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“Mother was right,” Viserys Targaryen, the First of His Name, can still remember his beloved daughter’s tearful voice, even after all the years apart, “we were never enough for you, were we?” He still remembers that night, not long after they had laid his sweet Aemma and darling, brave Baelon to rest after all their suffering and pain. Alicent had been a balm to his lonely heart in that hard time, comforting his grief and lending a helpful ear; perhaps he had been too hasty, and should not have taken the young lady as he had, but Viserys had been yearning for a woman’s delicate touch and welcoming embrace. Aemma had not been able to perform that duty, too weak while with child, and after loosing her – he had been weak.
For a moon, they had continued their sweet liaisons, his grief held at bay in a home that only reminded him of what he had sacrificed for his duty and the Realm, and he had not expected to be discovered, especially not by his own daughter.
“Kepa?” Rhaenyra had called out, fragile and far from the brash thing his little girl had been growing into. Dressed in a blue nightgown embroidered with falcons, and only eight name days, it was like looking at a ghost, for every inch of his daughter was a mirror of his Aemma. “I couldn’t sleep, so I-”
The sound of the tray in her tiny hands shattering on the floor had been loud in the stunned silence, cookies and warmed milk spilling everywhere and splashing against the last gift his wife had given his daughter, and Rhaenyra’s sweet lavender eyes, his father’s eyes, had been wide and round and quickly filling with tears. Viserys could still remember the utterly broken expression of betrayal on her young face.
“Father?” She had whispered into the heavy air of the King’s Chambers, an image of Aemma leaning over her shoulder, watching him with cold blue eyes, blood on her white birthing gown. “Lady Alicent? What-?”
As Viserys had stuttered and stumbled to explain himself, and Alicent had scrambled for her discarded gown, Rhaenyra’s heartbroken expression hardened, and she uttered those horrible accusations, as if he hadn’t loved her and his wife with all his heart. Rhaenyra had vanished into the darkness while he had reeled, soft slippers silent on the lacquered wood and pale curls a flying banner behind her. He had thought his daughter had retreated to the comforts of her new chambers afforded to her as the King’s heir, as she always had during a tantrum, and it shamed him how, in the wake of the scandal of being discovered with his dearest friend’s unmarried and deflowered daughter and distracted by the rushed planning of a wedding, it had taken him nearly two weeks to notice that his daughter had fled her home, and wasn’t simply avoiding him, only realizing because of his wayward, reckless brother. Daemon had burst into the Small Council chambers like a restless dragon, spitting words like his mount would flames.
“I hope it was worth it,” Daemon had spat, ignoring the guards grabbing him, Otto having ordered his detention after Viserys’ young wife-to-be was reduced to tears when his brother’s caustic tongue had turned to her. “I hope it was worth it, Viserys, because it cost you the greatest treasure you were ever given while you grovel to these snakes. You’re no dragon, only a fireless wyrm! Your ambitions cost you Aemma, the Valyrian wife you claimed to love so much, just as it has cost you her daughter!”
“I hope you’re finally happy,” his brother had told him harshly three days later when Viserys had him released from his cell, and all searches had brought him the same news. Rhaenyra was gone, hers and Aemma’s belongings shipped to the Vale, and the little hatchling she had only mounted for the first time the year before missing from the Dragonpit. “You marry that Hightower whore, and I hope you don’t come to regret it, because we won’t come crawling back to you this time. Not after this, Kinslayer. Aemma will curse you from her grave, if she hasn’t already”
(Cursed be the Kinslayer.)
That night, Daemon had mounted Caraxes and taken to the sky, bound for places unknown to the King, and for the next ten years, not a single dragon had filled the sky above King’s Landing, with even Dreamfyre breaking free of her chains and abandoning the lair she had remained in since Queen Rhaena’s passing, as if following a command none could hear. Not a single Targaryen had graced the Court since; not for the King’s wedding, or the subsequent birth of his children by his second wife, and not for any celebration the King and his Queen planned.
For ten long years, Viserys saw nothing of his kin. He heard tales of Daemon’s exploits as he always did through Otto, of his bloodthirsty activities on the Stepstones as he waged war against the Triarchy without the permission of the Crown, backed by House Velaryon and a chunk of the Crownlands, the Stormlands, and the Vale. He heard of the birth of his niece, named for their mother without his blessing as her eldest child, looking every inch a Targaryen while the Realm muttered about the bastardry of the King’s own children, of curses; all three of his sons appearing un-Valyrian, and each egg placed in their cradles turning to stone. He heard of the death of his brother’s wife, of little Laena Velaryon mounting Vhagar, and dragons descending on the Free Cities as the War dragged on. He heard of young Laenor Velaryon being knighted by Dark Sister, received word of Lady Laena’s marriage to Ser Joffrey Arryn, the new Lord of Gulltown, and Daemon seizing control of a Bank powerful enough to rival even the Iron Bank of Bravos through taking to wife the eldest daughter of House Rogare of Lys, and delivering to her the heads of all but one of her male relatives. Otto would rant endlessly of his brother’s actions, of House Velaryon and the power they were seizing in opposition of the Throne.
(“Aemma will curse you,” his brother’s voice reminded him.)
But not a single letter brought him news of his beloved Rhaenyra save for the small gifts she sent each of her half-siblings on their namedays, delivered straight from the Vale, where not a single word of his daughter left the ancient mountains his first wife’s family ruled. Haunted by the bloody spectre of his Aemma everywhere he went, the ten years that passed weighed heavily on him, exacerbating his growing illness and exhausting him to the suggestions of his Hand and Queen to name Aegon his heir and Rhaenyra continued to shirk her duties, but loneliness and the guilt had stayed his remaining hand from signing the royal decree.
(“A curse,” maids would whisper, finding dead falcons on the sills with each of Alicent’s labours, all of them gutted.)
His dreams had shown him a silver haired prince sitting on the Iron Throne, but all of his sons remained stubbornly dark haired, even infant Daeron, born with twisted legs that might never hold his weight. Helaena, the most Valyrian-looking of his second wife’s children, had only golden hair that shone only faintly of silver, and a sweet, but simple, disposition, much like his delicate Aunt Gael had once had. No, any King of Viserys’ blood would be born from Rhaenyra’s line, of this he was certain. His Aemma’s girl, the youngest dragon rider in their House’s history, would bring forth the next generation of Targaryens that would hatch eggs in their cradles just as she had, and from them would come the Prince that was Promised.
Now, if only his child would return home to her ailing father, and put an end to all these pesky suitors and the damnable politicking. Sat as he in at the head of the table, a pale ghost of silver and white and blood lingering in the corner of his eye, and trying to enjoy his wine while nursing a headache as a gathering of Lords and Ladies celebrate Aegon’s tenth nameday, Viserys is looking forward to dismissing Lord Jason Lannister and another of his petitions to take his daughter to wife, when the sudden roar of dragons shakes the Red Keep to it’s very foundations. Gold sweeps past the great balcony looking over King’s Landing, glittering and rich and as swift as a falcon in flight, and Viserys is standing faster than he thought possible. He’s barely aware of Alicent clutching Aegon to her chest protectively, utterly terrified in her green dress as more and more dragons cast darkness over the capital, their massive bodies clocking out the sun above them all.
“Dragons,” little Aemond breathes, his single dark eye alight with awe and desire, his other covered by a mass of an old burn scar, bumpy and patterned like scales, left from his second cradle egg that had permanently disfigured him in infancy when he’d rolled to close to it’s heat.
Viserys is left grasping for his cane, hobbling hurriedly for the great wooden doors. “Summon me a carriage,” he ordered of his steward, smiling so jovially it hurts, “my heir has come home! I shall greet her in the Dragonpit!”
“Viserys!” Alicent cries, clinging to her eldest, green eyes sparkling with fear. The poor boy had been castrated in an incident in the Dragonpit, when trying to bond with a little golden hatchling, the only one remaining after Dreamfyre’s flight, that had rejected him so violently that Alicent had ordered the drake culled, and Viserys had been forced to agree to calm his frantic, hysterical wife, though her fear had remained. “What of your children?!”
(“I hope you’re happy,” Aemma soothed him at night, blood pouring from the gaping hole of her middle, and staining her pale lips)
“Their sister has returned, my dear, this is cause for celebrations!” He laughs, letting darling Helaena, so particular about touch, loop her tiny, pudgy fingers in his empty sleeve, her blind blue eyes misty. Rhaenyra had always wished for a little sister to spoil, and he has no doubt that, even with Helaena’s oddities, his sweet girl would love her blind, simple sister. He, himself, had found the quiet child the easiest of his second wife’s children to bond with compared to her brothers, the two of them sharing a love of histories, and her always content to listen to the stories she could not read herself.
“Your Grace!” A guard warns, out of breath from what must have been a sprint in full armor as Viserys shuffles out of the ball room, and Alicent snatches Helaena away, propelling all three children towards their governess. “Your Grace! It’s the dragons!”
“What of it?” Viserys demands, impatient to see his daughter for the first time in ten years, and the man struggles to form his words. “Speak, guard.”
“They’re landing in the courtyard!”
“How many?” Otto is demanding as Viserys hobbles faster, sweeping past the shaken guard in Hightower heraldry. “Which beasts?”
“I-” the lad stutters. “I don’t know – all of them? There’s so many-”
All of them. The words drive him further, with more energy than the King had been able to muster in years. All of his kin have finally returned to him. They would be a family once more, stronger than ever before, with more of them to carry on their House’s legacy, no matter what crippled the youngest of them. He’s sure that he can make them all stay, this time. No doubt, fatherhood would have Daemon settle now, and Viserys would appoint him Commander of the Gold Cloaks once more. Rhaenys’ injured pride could be soothed with a place in Court for herself and her children, perhaps Laena as the Queen’s Lady-in-Waiting, and Laenor, his father’s old station as Master of Ships. Daemon’s girl was of an age with Aegon, and a proper Valyrian match for his daughter, even one that could not produce children, would bring Daemon happiness while keeping him away from the Throne.
Rhaenyra, of course, was a woman grown now, old enough to be wed, and Viserys was craving grandchildren born with silver crowns to spoil. Perhaps he could offer her a seat on the Small Council as his heir deserves, and they could find her a good consort, together, one who would give her many dragon riding babes of her own. He’ll have to ask Otto to compile a list for them, but reuniting with his daughter after so many years apart comes first.
His first sight of her takes his breath away, a spectre of his past in black riding leather, and a long sky blue surcoat emblazoned with a golden dragon in the image of her beloved Syrax, cut to accentuate her feminine form, no longer that of a little girl. Her white-gold curls, inherited from his beautiful Aemma, are bound in a braided crown ‘round her head, held in place by a tiara of Valyrian steel inlaid with pearls. She looks wind-blown, and regal, the very image of a Queen returning from the skies, some pale ringlets escaping to frame her angelic face, and lavender eyes glittering with a wild energy. Across her chest, lays a sash of crimson fabric, almost like a sling, embroidered with silver seahorses, and she cradles it protectively as a young man in Velaryon heraldry and riding leather trimmed in red, who must be little Laenor Velaryon, all grown up and knighted, helps her slide from Syrax’s saddle, the golden dragon also so much larger than Viserys remembers, just like his daughter, who seemed to have filled out from her youthful slimness in a way Aemma, sickly and small, had never quite managed to.
She looks healthy, and strong – the very image of the glory of House Targaryen – but Viserys can’t help but see Aemma’s ghost behind her, highlighting all their similarities, and the small little differences, imprinted by the differences in their lives.
(“Mother was right,” Rhaenyra’s voice reminds him of Aemma’s final expression as the life drained from her eyes. Young, and defeated, and scared.)
Caraxes, Meleys, Vhagar, Dreamfyre, Vermithor, and Silverwing all take to the sky once their riders, all silver haired and dressed in black leather, disembark, too large to remain comfortably in the Red Keep’s courtyard all together, while Syrax, Seasmoke, and another juvenile dragon with umber scales he recognizes as the Sheepstealer from reports, remain, perched protectively nearby.
“Rhaenyra,” Viserys breathes in delight, but his girl’s face remains coldly distant, even as her gaze burns him.
“Your Grace,” she replies flatly, Ser Laenor at her side, three knights at her back, and a gathering of Valyrian colourings clustered around her. “Might I present my Household to the Crown and Court?”
The King has to swallow back what he wishes to say to his daughter as the Court and his Council filter into the courtyard, and the dragons circle around Maegor’s Holdfast in a dizzying dance of rich colours and powerful magic. He may be King, but there was still courtly decorum to attend to, so he offers his daughter his mute approval.
“Might I introduce you to my most trusted advisors and tutors,” the Crown Princess says gracefully, with a political finesse she had not wielded before her flight to the Eyrie. “You know Princess Rhaenys Targaryen Velaryon, and Prince Daemon Targaryen, riders of Meleys and Caraxes, of course, and Scholar Vaegon Targaryen, who now rides Silverwing. Next to him, is Priestess Maegelle Targaryen, rider of Dreamfyre and Priestess of the Fourteen, and Princess Saera Targaryen.” His aunts and uncle, the only surviving children of King Jaehaerys and Queen Alysanne, one of whom had been thought dead, and the others had long since declared their intents to never again return to the Red Keep. Though all much older than Viserys, all looked younger than their nephew, elegant and regal where Viserys is hunched and twisted from his wasting sickness, and his missing limbs, even Maegelle, scarred by the greyscale that had been believed to have killed her, looks healthier than he.
“Princess Saera rides Vermithor,” Rhaenyra continues on, seemingly unbothered by the murmurings of the Lords and Ladies, as Saera Targaryen grins at them all, a wild fury in her strikingly kohl-lined gaze. “My chief Ladies-in-Waiting and sisters in bond; Lady Marra Rogare of Lys, graddaughter of Princess Saera and head of the Rogare Bank. Lady Alyssa Targaryen of House Royce, tamer of Rune, known formerly as the Sheepstealer.” His niece truly is the spitting image of his mother, her namesake, with her burnished golden hair, as pin-straight and glossy as Daemon’s, and sharp features, with the piercing amber eyes he remembers his brother’s first wife possessing. Her hair, cut boyishly short, is another thing he remembers of the stern, militant Lady Rhea Royce being known for, as was the weirwood bow upon her back. Marra Rogare, on the other hand, is the only one amongst Rhaenyra’s household not in leather or armor, wearing instead a silken, almost translucent, gown of purple, pale skin and curves on display, pale hair in a loose braid draped artfully across the top of her breast, a belt of ruby-eyed dragons circling her slim waist. “And finally, the lovely Lady Laena Velaryon, rider of Vhagar, the Queen of Dragons, and the Lady of Gulltown.” Lovely was correct; Laena Velaryon, the very girl he had once declined to wed, was a vision in her riding leather and seafoam skirts that were split indecently to allow for movement, pearls braided into her thick white curls. “After my Ladies, comes my sworn shields, Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, Ser Joffrey Arryn, and Ser Moredo Rogare.”
“And yes,” Daemon drawls, something blazing and snide in his eyes, their mother’s eyes, as he looks at Viserys, and it takes him by surprise to see the hatred there, something uncomfortable churning in his stomach, “it does get confusing, at times.”
“Indeed,” his Aunt Saera chuckles, violet eyes imperious as she lays them upon her brother’s eldest son, and completely unimpressed with what she sees. “You really did take after the Old King, didn’t you, little Vis.” It doesn’t feel like a compliment, coming from his grandfather’s prodigal daughter, nor a question, especially when Vaegon and Maegelle murmur gracefully in agreement, pinning him in place with identical indigo eyes, all of them judging, and finding him lacking.
“The rest of my Household will be arriving on ships within the day,” Rhaenyra pulls attention back to herself, absently wiggling her fingers within the fabric of her sash, as Ser Laenor leans closer, indecently so, smiling fondly.
Daemon, without a doubt, sees the expression on the King’s face, delighting in the chaos as he always had. Fatherhood and a Valyrian wife, it seemed, had not managed to mature him and cool his dragonblood as Viserys had hoped it would, after all. Next to him, Lady Marra leans up, murmuring something in Valyrian that Viserys is not close enough to hear, and Daemon laughs, replying just as softly, before dramatically stepping forward, one hand resting lazily upon the pommel of Dark Sister as Caraxes shrieks overhead. “How could we have been so forgetful? King Viserys, it is my honour to present their Graces, Queen and King of the Stepstones, Lys, and the Narrow Sea; Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, the First of Her Name, and Heir to the Iron Throne. The Dragon of the Mountains, Subduer of the Triarchy, and the Black Queen. And her husband, and Consort, King Laenor Velaryon Targaryen, Hero of the Stepstones and Conqueror of Lys, the Sea Dragon.” His brother takes another step forward, of which was noticeably more threatening, as he draws Dark Sister with a flourish, wild grin growing.
The Keep rattles as Caraxes alights on the great walls surrounding its towers, serpentine and as crimson as blood. Syrax rumbles in warning, licks of golden flames huffing from her snout, and all four dragons within the courtyard watch them with dangerously glowing eyes.
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” Rhaenyra hums in calm warning, gaze roaming across knights and guards as they draw their swords on Otto’s anxious orders. “Dragon’s are quite… protective, especially when threatened.”
Viserys looks to his daughter, alarmed and confused and wanting to shield her from her uncle’s bloodthirsty influence. “Rhaenyra-”
“I’m not here as your daughter, King Viserys,” his little girl interrupts, no warmth in her voice, and she’s clutching that bundle of crimson fabric protectively to her chest with one arm, the other curling around the golden dragonscale armour protecting her middle, as if someone would cut her open in a moment’s notice, “but as a fellow monarch, and your heir. My Justicar is well within his rights to seek justice on my behalf.”
A little hand reaches from the rich fabric, seeking out Rhaenyra’s voice, skin bronze and fingers so, so delicately boned, like Rhaenyra herself had once reached out for Aemma, looking for her mother’s comfort.
His little girl, he realizes, body going numb, is a mother herself.
“You will hand over Otto Hightower, and Maester Mellos Hightower,” Rhaenyra demands, no room for debate or defense, a dragon prepared to take what it wants, “to face justice for their crimes.”
“Crimes?!” Alicent demands shrilly, as Viserys can only stand mutely, staring at the ghostly figure watching him from over his daughter’s shoulder, blood staining her pale curls. “What crimes?!” Rhaenyra’s gaze turns to his wife in distaste, sweeping dismissively across her emerald-encrusted gown, but those ice-blue eyes watching him never release him.
“Why,” it’s even-tempered young Laenor who speaks, gently extracting his babe from Rhaenyra’s grasp, revealing an infant he cradles with such ease, one with Viserys’ daughter’s hair silvery hair, Laenor’s skin, and the late Princess Alyssa Targaryen’s mismatched eyes, “high treason, of course.”
“And infanticide,” Daemon continues, watching Otto and Mellos like a shadowcat stalking its prey, prowling forward with dangerous, predatory grace. “Regicide. Attempted murder. Murder.”
“The murder of Princess Alyssa Targaryen, and her newborn son, Aegon Targaryen,” Uncle Vaegon reads out, unwinding the scroll Viserys had never noticed in his wizened hands. “The murder of Crown Prince Baelon Targaryen. The murder of Princess Gael Targaryen, and her trueborn son by her husband, Prince Daemon Targaryen, Maegor Targaryen. The murder of Queen Aemma Arryn, and her babes; Jaehaerys, Viserys, Aemon, Aerion, Daella, and Baelon, all born hale and healthy, but poisoned to death, just as their kin have been for as long as House Targaryen has ruled Westeros. All recorded, in detail, at the Citidel.”
He can’t breathe. Viserys’ world is falling apart, his head swimming, breath coming short as he struggles past the paralyzing fear in his chest, and heart feeling as if it could burst. He can barely hear the chaos around him, ears ringing and not just with the roars of dragons, and he almost misses Rhaenyra’s next statement.
“No need to call your banners, stepmother, we already lit the beacon for you. Fire and Blood are our words, after all, and we’ll light the way long after House Hightower is forgotten by history.”
Everything falls away, swallowed by nothingness as the spectre haunting Viserys finally reaches him, leaving the bloodied ghost of his beloved Aemma staring back at him, a knife in her delicate hands and hatred lighting her sky toned eyes like flames. The wound inflicted upon her is a waning, gaping void, holding the wailing of babes, and the rotting scent of blood and viscera. “I hope you’re happy,” Aemma Arryn purrs, pressing a soft kiss to his bloodless cheek, her sweet smell filling his nose like a comforting blanket. Then, with a push of her thin arm, the knife is buried in his gut, and twisted harshly, as if to carve him open as she once was. “I hope you found your happiness with the cursed, twisted sons your whore birthed you, with the daughter finally blind to the future she saw because of you. I hope your choice brought you the bliss you denied me in life, Viserys the Kinslayer, because you’ll never get it again in death.”
Viserys Targaryen dies there, with the ghost of his murdered wife standing over him, heart burst from within his chest from fright, remembered only in history for the blood he had spilled in his weakness and ambition, with no one to speak his name with the reverence he had always dreamed of. He dies, a useless, weak king who did nothing for his people, and from the ashes of his rule, his daughter, Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, rises like a falcon in flight.
Cursed is the Kinslayer. Cursed is the weak King, happiness never to bring him comfort in the flames.