Chapter Text
The city was taken.
Rhaella stood upon her balcony and watched the ruin fall across the streets below. Smoke drifted high into the gray sky, people screamed in the distance and died. The Northern army was filling each and every street, their bloody march steady but certain for the castle. Maegor’s holdfast held many secrets, a dozen ways they might have fled, but Rhaella could not for a moment think it a wise decision.
They had nowhere left to run. Her sons were dead, her husband long since perished. The Stormlands had turned on her family and joined the Northerners in their king’s quest to destroy the south once and for all.
Viserys never should have snubbed Lord Robert’s offer of a marriage to Daenerys.
The offer had been little more than a threat, and Rhaella had not cared for the match in the slightest, but it was preferable to this madness. Viserys had been set on tradition though. For centuries now, their family had wed within the bloodline to preserve the magic that dwelt within them—to tame dragons now long perished. Lord Robert was little and less than a drunkard, unsuited as a husband. Rhaella had breathed a sigh of relief at the refusal until the fallout had come quick on its heels.
And Daenerys… her only remaining child, her precious little girl only a few years into womanhood would suffer a fate even worse now. The city was being sacked, and soon the castle along with it. The King in the North would not treat them gently, she was certain. He’d never treated anyone gently in his rampaging war since he’d slew his father at the Harrenhal peace treaty attempt almost twenty years ago.
“Mother? Mother, they’re heading for the gates! Ser Davos says—”
“They’re in the bay as well,” Rhaella reminded her daughter, bringing her gently into her embrace. The Iron Islands, too, had chosen a side. “We have no escape, my love. Do you understand? Not even Ser Davos can whisk us away from here now. We are the last Targaryens, and this is our home.”
Dany gazed at her in terror, violet eyes wide and scared. A tremble ran through Rhaella knowing what was coming. For her she was certain, and likely for Dany as well. Women were rarely treated kindly in war, and far less so in a city’s sacking. War was a man’s battlefield, but so often they brought it to women in fits of terror and violence.
“But we can try—”
Rhaella took her gently by the hand and led her to the window in the adjoined sitting room that overlooked Blackwater Bay. Snarling direwolves and golden kraken sails stared back at them from every ship. The few of theirs that remained were sinking ruins. She did not know where the rest of the fleet was—Viserys had never bothered to keep her informed of such things.
“If we run, we run to ruin and our deaths,” Rhaella told her gently. Right then, she wished more than anything that the raven bearing news of Viserys’s death had not been so late in arriving. A few days ago, they might have fled. But dark wings had brought darker news just that morning with direwolf sigils on every horizon…
“If we stay we simply sit and wait for the same,” Dany argued. Her lip trembled, but she held herself firm even as the shouting began from the courtyard far below. “Mother, there must be something—”
But there was not. If they’d had more time, she might have had the maester make a gentle poison. If they’d had more time, Ser Davos might have whisked them to Dragonstone in the night and then beyond that to Essos. If they’d had more time…
“My sweet girl, I’m so sorry.”
Rhaella clutched Daenerys to her breast and showered her in gentle kisses.
Perhaps the last kindness she’ll ever know.
Her bleak thoughts turned her stomach. She understood what the men breaking down the castle gates and doors would do to her—to them. Dany did not, even at seventeen. They’d never truly had that conversation, not with Viserys off to war and unable to return to the city for a wedding.
Would this northern barbarian king treat her with any kindness? Would he offer Dany, at least, any other options besides rape and death?
Rhaella doubted it. Her own fate would be just that.
Ser Davos burst into the room, Ser Barristan at his back.
“My queen, they’ve taken the courtyard,” Ser Davos told her, hustling to pull them away from the window and to the corridor. “We must—”
“It’s far too late, Davos,” Rhaella told him firmly, her heart sinking into her toes. “Even if we’d left the moment the raven arrived earlier…”
Dany was crying in earnest now, terrified and confused and without any understanding of what awaited them when the first group of strange men broke down their door. Men were less than beasts with steel in their hands. Rhaella swallowed.
“Go protect your wife, Ser Davos,” she ordered him. “Your blade here will only give you a meaningless death. Marya needs you, and your sons.”
He hesitated, his jaw shaking as he opened his mouth to argue, but after a moment, he shook his head.
“Your Grace, Princess, I cannot—”
“You will. You must.” Rhaella kissed his cheek and pushed him toward the door. “Go to her, before it is too late to save her from such a fate.”
It is already too late for me.
Ser Barristan remained, gleaming steel in hand, his white armor smeared with blood and dirt.
“We… the princess cannot remain here, Your Grace.”
Rhaella could hardly think of what to do. The bay was taken. All the gates into the city were now surrounded. This very castle was falling from under their feet, but when she looked at her little girl, her last baby, she knew she at least had to try something.
“Better a chance than no decision made at all,” she whispered. “The tunnels, Ser Barristan. You may need to linger down there for some time, but they go all over the city and out of it in some places, too.”
Rhaella hurried to her wardrobe for a bag to shove the untouched food from the morning meal they’d never gotten to eat. But it was not to be.
Shouts rang out in the corridor beyond her chamber doors. Dany flinched and ran to her, the tears flowing faster down her face.
“Mother, what do we—”
“I’ll see to it, Your Grace.”
Ser Barristan opened the door to the corridor and stepped outside, sword in hand. They were both trembling as the unseen men yelled and fought and died. Rhaella grabbed the bag from her wardrobe and moved it to the table. Dany was shaking.
“Listen to me, Daenerys. You’re to take as much of this food as you can, and my cloak. Go into the tunnels under the castle and—”
She stilled as stone scraped against stone. They both stepped closer to one another as the secret passage to the tunnels opened behind the hearth. Men barreled into the room. Five of them stinking of the sea, covered in grime and dripping muck and water onto the floor. Rhaella only had time to step in front of her daughter before they were upon her.
“Fucking found them!” One of the men bellowed in victory. He was portly and barrel chested, with rotting teeth and a scarred left eye. “Dragon witches for the king.”
“So long as I get a good fuck before he has his way of it,” another man said, leering at them. He grabbed Rhaella hard by the upper arm when she tried to further shield Dany behind her. “Bet your little girl’s got a tight little cunt, doesn’t she?”
“Just leave her alive,” another man said, and this one at least seemed to have some sort of brain behind his eyes. He was slighter than his companions and younger, but the cocksure grin on his face gave Rhaella no hope. “Which one of you wants a real man first then? I’d take you as a salt wife if you weren’t—”
She slapped him hard when he tried to squeeze her breast. The man stumbled back, his face turning red as the men with him laughed and hooted and shoved him to keep him on his feet.
“This one’s fire, Greyjoy,” one of the men said as he slid a dagger from the sheath on his thigh. “Think he’ll care about their tongues? I do hate the screaming.”
Greyjoy righted himself. His cheek was smarting from her slap, but Rhaella stood as tall as she could, one hand on Dany’s arm to keep her tucked behind her.
“If you even think to touch my daughter —”
“I’ll do as I like, dragon witch,” Greyjoy sneered, tugging his longsword free and aiming it at her. “You dare to hit me? Do you know who I am?”
A wild look entered his eyes as he raised his sword. The other men tugged her and Dany away from one another, hands groping and rough. Rhaella screamed and twisted, trying with all her might to get free, to protect Dany with her last breath, but she was not strong enough against their hold. She was shoved to her knees, Greyjoy’s sword pressed to the side of her neck.
“You’ll watch our fun before I kill you,” he told her. His sneer was cruel as he gestured for his companions to do as they wanted with Daenerys. “Break her in. Someone ought to get some use before a pretty thing like her has her head on a spike.”
Dany screamed and kicked and fought as the men clawed at her dress. Rhaella tried in vain to free herself, tears pooling in her eyes until her vision was blurred. She could not bear it. Not the sights, not the sounds, not this horrid fate for her darling little girl.
From the corridor, the sound of fighting was closer, steel clashing together, and then she heard a shout and someone heavy with armor hit the wall or the floor. A moment later, the door opened. She’d hoped to see white armor streaked red, but even through her tears all she saw was black.
“Fuck’s sake, Greyjoy, put away your blade.”
A rough hand pulled Rhaella to her feet and pushed her toward the couch. Dany was suddenly in her arms, weeping and trembling. Her daughter’s dress was still ripped, but a moment later a great fur cloak was draped around her. Rhaella had a moment to take in the man’s long face before he turned back to the other men.
“Fuck off, Snow, we’re only—”
“Hoping to be beheaded by the king,” their rescuer snapped. He glanced back at Rhaella as she sank onto the couch with Dany in her arms. “Do you understand their importance? What the girl’s maidenhead being intact means for ending the south’s war?”
Greyjoy sneered, then backed away when one of his companions tried to dodge around Snow. He never made it. With a quick shift and a flash of steel, the companion was on the ground, howling and clutching his eye. Blood poured through his fingers and onto the floor. Snow kicked him aside and aimed his dagger at Greyjoy.
“A single hair on her head is more valuable to him than your entire life,” Snow said softly, but Rhaella shivered at the dark fury in his tone.
She didn’t know him, but she was certain she knew of him. The northern king’s bastard nephew—the one they called dragonspawn. Rhaella had never dared to believe such rumors before. She would not trust rumors without Rhaegar’s assurances, but he’d died before he could ever offer her those. Still, she looked at Snow now; his dark curls, the long Stark face she’d come to dread, the deep gray of his eyes lined with thin scars. Nothing of Rhaegar was in his face.
Just another northern lie.
“Perhaps we’ll make a eunuch of you, boy,” a deeper, sterner voice said from the door. “Your use to me grows thin.”
Greyjoy dropped to a knee at once, and for all the bravado he’d put on since slamming his way into her chambers, it faded utterly now. Rhaella tensed and clutched Dany tighter. She could not mistake this new man for anyone other than the King in the North. He was slightly shorter than his nephew, though still broad and strong. A dark beard filled out his face, and a harsh scar cut him from brow to chin. His crown was iron swords and howling wolves, his face as handsome as it was fierce.
“Outside, Greyjoy.”
Greyjoy and three of the men he’d brought scampered into the hall. Only the one clutching his wounded eye remained. The king took one look at him still moaning and bleeding on the floor and sighed.
“I have no use for a man who cannot obey a command,” the king said simply. He unsheathed his bloody sword and ran the man through.
Dany shook harder against her, a soft cry escaping her lips. Only Snow looked over at them, but his eyes were unreadable.
“The Targaryen witches, sire,” Snow said, bowing his head respectfully. “Still intact.”
“Good, good.” The king thrust the pommel of his sword at one of the men by the door to be cleaned. “And already enjoying the charms of the North, is that the way of it, Snow?”
Snow tucked his dagger into his belt, clutched his hands behind his back, but held firm. “Greyjoy meant to have them both, and made a ruin of her dress. It was the easiest cover for her modesty.”
“I piss on Targaryen modesty, boy.” The king snarled and wrenched Rhaella out of Dany’s arms and to her feet. “And I have little use for a woman who has birthed dragonspawn thrice before.”
He shoved her from him. Rhaella stumbled and fell hard to the floor. Dany cried out in protest, but then the king had her by the chin. Rhaella’s insides shriveled. She had no power here. No words could placate a man who had been their enemy since the day of his birth. Beside her, Snow’s feet shifted on the carpet, blood from the dead man squelching under his boots.
“They’re the key to controlling the south,” Snow said after a moment, his voice soft and almost thoughtful. “The last dragons, Uncle. The male line is now extinct. Their name dies with them, buried by your victory and the man whom you gift the daughter to.”
“Dragons are easier to tame when they’re dead.”
Rhaella lunged at him when he began to squeeze Dany’s throat. She was choking, gagging, kicking and twisting. Snow shifted once more, but he did not try to intervene. The king kicked Rhaella aside when she hit his thigh.
“And twice as useful living, Uncle,” Snow said more firmly this time. “Have a trusted northerner wife the daughter until she whelps him a few heirs. You’ll ensure their line ends and the south’s heir is raised properly to live by your commands. They’ll have less cause to rebel with the girl as a hostage and the mother of their eventual lord.”
The king’s grip slackened and he pushed Dany back to the couch. She was gagging and gasping as Rhaella rejoined her and pulled her into her embrace. The fur cloak was still pooled around her, soft and warm.
“Oh, my sweet girl, just breathe.” She rocked her as the king turned to face his nephew, eyes narrowed. Rhaella could not say what he might do, but it was clear they’d had similar conversations before now.
“And if she proves unfit? Infertile? A threat ?”
“Killing her is simple,” Snow said. “Using her offers a great number of advantages if she can be made obedient.”
The king paced, glowering at his nephew and glaring at the pair of them on the couch.
“Robb thinks the same,” he said eventually. “If he were not already wed to that useless Westerling wench… but a boy of her womb to lead the south, if raised properly… yes, I see the merit of it.”
However little I like it.
Rhaella looked to Snow again, this dark youth with his empty face. Not a single expression on his countenance gave away what he was thinking, but it was clear he was quite capable of the task. Rhaegar had been much the same. She almost retched at the similarity.
“The south would settle more easily for the lord you name to King’s Landing if she is his wife,” Snow said with a careless shrug. “Solidifying your rule is easiest by binding the last dragons to the North with marriage. Executing them risks martyrdom. Give Lord Robert was he requested before he came to our side, if he has pleased you well enough. Or we have several lords with second sons that might serve, too, whom you can trust more for their northern blood. Lord Manderly or Lord—”
“No. This is your proposal,” the king said and a cruel smile spread over his face slowly. “It’s past time you took a woman to wife, boy. Who better to ruin the last true Targaryens than a bastard of their own blood? You’ve already cloaked the bride afterall. ”
For the first time some hint of Snow’s feelings bled through his mask. Rhaella clutched Dany closer as the brief flash of shock crossed his features.
“I… surely there are better men to—”
“Better? Certainly. Men I trust to obey?” The king shook his head as he approached his nephew. “You have proven a great deal of yourself over the years, boy, but you will never be a Stark. Dragonblood taints you. Not even your mother’s look nor character hide that truth from me.”
She saw the briefest flinch to Snow’s jaw at his uncle’s words before the king grasped him by the chin.
“But you have saved my life on the battlefield. Saved Robb’s twice,” the king told him. “The wolf in you is strong, but is it strong enough to end the stain for good?”
“It is,” Snow said at once, but a tremble was in his voice, an almost pleading ache that made Rhaella’s chest burn despite herself.
Could this young man before her truly be what the rumors had always said? Would the northern king truly have kept his nephew alive if he was Rhaegar’s son? With his hatred of Targaryens, what reason could he have had?
“Then prove it to me once and for all. Wed her and bed her, give us more northern sons and tame the south like a wolf does a flock of scattered sheep. Do me this one final task, Jon, and you’ll have my trust.”
“Uncle, I am unworthy…”
“Wed her this night,” the king said, shaking his nephew by the jaw, “or consider the time I have allowed you to be at an end.”
A long moment passed between them. Rhaella held her breath, dreading whichever answer the king got, knowing less than nothing of the two men, only that one might be her own flesh and blood. That he, at least, had saved them from a dozen horrors in less than an hour. Slowly, Jon Snow nodded in acceptance.
“I won’t betray you, Uncle.”
The king patted his cheek roughly. “See that you don’t, boy. You know how I treat betrayers and pretenders. Besides, you should be right at home here. A seat for dragonseed.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Commands were given in a blur. The dead man’s body was carried away. Servant women were fetched, crying and bruised though some of them were. Jon Snow and the king left as the blood was scrubbed from the stone and the carpet rolled up and taken out. Rhaella rocked Dany all the while, kissing her head, her cheeks, holding her precious little girl—all that was left to her now.
“I won’t,” Dany said a while later when the servants had drawn her a steaming hot bath and Rhaella was helping her into it. Her voice was hoarse from the king’s choke, and bruises were already blossoming on her throat. “I will not marry him, Mother. None of them. Not ever.”
But she had no choice besides that or death. Rhaella swallowed and helped her scrub away the dirt and blood, gentle on the bruises. She’d never done much to prepare Dany for her wedding, nor the bedding that came after. Her daughter had never taken an interest. Viserys would wed her, she’d thought, despite Lord Robert’s hopes, but her only remaining son had been at war for years now and far from the city. When he returned, she’d always told herself, then she’d sit Dany down and explain further.
Now she had no time at all. Viserys was dead and tey were left to survive the aftermath.
Dany’s hair was washed and brushed. One of her nicer summer gowns was brought. Even as she protested, they were escorted down through the castle to the throne room. A crowd of northerners and chained southerners filled the room. It was a terrible sight to behold. Men with bloodied faces and broken bones. Some crying in pain while others were taunted or hurt further. The great old iron throne of their ancestors towered high above, King Brandon Stark seated upon it, grinning down at her in delight. Jon Snow stood before it, clad only in boiled black leathers and chainmail, his sword at his hip. He wore no coat of arms nor any ornamentation. He seemed as thrilled as Dany to be there.
Rhaella helped her to stand facing him, to keep a hold on her upper arm lest she dare to think of running. Dany trembled as the king spoke the words that bound them together, husband and wife. Jon said his part with ease, took Dany’s hands gently in his own. She had to nudge Dany to repeat them back. A deep seated unreality was in her daughter’s once glowing eyes. A silk cloth was wrapped around their joined hands, and Jon pecked Daenerys once on the lips to seal it.
The northerners’ cheers were rowdy, but it all sounded like howling fury to Rhaella. They were forced to sit and eat and endure pleasantries. Dany said nothing. Jon fared better, but he looked as tense as a spring coil. When an auburn-haired young man of a similar age came over, his expression brightened slightly.
“Finally hooked yourself one, did you, Snow,” the man said, grinning. Rhaella saw his crown then, slighter than the king’s and more coppery so that it blended in with his hair. “We’ll see if you fare any better.”
She didn’t understand what that might mean. For years now, she’d known the king had wed and had children, but besides the eldest that stood before her, she knew nothing of his family. Rhaella leaned into Dany and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“Sweetheart? You should eat.”
“I can’t,” Dany said quietly. Her voice shook in fear, but her posture was firmer now. “I… Mother, what… he’s going to…”
Rhaella swallowed. She watched Jon Snow and his cousin converse beside them. Northerners were a brutal lot. That had always been so based on all she’d ever seen or been told. Her daughter’s new husband had cut a man’s eye from his skull earlier, had watched that same man die without flinching, and stood in silence as his uncle choked an innocent girl. They were as harsh as the land they ruled, as unruly as winter itself, and took what they wished without any thought to the harm of others.
She’d never prepared Dany for any sort of wedding night, but certainly not the type she would have with such a man. Would he force himself upon her? Would he take any consideration or care at all for Dany? Rhaella longed to speak with him alone, to have had more than a few moments to know his heart, but she had none.
“It will be over quickly,” Rhaella said quietly, her voice shaking, hoping that was true. “The… the less you fight him, the easier it will be.”
Tears filled her daughter’s eyes. Beside them, Jon’s cousin had moved on, but Jon was watching them both in silence. Finally, he spoke.
“We should retire for the night,” Jon said quietly. He glanced at the gathered northerners already in their cups as they celebrated. “The sooner, the better.”
Dany’s tears came faster then, but Rhaella had hope. It may still be a terrible night for her little girl, but she saw the glimpse of compassion that passed like a shadow over Jon’s face. He seemed to understand as well as she did what would come if they lingered down here too long. Her own bedding ceremony had been embarrassing enough while still being frivolous. But with this gathering deep in their cups and the shadow of bloodlust…
Jon stood and took Daenerys’s hand and pulled her to her feet. The rowdy crowd continued to celebrate, but the king had noticed. He called down to them as Jon left their table.
“Has it truly been that long, nephew? Or are you simply eager to savor her tight cunt?”
“Both,” Jon replied, unphased as the men around them laughed and turned to watch. “I’ve yet to have a true maiden.”
“She’ll be a treat unlike anything you’ve had before,” the king said as he descended the throne’s stairs. He settled a strong, firm arm around his nephew’s shoulders and steered them back toward their table and Rhaella. “Swords are best bloodied. Bed her well, boy. Enjoy her all night and all of tomorrow, if you wish. You’ve earned that much.”
With the king’s blessing, Rhaella watched the pair leave through the double doors that led back to the bedchambers across the castle. She said a silent prayer to the Mother and the Maiden to keep her little girl safe.
A large hand settled on her shoulder, the grip like steel.
“Bastards are much wilder in their needs than well-bred men,” the king said with a laugh. “My nephew is no strange to women, though he’s much more accustomed to fucking out in the open.”
She shivered as she turned to face him. Even then, she did not know what to say; did not know why they’d kept her alive when she was of no use to them.
“I’m sure he will father strong sons for your family, Your Grace,” she finally said.
The king nodded, and a frown crossed his face.
“I suppose I have little use for you now that he’s bedding her,” he said after a moment, and Rhaella’s heart jolted even as she kept her expression neutral. “What good is an old dragon crone to a king?”
“Little and less, I’m sure,” she said.
He sneered and held her gaze for a long moment. Rhaella did her best to meet him even as her insides flinched and she ached to flee the room.
“My nephew seems to think he’ll have use for you,” the king told her finally. “My son agrees as well, and the maesters. You’ve been ruling this city in your worthless son’s absence for almost a decade now. And it’ll be easier on the girl to swell with child if she is not in grief over you, they tell me… for now at least.”
“I will help Daenerys as best I can to have healthy babes,” she said, and for that part, at least, she meant every word. “She will be a good mother to his sons. It is… it is all I ever wished for her.”
“No doubt at the hands of your son, yes?” She could not stop the confirmation from lingering on her face. The king laughed at her again. “Pathetic thing he was. Weak and feeble, the last of your family’s dying seed. He begged for death before the end,” he told her, his grip on her shoulder tightening. “And I savored every second of his blood leaving his body. Left his entrails hanging from the heart trees on the Isle of Faces. I will not suffer any further pretenders, dragon witch. If the boy should get her with child, it will be northern entirely. Do you understand me?”
Rhaella shook in his grasp, her fury and horror and grief a mingled tornado inside her chest. But she nodded, then winced when he jerked her head up to look him in the eye.
“Do you understand me ?”
“Yes, Your Grace. I do.”