Chapter Text
Shouts welcomed her back in King’s Landing. Clamour rose in great waves, echoing loudly between the pale red stones to finish in a roar above the roofs of city.
Down below, smallfolk gathered in the squares, away from the main gates, in the hopes of catching someone important passing through without running the risk of being pushed in front of a horse. Rhaenyra could imagine them craning their necks to follow Syrax, the glint of her wings washing gold over the decrepit shacks of Flea Bottom.
The crowd swelled and receded but never ventured close enough to block the path of the red and black escort Jace insisted she took with her. A few fifty men sworn to the true Queen, bracing for massacre, armour glinting ominously into the eyes of gaping bystanders. She made Syrax fly lower still, swirling in rapid circles above the Kingsroad until the flap of her wings could be heard by Kingslanders. From here, Rhaenyra could make out the tension emanating from her men, marching in increasingly closed ranks, hands at the hilt of their swords.
She couldn’t help but share their anxieties. The absence of resistance or any kind of envoy sent to meet them imbued the streets with tense eeriness, and the ease with which they tore through the mass of smallfolk amassed there only reinforced the feeling. They had discussed at length the sending of another dragon alongside Syrax, but Rhaenyra had eventually decided against it.
Jace was to remain on Dragonstone with Ulf, while Hugh flew to the Riverlands to meet Cole. Addam would travel to the Red Keep the following morning to ascertain she was still alive and that the deal had been upheld, in which case he would follow directly behind Hugh. If he did not find any sign of her and Syrax, he was to rush back on Dragonstone to rally their allies under Jace’s banner.
She had not wished to see anymore dragonriders lost to a promise she was the only one to believe in. Were she to become a martyr, she was hoping they would manage to overwhelm the dwindling numbers of the Greens in the Keep before Oldtown sent some more. But if blood needed to be shed, it was time for hers to coat enemy swords.
Rhaenyra stretched forward in her saddle to stroke Syrax’s scales, unsure if the soothing gesture was meant for her or the she-dragon. She resolved to take to the air again, hoping to spot any potential obstacles to their progression from higher up.
Syrax’s shadow glided over the streets of King’s Landing painted bloody as the sun set on the choppy waters of Blackwater Bay, before she dived to follow the dips between Visenya’s Hill and her twin sister. The Great Sept of Baelor was cleaved by harsh shadows digging into its flanks, while its dome glinted in the dying light, winking at Rhaenyra as they passed it by, wind whooshing in her ears.
She thought of Alicent then, and hoped in spite of reason and common sense, that she did not beckon them all to their downfall. Rhaenyra threw one last look to the stern towers, before coaxing Syrax back towards the main street, the Red Keep soaring almost sinisterly to meet them at the bottom of the Kingsroad.
And still, nothing loomed on the horizon. The Seven Kingdoms seemed to be holding their breaths as Syrax swooped towards her birthright, eager and skittish as she felt.
***
Landing in the lower bailey was strangely underwhelming. Where King’s Landing had seemed to be set alight by the sight of her dragon and her men marching towards the Red Keep, everything here stood still. There was not a soul in sight.
Stomach churning, Rhaenyra fought the mounting dread that had her sweating under her riding jacket and slipped off Syrax almost clumsily. She wiped her hands on her jacket, smoothing out wrinkles and the last hour on dragon back, washing away the dampness that had gathered there. Next to her, Syrax let out a low rumbling sound that echoed loudly under the arches leading to the inner centre of the Keep.
And though she did not look in its direction, Rhaenyra could make out the path leading to the Godswoods in her periphery, carrying the stench of something rotten beyond recognition, nothing like the sweet-smelling wind she remembered from her youth. Though perhaps that had nothing to do with the place at all.
Rhaenyra straightened up. Daylight would be gone before her men arrived, and she had no desire to linger in this place; she would not cower and wait for her enemies to fall on her under covers of darkness. She would face them head on, nerves too frayed to delay her fate one second more.
In a way it would be a relief, she mused as she headed for the long series of archways that would lead her to the throne room. Whether Alicent spoke the truth or not, this would be where she would find her rest, finally. In the ceaseless wind, a voice that sounded like Jace’ whispered that she was being entirely unsound – another too, much more timid and youthful, joined the fray, one she had not heard in too long a time. One that, should everything crumble under her, she would be so very glad to listen to again. Pressing a hand against her heart, Rhaenyra teared through another empty hall to find herself in the private quarters.
Her limbs froze suddenly at the sight of the familiar doors, a sharp pain climbing up her spine and tying up her bones together until she couldn’t move. She closed her eyes, listening in for the quiet tune of her heart.
It sang to her of her father’s apartments, his model of Old Valyria gathering dust in a corner. Of her mother’s arms. Of burying herself in her old bed the way she would have a lifetime ago, pouting ostentatiously and hoping it would draw Alicent out, would beckon her to Rhaenyra like siren songs. It always did. For a strange, wonderful little while, it did.
(A slight, downward twitch of her mouth and Alicent would forgive her tempestuousness and insolence, the stern scoldings Rhaenyra would inevitably bring upon them both with her raucous disregard for all things proper. Alicent would shake her head, roll her eyes, and though she was a most quiet girl, intent on making herself as small as possible, there was little she could do about the terrible fondness disturbing the lines of her mouth, tugging them insistently apart on her teeth, about the joyful bounce of fiery red curls on her shoulders as they shook with mirth.
In return, Rhaenyra had bent like a reed to the wind, quick to forget her grievances and quicker even, to seek her warmth. Fingers always clutching at Alicent’s arms, playing with her hair, digging into the soft skin of her waist. Just as helpless to resist the quiet urgency rattling in her bones to see her friend always somehow content. Had never fought it, really, embraced its gravity with joyous abandon.
She hadn’t realized at the time, that the troubles she so mindlessly put them in had that cunt of a Hand shrinking the ever tightly-wound shackles of Alicent’s wrists; Rhaenyra noticed the skin picked raw at the cuticles and coatings of dried blood on shaky fingertips, but it was long after their friendship had shattered like bones from great heights that she had truly started to see the way Alicent seemed to wilt in the presence of her father.
She had always been a nervous thing, tugging at her hands, wringing them in her laps, pulled taut over the sharp blade of grief and expectations, but there were shadows on her face Rhaenyra had to recall she never saw anywhere else than when she was standing in front of Otto Hightower and his hands, firmly clawing at the strained line of her shoulders.)
*
(“– don’t think the Septa meant it as an insult, Rhaenyra–” Alicent had said, out of breath, desperately trying to keep up with Rhaenyra’s outraged strides slicing through the bustling courtyard, “she was merely referring to the current influence of the Faith of the Seven. Even you cannot deny that your Old Gods are a less prevalent than they were, once–will you slow down please?”
Rhaenyra scoffed but reduced her pace. The walls of the garden came into view. “Perhaps the Septa needs her histories refreshed; I am sure the sight of Syrax would remind her that contrary to the Faith, our Gods still walk among us. And they breathe fire. We survived the Doom; we will stand long after your seven-pointed star has been erased from the memory of men.”
Alicent’s laughter – a high, disbelieving sound – echoed against the garden walls, its lovely chimes stored away forever in the space between stones. “And what is that supposed to mean?”
Rhaenyra swirled around, crowding her space until Alicent was a breath away from being pressed against the wall, knees brushing, and showed her teeth. It was too sharp a thing to be mistaken for a smile. “That we Targaryen forge our own paths. Yours, too. In the end, we are always the ones dragging you all screaming into mythology.”
Alicent, forlorn, had seemed to sober up suddenly. She stepped aside, escaping the confines of their uncomfortable proximity and lifted her head to the clouds, the soft glowing light of the end of the day nesting lovingly in the hollow of her throat. Rhaenyra followed, enraptured, the gulp of air travelling downward, straining the sinews of her neck.
“Yes,” Alicent had whispered finally, almost to herself, “I suppose this is how it goes. Fire and blood will wash away the rest.”
Rhaenyra, staring at the coppery red of her hair, had meant to ask if it would have been such a wretched colour to wear. She certainly wouldn’t mind. But Alicent had seem strangely muted, like the image of her had gone blurry, overshadowed by the face of someone else. The unusual, ill-fitting dress she wore that day did not help, swallowing her whole and exposing her all at once. Rhaenyra had decided to change the subject, eager to smooth the deep line of her brow into curvier, happier crinkles.
They remained firmly in place, the first carvings of sorrow paving the way to deeper, bluer rivers of melancholy.)
*
Rhaenyra staggered in front of the doors leading to the ante-chambers of the throne room. They were closed, but she hoped the following ones would not be.
Her feet had carried her almost without her noticing through the familiar hallways. Breathing uneven, she threw a wild look around, but the foyer was as devoid of people as the rest of the Keep, the flicker of the torches the only movement disturbing the stillness of the place. Regardless of intent, it meant there was only one place left for its inhabitant to be huddled in. Whether they would meet her with their swords or a bent knee, the heavy panes would not give away any indication.
She paused. The escort must have had gotten through the main gates by now, and with no resistance from the inside of the castle, they would join her soon, hot on her heels. Yet she found she could not bear to pace before the door waiting for them, with her fate sealed on the other side. Bracing herself, Rhaenyra pressed her hands against dark wood and pushed. Somewhere down below, Syrax roared, in warning or in triumph she couldn’t tell.
***
There was something melancholy about the Keep under the assault of bad weather. Its high towers, pallid against stark white, reached for the sky and caught nothing but fog they weaved into a blanket of mist to rest upon the city. Daylight struggled to reach the tall windows, and corridors remained sombre, concealing doors in the perpetual half-light. Rhaenyra watched, transfixed, the slow chase of raindrops against the stained glass of the Throne Room. The air dripped with humidity, forcing her court early into their furs and shawls. Despite the rampant chill premating the castle walls, the atmosphere was suffocating. On that particular day, it oozed with a mixture of greedy gleefulness and barely contained trepidation that had the most stoic of her guards shifting in unease.
Rhaenyra’s own heart could not decide on a beat or an emotion longer than lasted a breath. Her stomach rolled with repulsion one second, boiled with a wax-hot fury the next. The few instants of in-between offered a depressing reprieve, for she much preferred the easy consummation of anger than the gaping emptiness that seemed to gnaw at her soul whenever she had a moment to herself.
A painful sting to her side brought her back from her musings. Her father had complained about the discomfort of sitting on the Iron Throne since she’d been old enough to listen, and though it had taken much too long, she found she could finally agree with him. The thought filled her with a bitterness she did her upmost to cast aside.
He had done little to smooth her ascension to the throne, and if she had managed to drag herself to its summit, nauseous with grief, having shed much more than she had ever been prepared to, it was through no help of his own, and she struggled to reconcile this truth with the memory of him she had so desperately wanted to keep.
(The gentle press of his hand as he guided hers on the map of Westeros, pointing at faraway lands and their strange histories,
his laugh, rich and infectious,
the reverent bow of his head when her mother entered any place, private quarters and Throne Room alike,
the weight of his grief, forlorn and shunning,
vacant, empty eyes who never lingered, never smiled at Alice–
the way he had never tried to ascertain her claim to the throne with more than just mere words–)
The sound of rising clamour and –
“The former Dowager Queen, Alicent Hightower, Your Grace,” Ser Lorent announced loudly, expression impassive.
Rhaenyra’s next breath caught somewhere in her throat, blood thundering in her ears.
***
Ser Lorent had barely required a day to establish that Aegon was nowhere to be found, and she had been told that Alicent’s subsequent transfer to the dungeons had been quiet and without fuss. Daemon, who’d came hurtling through the Red Keep like the winter winds, had seethed and raged, and only when he’d threaten to have Alicent fed to Caraxes had Rhaenyra given away Aemond’s location, with the feeling of throwing bones at howling dogs. He had not been fooled for an instant. Still, she had reminded him in a clipped tone, his previous missteps had caused her troubles enough.
He’d barely pretended to be contrite.
Left again in a whirlwind.
“One Hightower cunt is much like any other, I suppose”, he’d scorned, hands already red on Dark Sister.
Alicent had opened the gates, as promised. She had stood, ramrod straight, as Helaena pronounced empty words in front of a baffled crowd. She had not flinched, when men of red and black filled the Great Hall behind Rhaenyra, nor when Lord Wylde hurled insults in her direction.
There had been something unrelenting about the way she had held herself in the gullet of green and crimson hungrily reaching for her from all sides, brewing with different kinds of outrage but both desperate to see her bleed. Like her roots had so deeply intertwined with the earth she could not be moved at all.
Rhaenyra’s pulse had quickened at the sight, fingers itching, anxious despite herself to see her stolen from her sight, swallowed by the changing tides of the Red Keep.
The tightness in her chest had been a vivid reaction, one she remembered from the helplessness of her youth, but it had brough her back to her senses. She was a girl and a Princess no longer. Voice cool and low, she had commanded silence back into the room with a tone that suffered no objection.
Her men had settled behind her.
She had taken a step towards Alicent.
Alicent had not.
Quiet and unblinking, like she had retreated so far into herself she could no longer find a way out, trapped in intangibles pasts, Alicent had told Rhaenyra of Aegon’s disappearance. Upon her return from Dragonstone, she recounted how she had stumbled upon his bed, sheets rumpled and cold.
Larys Strong had similarly evaporated into thin air.
Rhaenyra had searched, but found nothing she could recognize on the ragged features of the Dowager Queen, not even the shadows, digging unfamiliarly into her cheeks. The Alicent of Dragonstone had seemingly dissolved into the wind alongside her son.
(Alicent then, pleading and cutting in equal measures, had worn desperation like a plate of armour. Her eyes had welled up with tears and flashed in exasperation, as they had for as long as Rhaenyra had known her. Whether she willed it or not, there was little that could pass through her without causing whirlpools in her huge eyes.
But whatever stared back at Rhaenyra in the Great Hall, pitch-black and unmoved, had raised hairs at the nape of her neck in unease.)
She had wanted to shout then. To scream at Alicent, to rouse her from where she’d gone, to tear at her chest to excavate something true, the cadaver of a girl who had been left to rot inside this pale imitation of her former friend.
In the deepest, darkest corner of herself, she had admitted this to herself. It wasn’t the object of the betrayal that had incensed her so, costly and ruinous as it was. It was the lie itself, the shipwreck of her hopes on Alicent’s traitorous, unforgiving shores. She had grasped at their childhood, at this terrible fondness that had tugged at the both of them mercilessly for all these years, and found her hands empty, the rope long ago severed. Had she deluded herself? Gone mad with grief, had she really been so desperate to find something that could survive this war that she had closed both her fists on the blade that had drawn her first blood?
Forcing herself to keep her tone level, she had summoned Ser Lorent, never once taking off her eyes of Alicent as she instructed him to search every corner of the Keep for the usurper. In truth, she knew they could lift every stone of the palace and never put a hand on the useless shite that was Alicent’s firstborn. But fits of temper were a luxury she could not afford, and this had been a mere attempt at quelling the simmering rage building up a storm between her ribs. The ghost of a bite where her skin was most tender.
Sending Alicent straight to the Black Cells had been tempting, in fact she barely resisted the urge to bark the order, but the times were too turbulent and the scene too public. Green supporters only suffered the insult of Rhaenyra’s entrance because the Dowager Queen had managed to blindside them; threatening her, traitorous as they felt she was, would precipitate them all into bloodshed.
Biting the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood, Rhaenyra had instead addressed Helaena to suggest the Green retired to their quarters.
Alicent’s blue cloak devoured by the red of Rhaenyra’s coat of arms as she turned away had been the last she’d seen of her.
She had sent for her guards to take Alicent to the dungeons the following morning and, irrationally irritated by the satisfied smirk painted on the lips of Lord Staunton, she’d instructed that the Dowager Queen was to have a clean cell and be treated with the respect that befell her station, evading Corlys’ eyes as she did so.
That had been a fortnight ago. Establishing her court, rooting out traitors and coaxing reluctant allies into showing support for her return had taken all of her days and most of her nights. Her body hummed with the uncomfortable heat of exhaustion and yet she found herself unable to sleep back in her own quarters.
It wasn’t worry for Daemon, though his rabid hunt for Aemond held a sinister gleam in her mind’s eye.
Her sons were safer still on Dragonstone, but Jace chaffed more restlessly day after day against the constraints keeping him away from his mother and his inheritance. It was only a matter of time before he lost patience, and she knew it. He was too much like her in this regard. He took after his father so strongly, she sometimes found it excruciating, but she wished he would have taken of his temper as well. Save her the heartbreak of watching a twenty-year younger version of herself recklessly following his every instinct with the devastating knowledge of the consequences.
Even then, this wasn’t the root of her disquiet. It might have been the vultures circling her, waiting for her first missteps to leave her to bleed out on the Iron Throne. The Keep was still full of green rats, despite her Queensguard’s efforts to flush them out. Whispers followed her in every hall, even when she managed to obtain a moment of solitude. She found herself becoming watchful of every motion, every shift in the air. It had not given her a headache yet, just a barely repressed tendency to flinch.
Her Small Council’s constant babble however, had lodged itself behind her temples and pressed against them in new wholly infuriating ways. Coming back to the Red Keep had done little to solidify her place in it. In fact, she found it harder than ever to get her voice to carry over the buzzing sound of self-important men. Corlys tempered and cajoled, but there was little he could do to quell the growing dissent amongst her advisors regarding the fates of the former Green Council and its allies.
She had approved for most of them to be put to the sword in the hopes of being able to call for restraint when the situation would demand it. But it appeared to have been a clumsy move. They now spent hours going well into the night discussing whose head was to finish on the walls instead of dealing with matters most pressing.
(The stirring of the Triarchy on the western shore of Essos.
The useless chase for Aegon.
The rampant discontent brewing among the smallfolk of King’s Landing.
All of it like a noose of silk slowly tightening around her throat as they watched, impassive.)
She held no lost love for the rats. In fact, watching the head of Lord Wyle slide off his shoulders had scratched a gnawing itch in her, but it was only a matter of time before these conversations led them in a territory that would leave her terribly exposed. Corlys’ long, scrutinizing looks, if she understood them though she pretended not to notice, were both a warning and a plea.
They had not yet reached that issue, perhaps out of necessity to preserve some pretence of stability during her ascension, but still, those negotiations drained her. She often came back to her chambers bone-weary, crown digging uncomfortably into her skull.
Still, her eyes drifted to her ceiling until the small hours of the morning, tracing back familiar patterns with a sense of disenchantment she could not place. She would rise, her maids would arrange her braids, tie the laces at the back of her dress with severity, leave her pristine as a glass doll, but glancing at her reflection, she found something untethered to her countenance that no amount of pampering seemed to subdue.
Now staring at the hunched silhouette of black standing with her back to the pouring light coming from the opened gates, it appeared she was not alone in this predicament.