King's Landing, The Throne Room
The Sea Snake did not beg. He did not curse, nor did he threaten or plead. After Prince Aegon's outburst had spent itself, Lord Corlys Velaryon merely inclined his head, stiff as a mast in a dead calm, then turned and walked from the hall. His steps echoed once, twice, and were gone.
Larys Strong lingered longer. The Clubfoot watched the old lord's retreating back with pale, unreadable eyes, fingers steepled before his chest. Some private calculation passed behind his faint smile. At last, he bowed low to the Iron Throne and withdrew as well, his cane tapping softly against the stone.
The vast hall emptied.
Only Queen Alicent and her son remained.
High upon the rear wall loomed the blackened skulls of dragons long dead. Balerion's was the greatest of them all, its vast jaws stretched wide in a silent roar. One day, perhaps, Vhagar's skull would hang beside it. Perhaps Sunfyre's as well. The polished bone gleamed dully in the torchlight, hollow eye sockets fixed upon the wretched figures below like the judgment of old gods.
Aegon sat slumped upon the Iron Throne, his hands resting limply on the armrests, fingers pale where the metal chilled them.
"Mother," he said at last. His voice was quiet, almost careful. He did not look at her. "How do you think the histories will judge me? As the rightful king… or as the man who stole his sister's crown?"
Alicent took a step forward, skirts whispering against the stone. Her hands clenched in the folds of her gown.
"You are the rightful king," she said at once, too quickly. "The only rightful king."
War had stripped her of her former grace. Her face was drawn and pale, the softness gone, her eyes burning with sleepless bitterness.
Aegon turned his head slightly, studying her from beneath heavy lids.
"Did Father truly want me to inherit?" he asked. "Tell me truly."
"Yes," Alicent said. She nodded, as if to convince herself as much as him. "He did."
Aegon let out a slow breath. His lips curved, though there was no mirth in it.
"That is a lie," he said softly. "And you know it. I was never the heir he wanted. If I had been, he would have settled Rhaenyra long ago. Married her to some meek lord, taken her from court, broken her power. Or he would have called another Great Council and spoken his will plainly."
His fingers tightened against the iron.
"Instead, he spent his life strengthening her claim."
His voice hardened.
"He was a good father," Aegon said. "But a poor king. He should have crushed one faction or the other. Instead, he forced us all to smile. To pretend at peace. Until the rot spread too far to cut away."
Alicent opened her mouth, then closed it again.
"I never wanted this crown," Aegon went on. He shifted, wincing as pain shot through his ruined leg. "I never loved this chair. You pushed me toward it. You, Grandfather Otto, and Aemond."
His gaze flicked up to the dragon skulls.
"When you told me Father was dead, I was in the rat pits of Flea Bottom," he said. "Watching children tear each other apart for coppers. A whore was laughing in my arms."
A short, hollow laugh escaped him.
"And now here I sit, playing at power, losing everything. If I had been given a choice, I would have stayed in that filth rather than rule from this cursed seat."
Alicent's composure finally broke. She pressed a hand to her breast, breath coming fast.
"It was the late king's injustice," she cried. "He knew Rhaenyra's sons were born of sin, yet he upheld them still. He loved only the daughter of his first wife."
Her voice shook, sharp with long-buried fury.
"We had no choice, Aegon. None at all. If we had not acted, Rhaenyra would have killed you. Killed your brothers. She would have placed her bastards upon the throne and wiped us from the world."
Aegon shook his head slowly.
"The gifts of House Hightower were poisoned," he said. "Grandfather brought you to King's Landing with ambition hidden behind duty. Rhaenyra, you, and I… we all share blame for the fall of our house."
His thoughts drifted far away, to Oldtown and its towering beacon.
"House Hightower failed in its dream," he murmured. "And in failing, it broke the dragons."
He looked down at his hands, scarred and trembling.
"My life is a farce," he said. "I was never a son to Father. I was a weapon. Yours."
For a moment, something almost like longing crossed his face.
"I once hoped someone might save me," he said. "I see now it was only a child's dream."
He straightened with effort.
"We are leaving," Aegon said to his attendants.
They hurried forward. One bent to lift him, careful of his ruined leg. A crutch was pressed into his hand. He rose with difficulty, pain tightening his jaw.
Before they turned away, Aegon looked back at the Iron Throne.
Farewell, my iron chair.
The Conqueror had been right. No king should ever sit at ease.
The throne was cruel and unyielding, a mass of twisted blades and spikes. Its back offered no rest, only pain. Above it rose the seat itself, reached by narrow iron steps, as if daring any man to climb.
"Where are you going?" Alicent asked, tears streaking her face.
"To the sept," Aegon replied. "I miss them. My wife. My sons. My brothers. My father."
He paused, then added quietly, "Even my uncle Daemon. The one I always feared."
The attendants bore him away. Aegon did not look back.
In the courtyard below, his litter waited.
Queen Alicent stood beneath the high arches and watched her son's figure disappear from sight. In the stillness that followed, a certainty settled in her bones, cold and unyielding. This was a farewell without return.
She did not move for a long while.
Memory drew her backward, through years and sorrow, to the day her father, Ser Otto Hightower, first brought her to court. She had been little more than a girl then, quiet and dutiful, taught to listen before she spoke and to endure before she hoped.
In those early years, as King Jaehaerys the Conciliator withered toward death, it was Alicent who attended him most closely. She fed him when his hands shook too much to hold a spoon. She bathed and dressed him when his wits failed. She read to him for hours, her voice soft and patient, even as his mind wandered. In his confusion, the old king would sometimes call her Saera, believing his wayward daughter had returned from across the Narrow Sea.
Alicent never corrected him.
When Jaehaerys finally died, it was with her voice in his ears, reading from Septon Barth's Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History.
None of it had been chance. None of it had been innocent.
Then came the moment of light. Queen Aemma's death, sudden and terrible, and with it the opening of a path that had long been prepared.
"You must climb," her father had told her that night, his voice low and resolute. "Climb until you reach the very top. You will rule the Seven Kingdoms as queen, and your children will be kings."
Now, years later, Alicent pressed a hand to the stone wall as dizziness swept over her.
"We wanted too much," she whispered to the empty hall. "And we were willing to give too little… until we were torn apart."
She turned at last to return to her chambers.
She did not reach them.
Outside her apartments, the guards lay dead, their blood dark upon the floor. The men who seized her wore no sigils she recognized, only the cold efficiency of those who knew their work. Hands closed around her arms. She was dragged back, placed once more under guard.
"My son," Alicent cried as the world dimmed. "My son."
Terror clawed at her. In that moment, she was certain Aegon was already dead.
The Sea Snake had abandoned them again, she thought wildly. This time, he had offered them up as tribute to a new king.
Her grief found no answer. She was hauled away without ceremony and thrown into the black cells, the door slamming shut behind her.
Elsewhere that night, death came just as swiftly.
Near the approach to Maegor's Holdfast, Ser Alfred was drawn onto the drawbridge by a lie. Larys Strong's agents had told him that Baela was held within, closely guarded. Trusting their word, he walked forward without suspicion.
On the bridge, Perkin the Flea stepped into his path, flanked by six gutter knights.
"In the king's name, stand aside," Alfred demanded, his hand on his sword.
Perkin grinned. "Sorry. We have a new king now."
He leaned in close, breath sour with ale.
"And the Sea Snake sends his regards."
Perkin clapped a hand on Alfred's shoulder and shoved him hard. The knight fell screaming, his body striking the iron spikes of the moat below. Blood splashed across the stone.
"That's the fate of traitors," Perkin spat, loosing phlegm onto Alfred's dying face. "You thought selling your old master would buy you gold? King's Landing isn't a game for little men."
Others died before dawn. Most of what remained of Aegon's loyalists were hunted down. Tongueless Tom was ambushed and cut apart. Shaggy Tom drowned face-first in a vat of ale.
After leaving the throne room, Aegon's skin had turned ashen, his body slack with exhaustion. He knew the truth now. His crown was lost beyond recovery.
Cold wind sliced through the litter as the curtains were drawn shut. Inside, he drank from a skin of Arbor red sweetwine, his favorite, always kept close. One last small mercy of kingship.
Pain gnawed at his ruined body. The wine dulled it, if only a little.
The litter came to a halt before the sept.
"We've arrived, Your Grace."
There was no answer.
They called again, voices tightening with unease.
At last, a knight pulled back the curtain.
Aegon II lay as though asleep, his face strangely calm. His mouth was filled with blood, dark and thick, spilled silently down his chin.
He had passed into the Long Night without a sound.
King Aegon II Targaryen died at four-and-twenty years of age, after a reign of two years.
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