Chapter 10: The Velaryon Knot and a Dragon's Empty Saddle
The Red Keep shimmered under the oppressive weight of a late summer, the air thick not just with heat but with the unspeakable tensions of a royal wedding. Rhaenyra Targaryen, at twenty years of age, radiant and defiant in a gown of Targaryen black and red, was to be wed to Ser Laenor Velaryon. The Great Sept of Baelor was a confection of gold and incense, but beneath the forced smiles and congratulatory murmurs, Voldemort, now a young man of eighteen, felt the grinding gears of ambition and resentment.
He stood beside his father, King Viserys, whose frailty was becoming alarmingly apparent. The King leaned heavily on a carved weirwood cane, his face drawn, his breaths often shallow. Yet, a determined spark lingered in his eyes as he watched his daughter approach the altar. This marriage, Viserys fervently hoped, would bind the restless Velaryons to the throne, secure Rhaenyra's line, and perhaps, just perhaps, silence the whispers about the succession that gnawed at his peace. Voldemort knew better. This marriage was not an end to strife, but merely a new, more complex overture.
Lord Corlys Velaryon, the Sea Snake, was a pillar of weathered pride, his silver dreadlocks adorned with pearls, his gaze sharp and proprietary as he stood beside his son. Princess Rhaenys, the Queen Who Never Was, watched with an enigmatic expression, her Valyrian beauty tinged with a familiar melancholy. Laenor himself, handsome and amiable, played his part with practiced ease, though Voldemort, with his heightened senses and the subtle whispers from Umbraxys's roving consciousness, could detect the faint, lingering scent of perfumed oils more commonly favored by courtiers like Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, Laenor's 'favorite companion,' who stood beaming amongst the Velaryon retinue.
Queen Alicent, resplendent in a gown of Hightower green that seemed to scream defiance in the Targaryen stronghold, maintained a facade of pious approval, her hand resting on young Aegon's shoulder. Aegon, now a boisterous twelve-year-old, fidgeted, clearly bored by the ceremony, his eyes occasionally darting towards Baelon with a familiar mixture of resentment and fear. Otto Hightower, ever the solemn statesman, stood behind his daughter, his mind, Voldemort was certain, already calculating how to turn this alliance to his eventual advantage, or how to undermine it should it prove too troublesome.
Voldemort himself was a study in controlled power. He wore unadorned black, his silver-gold hair stark against it, his pale eyes missing no detail. He had advised Rhaenyra, in their discreet conversations, to view this marriage as a strategic acquisition of power. "Let Laenor have his companions, and you, yours," he had murmured to her during a flight on their dragons days before. "What matters is the Velaryon fleet, their dragons, their wealth, and the heirs you will produce, by whatever means necessary, to secure your line and silence your detractors. Loyalty can be bought, Rhaenyra, or it can be commanded. Affection is a luxury few in our position can afford."
He saw by the set of her jaw as she took her vows that his words had found fertile ground. Rhaenyra was a survivor, a Targaryen to her core. She would do what was necessary.
The wedding feast was a lavish, drunken affair, a tinderbox of forced gaiety and simmering feuds. Voldemort, sipping sparingly at his wine, watched it all with the detached interest of a sorcerer observing a magical experiment about to go spectacularly wrong. He felt Umbraxys stirring in its pocket dimension, the great shadow dragon's senses intertwined with his own, relaying a tapestry of whispered conversations, clandestine glances, and the rising emotional temperature of the hall. Umbraxys had grown to the size of a small warship, its intelligence becoming sharper, its connection to Voldemort almost symbiotic. He could draw upon its shadow-magic more readily now, a subtle augmentation to his own formidable wizarding abilities, allowing him to cast faint illusions to misdirect an overly curious gaze, or to project a sliver of Umbraxys's primal fear to unnerve a potential threat. He had even begun teaching the shadow dragon complex Valyrian commands, to which it responded with an intelligence that was both thrilling and faintly terrifying.
The 'arrangements' for Rhaenyra's line began subtly. Ser Harwin Strong, 'Breakbones,' the powerful and reportedly virile eldest son of Lord Lyonel Strong, the new Hand of the King (Otto Hightower having been dismissed by a briefly resolute Viserys after a particularly egregious attempt to name Aegon Prince of Dragonstone over Baelon), was frequently in Rhaenyra's company. He was her sworn shield, a position that afforded him proximity and plausible deniability. Voldemort noted their interactions with cynical approval. Harwin was a strong, uncomplicated man, and any sons he sired on Rhaenyra would, by law and royal decree, be Velaryons, heirs to Driftmark and, through their mother, claimants to the Iron Throne – claimants Baelon would, in time, manage.
The most volatile element at court remained Alicent's sons. Aegon, fueled by his mother's ambition and his grandfather Otto's lingering influence (though Otto was now back at Oldtown, his ravens flew frequently), was an arrogant nuisance. But it was Aemond, now a brooding ten-year-old, who radiated a truly dangerous intensity. His lack of a dragon was a raw, festering wound. He watched his brother Aegon cavort on Sunfyre, and Rhaenyra's future sons who would undoubtedly be given eggs in their cradles, with a burning, venomous envy.
This envy reached a boiling point during the tourney held to celebrate the royal wedding. Several days of jousting and melee had passed. Laenor's 'companion,' Ser Joffrey Lonmouth, had been mortally wounded in a tilt by Ser Criston Cole – now Queen Alicent's personal sworn shield and a man whose hatred for Rhaenyra (stemming from her past rejection of him) was palpable. The mood was already dark.
Aemond, who had been taunted relentlessly by Aegon and his cousins (the sons of various lords) for being dragonless, finally snapped. That night, under the cover of darkness, he slipped away from his guards and made for the Dragonpit. Voldemort, through Umbraxys's senses which often patrolled the shadowed corridors of the Red Keep at his command, became aware of the boy's desperate, reckless pilgrimage.
"The little princeling seeks a fire of his own," Umbraxys's voice echoed in Voldemort's mind, tinged with a predatory amusement. "He smells of fear and foolish courage. Shall we watch him burn?"
"Observe, but do not intervene unless I command it," Voldemort instructed. "This could be… instructive."
Aemond, driven by a desperate resolve, did not seek out a young, unclaimed dragon. He went for the largest, most fearsome beast in the Dragonpit, a creature whose very name was a legend of terror: Vhagar. The ancient she-dragon, mount of the legendary Visenya Targaryen, and more recently, of the late Laena Velaryon (Laena having died some years prior in a tragic childbirth incident in Pentos, a detail that had sent fresh waves of grief through the Velaryon family and subtly altered the political landscape once more, leaving Laenor as the sole Velaryon heir of his generation), was now riderless, a colossal bronze titan whose roar could shake the city.
The Dragonkeepers were either asleep, drunk, or simply too terrified to stop the determined prince. Aemond, small and insignificant before the mountainous Vhagar, somehow managed to clamber onto her back. What followed was a terrifying display of sheer, suicidal audacity. Vhagar, enraged at this impudent flea, rose into the stormy night sky, thrashing and roaring, attempting to unseat him.
From his window in Maegor's Holdfast, Voldemort watched the distant, fiery spectacle. He could have intervened. Silverwing was swift. A word to the Dragonkeepers, a subtle magical nudge to Vhagar's mind… but he did nothing. Aemond's success or failure was, to him, merely data. If he died, one less rival. If he succeeded… he became a more dangerous piece on the board, but also a more predictable one, his ambition now given a fiery outlet.
Against all odds, Aemond Targaryen, through some combination of sheer terror, Targaryen blood, and Vhagar's ancient weariness or perhaps a flicker of Visenya's spirit recognizing a kindred ruthlessness, clung on. By dawn, a battered, bruised, but triumphant Aemond landed Vhagar, the largest and oldest dragon in the world, in the courtyard of the Red Keep. He had lost an eye in the struggle, a vicious lash from Vhagar's tail or a claw, but he had gained a dragon.
The court was thrown into uproar. Alicent was horrified at his injury but secretly thrilled at his daring. Viserys was aghast at the recklessness but also undeniably impressed. Aegon was, for once, silenced, his own claiming of Sunfyre paling in comparison to his younger brother's suicidal feat. Rhaenyra's sons (she now had two young boys, Jacaerys and Lucerys, both robust and dark-haired, bearing a suspicious resemblance to Ser Harwin Strong) were frightened, and Rhaenyra herself looked upon Aemond with a new, wary respect.
When Aemond, his face bandaged but his remaining eye blazing with fierce pride, was presented at court, he met Baelon's gaze. "I have a dragon now, brother," he said, his voice hoarse but defiant.
"So I see, Aemond," Baelon replied, his tone cool. "You paid a steep price for her. Let us hope she proves worth the eye you lost. Vhagar is a formidable beast. She requires a rider of equal… fortitude."
The implication was clear: Aemond had the dragon, but whether he had the true strength to control such power remained to be seen. Voldemort knew that this act would forever define Aemond, hardening him, fueling his ambition, making him a far more dangerous adversary than the boisterous Aegon.
King Viserys's health continued its inexorable decline. The effort of dealing with Aemond's maiming and the subsequent political fallout – Lord Corlys was furious at the 'theft' of his late daughter's dragon, further straining relations – seemed to drain the King of his remaining vitality. He now rarely left his chambers, his days spent in a haze of milk of the poppy and increasingly confused reminiscences. Lord Lyonel Strong, the Hand, governed in his name, a decent but beleaguered man caught between the implacable ambitions of the Queen's faction and the simmering resentments of the Velaryons and Rhaenyra.
Larys Strong, Lord Lyonel's club-footed, enigmatic son, had become an increasingly valuable asset to Voldemort. Larys, with his network of 'little birds' and his uncanny ability to unearth secrets, provided Baelon with a constant stream of information. It was Larys who alerted Baelon to a clandestine meeting between Queen Alicent and Ser Criston Cole, where they reportedly discussed ways to formally petition the King to name Aegon heir, citing Baelon's 'cold nature' and Rhaenyra's 'questionable offspring' as reasons for setting aside the established succession.
"The Queen grows bold in her desperation, Your Grace," Larys had whispered, his voice barely audible, his eyes gleaming with a strange, almost reptilian amusement. "Her father may be gone from court, but his ambition still guides her hand. They see the King failing, and they believe their time is nigh."
"Their belief is ill-founded, Lord Larys," Voldemort had replied, his voice a silken threat. "The King still lives. And I am still his heir. Any who seek to alter that truth will find the consequences… severe."
He tasked Larys with sowing discord amongst the lesser lords who supported the Hightowers, subtly spreading rumors of Otto's past manipulations or Alicent's increasing fanaticism. He also used Pate the scribe to 'leak' carefully selected documents that reaffirmed Baelon's own rights and highlighted precedents where attempts to alter succession by a queen consort had led to disastrous civil war.
His own power continued to grow, nurtured by the Heart of Valyria and the symbiotic bond with Umbraxys. He had delved deeper into the Valyrian sorceries, mastering intricate wards that now protected his hidden chamber more effectively than any lock or guard. He learned to draw upon Umbraxys's shadow-essence to augment his own physical senses to a superhuman degree, and even to influence the emotional states of those around him with subtle, almost untraceable waves of fear or unease, a potent tool in the claustrophobic confines of courtly intrigue. He was also beginning to understand the Valyrian concepts of longevity, not through crude methods like Horcruxes, but through a deep, resonant harmony with the life energies of the world, a magic that felt cleaner, purer, yet potentially just as effective in prolonging his existence.
Daemon, from his exile in the Stepstones (where he had now taken Laena Velaryon's younger sister, Lady Baela Targaryen, as his newest wife, a move that had further enraged Viserys but delighted Corlys), sent occasional, cryptic messages to Baelon, usually via trusted merchant captains. They were less letters and more pronouncements, filled with sardonic observations on the court's follies and veiled references to Baelon's own 'shadowed path.' Daemon was watching, even from afar, a dangerous and unpredictable factor.
As King Viserys faded, the factions within the Red Keep solidified. On one side, Queen Alicent, her sons Aegon and Aemond (now sporting a sapphire in his empty eye socket, a chilling affectation), and the loyal green lords. On the other, Princess Rhaenyra, her Velaryon sons (whose parentage was an open secret that no one dared voice too loudly), and the might of Driftmark.
And Baelon, Prince of Dragonstone, rider of Silverwing, master of Umbraxys, stood seemingly apart, yet at the very center of the storm. He was the undisputed heir, his claim ironclad. But he knew that in the game of thrones, iron could bend, and blood could be spilled. His father's approaching death would be the catalyst. The Velaryon knot, tied with such hope by Viserys, was already fraying. The dragons were restless. And he, Lord Voldemort, cloaked in the guise of a Targaryen prince, was ready to unleash a storm of his own, a storm of fire, shadow, and absolute dominion. The Dance was coming, and he would lead it.