Princess Rhaena's expression grew awkward as well.
From Queen Rhaenyra's perspective, it was indeed a clever way to keep dragonblood from flowing outward, and to bind House Velaryon closer still. The queen had already begun to think about Aegon's future.
Aegon, for his part, had no idea how to respond. He half wished he could flee in panic. Though such arrangements were not unheard of in his family, an age difference of a few years mattered little by tradition, he had never prepared himself for it. Not yet.
Fortunately, the discomfort did not last long. Lady Jeyne Arryn arrived, and it was time to speak of matters that truly mattered.
"Your Grace, the war continues, and so does our cause," Lady Jeyne said to Queen Rhaenyra. She was striking in appearance, with sand-gold hair and blue eyes, and when she smiled, dimples formed on her cheeks. Tall and well-proportioned, she carried herself with confidence. "We are bound by blood. You are of House Arryn. In a world ruled by men, we women must stand together."
Lady Jeyne was thirty-six, and had long borne the burden of holding the Vale together, particularly against her many unruly kinsmen, who resented her rule simply because she was a woman.
"Yes," Rhaenyra replied, steadying herself after months of flight and humiliation. "In times like these, we must walk in step." Though King's Landing was lost, the Vale remained far safer ground.
"My condolences, Prince," Lady Jeyne continued, turning to Aegon. "War is merciless. It took your father and brothers, just as it took my father and brothers, leaving me to bear the weight of the Vale. You must be strong, like a warrior. Though your mother's taste in men is… questionable, it was not the very worst. Your father treated his first wife cruelly, but I must admit, when it came to battle, he truly was among the finest warriors of the Seven Kingdoms."
Aegon could only smile politely. He had heard plenty of tales about Prince Daemon's scandalous affairs, a man of blazing passion and ruthless valor, both chaos and heroism embodied. Brilliant… and sometimes a stained knight.
"Once we've gathered ships from across the Narrow Sea, the Vale's armies will march," Lady Jeyne said. "Without dragons, we fear nothing."
With dragons dead, the Vale's natural defenses were more than sufficient. Aegon held his tongue. The obstruction from Gulltown's lords, money withheld, ships delayed, was something Lady Jeyne surely understood all too well. Even ruling as a woman, the struggle never truly eased.
"But there is still time before we march south," Rhaenyra said coldly. "Let the vermin in King's Landing enjoy themselves while they can. Their triumph will not last."
Aegon knew exactly whom she meant. The Baratheon knights were the key, untouched by losses, waiting to be unleashed.
*
Dragonstone.
Plots unraveled, smoke dispersed, and King Aegon II flew into a rage. He had prepared the dragon's jaws to welcome his beloved sister.
"My dear sister isn't dead," Aegon II snarled. "Everything we planned, it was all a dream! That whore escaped. She fled to the Vale, to Gulltown, beyond our reach!"
Only twenty-three, yet already ravaged by pain, Aegon II was a broken man. His mind had grown unstable under the weight of repeated dragon battles. At Rook's Rest, his shattered pelvis had healed crookedly, leaving him hunched and twisted. His once-handsome face had grown bloated; burns covered half his body; now even his legs were broken.
At Rook's Rest, Aegon II and his brother Prince Aemond had slain Princess Rhaenys, the "Queen Who Never Was", and her dragon Meleys. But Aegon himself was terribly burned and broken, rendered unable to rule. Drugged with milk of the poppy, he drifted in and out of consciousness for nearly a year.
Later, on Dragonstone, during the clash between Sunfyre and Moondancer, Aegon leapt from the saddle before landing, and shattered both legs. This time, he refused milk of the poppy. He would endure pain rather than relive that year of haze, and he had the loyal-to-Rhaenyra Grand Maester Gerardys executed.
"Sometimes," said Ser Alfred Broome lightly, "the living are not truly alive, and may as well be dead."
Broome was a grim, unpleasant man, long passed over on Dragonstone. He had already resolved to kill Rhaenyra to secure his own advancement. Though the queen and her son had escaped, the hatred was now fixed; there was no turning back.
"You mean…?" Aegon II asked, intrigued.
"Lord Larys writes that the Vale cannot sail against us," Broome explained. "If we insist that Queen Rhaenyra and Prince Aegon died at sea, and that Lady Jeyne holds impostors, most lords will hesitate. All we need is to land at King's Landing, link the Crownlands with the Stormlands, then summon the West and the Reach. With the capital in hand, you are the rightful king, others will bend the knee. The whore and her whelp won't live long, Your Grace. For now, we must win over House Velaryon and Lord Borros."
The plan was Larys Strong's, rule without dragons, through cunning alone.
"Larys may be right," Aegon II muttered, "but will that illiterate oaf Borros truly march? He's far shrewder than he looks. He raised six thousand men at Storm's End but marched against the Red Mountains instead, hunting down the Vulture King."
"Men move by profit and timing," Ser Marston Waters added. Newly made Kingsguard, he was eager to please. "Winter is upon us. Rhaenyra has fled far away. If the Stormlands march, the rabble in King's Landing will scatter. Three pretenders will fall. And Lord Arryn's ships matter as well."
"All of that may be true," Aegon II snapped, "but my dragon! I will not abandon Sunfyre. I'll kill that wild girl to avenge him!"
Sunfyre was dying. His wounds festered, his breath stank, and he could no longer eat. One eye was gone; his body torn and ruined. Aegon II could not bear to leave him.
"If I return," he growled, "Sunfyre comes with me!"
"Your Grace, you must not!" they pleaded. "To bring a dying dragon into King's Landing would only spread panic!"
"At times, one must ignore trifles," Broome pressed. "Let others tend Sunfyre. His duty is done. What matters now is time, secure the capital, raise men from the Stormlands and Crownlands. If we wait here for a dragon's miracle, we lose everything."
Reluctantly, Aegon II wavered.
"And that Arryn boy will give us ships?" he asked.
"His cousin is here," Ser Marston said sharply. "A proud boy like that won't abandon his own blood."
"Very well," Aegon II decided at last. "Write at once. I return to King's Landing. Call the Stormlands to war. Command the ships of Tarth."
Time would not wait. Rhaenyra's return to the Vale meant one thing, total war.
"Faster! Faster, you whelps, march!"
"Pick up the pace!"
Black-and-gold banners snapped in the wind, the crowned stag charging across a golden field. The Stormlands marched at last. Lord Borros Baratheon, more volatile and warlike than his father Boremund, left behind his pregnant wife and four daughters, leading six hundred knights and four thousand foot through the kingswood toward King's Landing.
Two letters had reached him. One from Aegon on Dragonstone, claiming Rhaenyra had died at sea and the capital lay in chaos. Another from the Vale, declaring Queen Rhaenyra alive and calling for submission.
But Borros had no choice. He was too deeply bound to the Greens. Lucerys's death outside Storm's End, his quiet protection of Aegon's lone daughter, each was a crime without pardon. There was no retreat left.
The Double-dealers had reached their moment of decision.
And now, with the Greens weakened, Borros's move would make him the pillar holding up the sky itself.
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A/N:
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