it was she that carried the leash.

Her greatest sin.

Her well-earned reward. 

The thought scared her, made her skin crawl wherever it came into contact with Aegon’s, for it was her father’s voice she heard, Aegon’s own father's voice she heard, twisted beyond understanding. It were his dull amethyst eyes she met, as mother and son neared the sacrificial steps.

She barely noticed how Gwayne stepped forward, in all his chivalry, to offer her unsteady legs another arm to hold as she raised both of them up towards Aegon, the Conqueror’s crown, her son trembling as he was, his eyes frantic, his courage relenting, his nails digging into the skin of her arm, however unconscious it may have been. Though she couldn't believe it was. He would have her bleed as he did. Fear, as he did.

It was towards Helaena she led them.

It was towards her daughter she dragged them.

The only light in the room, in her pale blue skirts, embroidered with heavy gold thread, a constellation of images being given life by her own hands down the fabric. How gifted her daughter was, how brave she had been, sewing it even when she was summoned to see Viserys, taking her children, fabrics, threads, and needles with her. In a way, a funeral shroud she constructed under his view. His or hers, Alicent wouldn't venture to say.

Helaena's sad, hopeful eyes.

As Alicent delivered the lamb she had birthed onto the butcher's table, she took a moment to turn back. Towards the people. What could the smallfolk possibly envision of the destruction that would follow if Rhaenyra didn’t submit. If Prince Daemon didn’t relent. What could they possibly know in the event this moment? What could be done to keep them from its wreckage. Would any of them even endeavour to attempt to?

Queen Alicent Hightower, Beloved of the Smallfolk.

She wondered how long it would last. Perhaps only a moment longer than the Realm's Delight had.

The crown neared her, brought to her by kind hands.

Ser Criston would have her crown her son with rubies, would have her will be the one to elevate him. The Queen-Mother indeed, that same way Visenya Targaryen had been.

Were they in the Dragonpit?

The women – the girls – her son had bloodied. A twisted curiosity having brought them here, where they could witness a dragon being given even more wood to set a flame.

“You’re the Kingmaker, Ser,” Alicent told him, swiftly shaking her head at the offer, the weight of her own crown forcing her to keep her head steady. “Not I.”

And yet Alicent heard the lie, as it was plainly spoken.

The knight would feel it as the privilege she could only accept as profanity. And it should serve to ease the Gods’ apprehension, and her own, if the hands to place the crown upon Aegon’s head would belong to the one who believed him the most.

“I present to you your King,” Ser Criston bellowed towards the crowd. “Aegon II Targaryen, King of the Andals and the First Men, Protector of the Realm.”

The knight allowed for the ripples of cheers to subside, only standing aside so that Septon Eustace could anoint the King in holy oils that Alicent imagined burning his skin. This was the knights victory as well. In more ways than she dared to consider.

Alicent felt a chill running up her spine at the proclamation, at her soul’s acceptance of it.

She could only turn to her daughter instead.

Her dearest love.

From the corner of her eye she could feel Sunfyre and Dreamfyre, in their golden and bluish tones, witnessing this moment, impossibly still, watchful of what went on, as if the beasts themselves sensed what was coming – the fire and the blood.

Tears filled her eyes.

The only thing Alicent would wish in this moment would be to beg Helaena’s forgiveness, to have been able to offer her a world in which she would have been able to do whatever she wished. A world where she could be a man without the necessity of not being a woman. She would have wished the same for Rhaenyra. She would have wished the same for herself, instead of being made into a vessel, for Kings to enter, and for Kings to depart.

Alicent pulled at the coronet upon her own head, the pins ripping her hair and dropping down onto the floor, she could swear she could hear its echo, even with all the ceaseless noise that surrounded them.

Her crown was a delicate thing, of battered gold, with emeralds held up in spikes, dainty shards of sapphires encrusted along its band. It had been commissioned for her by the High Septon himself, having the good lord taken offence that their Hightower Queen hadn’t been offered the Queen’s jewelleries to wear at her leisure.

Alicent looked sweetly upon her daughter, who startled for only a moment at the view, before bowing her head towards her mother. Presenting herself to be crowned.

As she arranged it carefully upon Helaena's braids, Alicent felt Aegon’s eyes burning her back.

His jealousy digging into her, even as the cheers of the people consumed him.

Fed him.

Kings shouldn't want more than they were owed.

They shouldn’t be given more than they deserved.

Every shred of her approval would need to be earned.

Alicent would endeavour to become to Aegon what her father had always been to her.

Lord Otto would attempt to do this, late as he had arrived to Aegon’s thoughts, he couldn’t. The hooks weren’t there. The blood hadn’t been shared. The pain and the tragedy, he had been kept from it, by Viserys. Or perhaps… even Rhaenyra, the cleverest thing she had ever done. Pushed him away from it, from taking his hold over the boy, consciously or not. Of witnessing the shadows in his eyes. Of looking beyond them. Of seeing beyond them. Of finding something there to put right. Something, anything at all that could be salvaged, that could be straightened, that could be moulded.

His mother could hardly find it either, but by the Gods, she knew how to make him bleed.

Her father wouldn’t be able to control him, no matter how disinterested he might find Aegon in the duty of ruling, he wouldn’t find him quick to be led. Only Alicent could endeavour to try to hold that ravaged beast together. Only she could mother it enough to have her claws find somewhere deep to sink into. Only she could save him.

“My Queen,” she kneeled at Helaena’s feet, taking care of the sweet way her child slipped a wayward auburn lock behind her ear, not wishing for her mother to be witnessed unkept.

My mother, she nearly heard her whisper.

That small moment would be all that Alicent would hold in her heart of this fateful event in time.

It would be all that remained.