Chapter Text
King’s landing, 289 AC
Six years.
Rhaegar paused as the thought entered his head. It’s really been six years, hasn’t it? It’s not a pleasant thought, but it’s a welcome distraction.
Candle-light flickered across his features, bathing his solar in warm orange. He gazed past the flame, looking out into the window, rain-glazed and rattling slightly in its hinges. Many of his council have suggested he simply seek out another room, but he didn’t mind. It-accompanied tonight by howling wind- is a welcome sound. Though he’d welcome the wails of a dying rooster as a distraction most nights.
Rhaegar feared one day he’d hear the sound of his quill on parchment in his sleep.
Taking a wheezing breath he pushed himself upward, careful to listen to his body’s protest. He spent a few moments bent over his desk, more the image of a wrinkled old maester than a King.
His lungs ached . Every breath rattled out of him like an ope window. Rubbing a hand over his chest did little but remind him of the origin of his sad state, fingers brushing over four patches of scar tissue, where the teeth of Robert Baratheon’s warhammer had bitten deep.
The maesters assured him that he was making progress, that before long he’d be fully healed.
He doubted it.
Finally his lungs took hold of themselves once more, and with another cough he raised up to his full height, making for the window. He strummed a hand along the strings of his harp as he walked past, sound filling the room. His mood turned to a mirror of the rumbling darkness outside as he gazed out from one of the red keep’s many towers.
“Have I done the right thing?” he said. Normally he’d voice such thoughts to Elia, when the weight of a hundred decisions and a thousand regrets came down on his shoulders. And he felt every bit the part of Aegon the unlikely, watching the stony mass of Summerhall coming down on top of him. His lady wife had a way with words, to make even the most dire situations seem hopeful, and to tell not a word of a lie whilst doing so.
But Elia wasn’t here, Elia was asleep, and so the storm would have to be his confessor.
Even now, five years since the rebellion, the realm still felt moments away from open war. The scars of Aerys’ reign running deep… alongside the ones caused by the war that was nobody’s fault but his own. A war that had nearly spelled disaster and death for his family.
Most people knew about the songs. The dragon prince and the demon of the trident, one person knew about the scars, and not even Elia knew just how close it had been.
Rhaegar had nightmares, often, about what would have happened if he’d thought to weather Robert’s blow head on, if he’d trusted his shield not to splinter against the fury of a Baratheon, if he’d couched himself in his saddle instead of going limp the moment he’d seen the swing coming.
Even then, it had broken his shield into kindling, driven itself deep into his breastplate, and shattered four of his ribs before sending him into the cold waters of what they now called the Ruby ford.
Luck. He supposed. Luck and the favour of the gods. It had been luck to survive that blow, and nothing short of a miracle that he’d been conscious enough to drag himself onto the riverbank, still spitting blood.
The sight of Robert Baratheon looming over him like the others come again haunted him still. Blue eyes blazing with fury that even now burned into his soul. He remembered the sight of that warhammer raised on high, high enough that its silhouette was framed by the beating sun.
He remembered lashing out, like a caged rat he’d driven his blade upward, aiming, in his delirium, for the bottom of Robert’s throat.
It went wide, and, by the fortune of the seven, drove itself up and through the would-be usurper’s armpit, where forged iron gave way to padding and mail.
Most nights, he misses completely, and wakes up as the hammer caves in his skull.
Some nights he doesn’t make it that far, drowning in his own blood as his armor drags him to the bottom of the ford.
He’d once heard someone say that nightmares were nothing but your fears trapped in a riddle. In thinking of those words Rhaegar had found a simple truth.
He was scared.
A knock on his door pulled him from his thoughts. “Enter,” he said, wondering if he’d misread the time. If it was Jaime coming to call him down to rest like he were some child. He appreciated Elia’s- and Rhaella’s- concern, but found the whole thing degrading.
It wasn’t Jaimie Lannister. Instead the smiling violet eyes and raven-black features of Arthur Dayne stared back at him from the doorway. Helmet tucked under one arm and Dawn under the other, the blade being too large to simply dangle from a scabbard. “Your grace,” he greeted. “The spider wishes to see you, shall I send him away?”
A smile managed to sneak onto Rhaegar’s features at his friend’s obvious discomfort to be in the eunuch’s presence. Men of honour rarely thought well of the master of spies, and the sword of the morning was no exception.
“No, let him in, please,” Varys was many things, but he was a pragmatist at heart. He’d not disturb the King at such an hour if it wasn’t important. “That will be all, ser,”
“Your grace,” Arthur said, closing the door behind him. Rhaegar sat down, turning his attention back to the stacks of parchment strewn about his desk. Peering at the drying ink of the letter he’d been busy writing.
A letter signed to Lord Eddard Stark.
Peels of slashing thunder masqued the sound of the opening door, leaving the waft of perfume as his only warning for the Spider’s approach. “Varys,” he said simply.
“Your grace,” the master of spies tittered. “I hope you’ll forgive my presence. I would have seen the matter brought up before the small council had I not thought it most urgent,”
“And what,” Rhaegar wondered aloud. “Would the matter you speak of be?”
“A flock of birds came, and they sang a multitude of songs. I have picked out only the most important ones, though I fear it is not good news,”
“It rarely is,” Rhaegar admitted. “Well, which song first?” Varys would forgive his rancor. It was not a mood for wordplay he found himself in.
“Taxes from the North are arriving soon,” Varys said.
“What is owed and not a crown more,” Rhaegar guessed. Frowning at the bitterness that crept into his voice at the thought of his northernmost Kingdom. There was no love lost for Rhaegar in the mind of any of the Northern lords, least of all the Warden.
He could scarcely blame the man. No house had lost more in the rebellion than house Stark. By the end of it all, two boys, barely grown, stood guard over the largest kingdom of Westeros.
He remembered telling Eddard the truth. The whole truth, and though he could remember within those stormy gray eyes the desire to rip him limb from limb, Ned, at that time, had been given hope that his sister might yet live.
And so Eddard Stark had ridden, to the location Rhaegar had told him about. He’d ridden hard. He’d ridden like the stranger was on his tail, to the sands of Dorne and his missing sister. He’d ridden out hopeful… and ridden back hateful.
Seeing Lyanna’s corpse had been worse than death. Hearing the wails of his Visenya echo through the red keep the sole relief that kept despair from burying its claws fully under Rhaegar’s skin. The Warden of the north had looked like he might have denied him his daughter, only grudgingly handing the babe off to Elia, who had cited hunger and had set about nursing the girl like she had been born from her own womb.
Elia’s infinite kindness aside, Rhaegar had asked what was to become of Lyanna, and where they would bury her. He pleaded to let her be buried beneath the great Sept of Baelor, but Eddard Stark would hear nothing of it, and his fury in that moment was whispered of as a second hour of the wolf.
“I’ll not see my sister buried in the same place her father and brother were slaughtered. Nor will I suffer this place a day longer, goodbye,” were Ned’s furious whispers. Words that Rhaegar remembered loud and clear. A quiet wolf might yet have long fangs.
“What is owed, and not a crown more. Indeed,” Varys parotted, dragging Rhaegar from his thoughts. “Though it seems a peculiar sight trails behind them. A carriage, filled- yet not with gold,” Varys paused for a moment, before continuing. “They say a rosebush is housed within, along with a saddle of Stark make, and some other things, though sadly their make remains a mystery to me. They’ll arrive within two moons, your grace.”
Rhaegar took a moment to run the sums in his mind. “What colour?”
Varys craned his head in no-doubt false confusion. LooKing the part of a bald owl as he did so. “Your Grace?”
“The roses, Varys,” he swallowed. “Were they…”
“Indeed, your grace,”
Rhaegar smiled despite himself. A part of him was offended at the gesture, to so blatantly favour one member of the royal family over the others could be seen as treason. Rhaegar, for all the thought ached, was glad to see Eddard did not blame his youngest for the sins of her parents.
Varys seemed almost keen to wipe the smile from his face. “I fear the other news is not quite so pleasant. Discontent among the maesters, it seems they are not over keen on sending one of their own to the Red keep, even with the title of Grand Maester open as it is,”
“They are lucky I do not use their vaunted books to smoke them out like the rats they are,” the topic of Pycelle was one that Rhaegar, even now, a topic that Rhaegar found his temper falling short on.
After Rhaella had nearly died bringing Daenerys into the world, the Maester at Dragonstone had noticed something. What exactly Rhaegar couldn’t quite remember. But it had been a thread, one that unraveled itself all the way into a single conclusion.
Poison.
Not even a single dose, no. They found the signs of years- decades of poison in her system. And there was only one man that could have slipped them in with such regularities.
He’d been poisoning Elia for years, too, it turned out. Slipping his concoctions into her tonics and medicines. Small increments, dosages upped every year. Not enough to be noticeable, but enough to make it seem like her conditioning was getting worse.
A long, slow, painful death. That is what the man who had brought him into the world thought to submit his lady wife to.
Punishment, in that case, had fit the crime.
They had been able to surmise the fact he’d been worKing for someone. Though in an unbecoming act of bravery he’d refused to tell them who.
Rhaegar tried not to let that get under his skin. Just another snake in the grass, only this one hadn’t stayed in the grass, it had slipped into the cradle of a score of would-be brothers and sisters, and had nearly taken his mother, sister, and wife from him.
“...Forgive me, we shall bring it up the next time. Now, why do I fear you have saved the worst for last?”
Varys rarely- if ever, gave anything away. But the sag of his eyebrows- or where his eyebrows would have been- gave him away. “Indeed, my liege. Robert Baratheon escaped our assassins in Braavos. Word has it he slipped away the same night that they arrived.
Baratheon. For a moment Rhaegar wondered if it might have been him. It didn’t last, though. For all that Robert Baratheon was, he wasn’t the type for such… subtlety. His escape however, wasn’t wholly unexpected.
How he’d managed to flee Westeros in the first place remained a mystery, foul play, Rhaegar suspected. Especially as he’d managed to slip the net of assassins sent after him on too many occasions for it to be dumb luck, this being the fourth.
“Tell them to continue to chase him. Past the free cities, into Valyria. I’ll not let up the chase until he slips past Asshai and off the map or I have his head in my posession,”
Lightning flashed outside, punctuating his words. The slow padding of rain filled the lapse in conversation.
Varys looked at him. And Rhaegar realized who he sounded like in that moment. “Robert Baratheon was a man capable of turning enemies into friends over a mug of ale. I need him running, I need him to always have one eye over his shoulder. Because if I allow him to fully focus, to gather his wits and start formulating a plan, I fear we might be in for a second rebellion,”
The thoughts of a King are no concern to lesser men. Only voice them when the axe is sharpened. Aerys’ voice rattled like a bell through his skull. Reasons, he found, were like arrows. The more you gave, the more you could be riddled with. Still, it was but for the sake of his mind that he told Varys the truth.
The spider, for his part, seemed content with the answer. “Very well, I hear he slipped south, towards Norvos, where the Golden Company currently reside,”
Rhaegar felt his heart skip a beat. “Do not allow them to meet, Varys, anything else?” The Golden Company were no friends of the crown. Having long served as the main fighting force in the Blackfyre rebellions, to put them together with the military knowhow of Robert Baratheon…
“No, nothing else. I will see to it, my liege,” Varys made nary a sound as he rose. “Good night,”
And just like that Rhaegar had a whole new sleuth of worries. He briefly considered waking Elia, if only for the comfort of his wife’s words, but she needed her sleep, her rest. Recovering she might be, but it was a long, slow road that he just hoped she would see the end of.
He’d wait for her wisdom tomorrow, he supposed.
Locking away his papers, he was just about to blow out the candles in his room, when, for the second time that night, there was a knock on his door. Not even a few minutes after Varys had left.
“Enter,” he said, after a moment of deliberation.
To his surprise, it wasn’t Arthur Dayne that opened the door, instead it was the green-eyed form of Jaime Lannister. “Your grace,”
Rhaegar blinked. “Jaime, to what do I owe this visit?”
“Well,” Jaime was cut off by a strike of lightning. “It’s the children,”
Rhaegar had half a mind what the issue was, sparing a glance at the howling winds outside. Viserys, despite his status among the oldest of the royal children, feared storms more than any, he and Elia had speculated the association between them and Rhaella’s brush with death, but as he looked down, he froze.
He should have known, hindsight permitting, why would Viserys seek him out? When their mother was much closer, Jaime also wasn’t Viserys’ personal guard, but he’d forgotten both points. Instead he stared owlishly at the slip of a girl peeking out from behind Jaime Lannister’s leg.
And a ghost stared back at him.
“I had a bad dream,” said Visenya Targaryen, his youngest, the third head of the dragon.
Even at nearly six years of age she was the spitting image of her mother. Save the slightly high cheekbones Rhaegar had always been hard pressed to find anything from himself in her.
Her hair might have been a few shades darker than Lyanna’s-near raven black in low light- and her eyes shone with a clear brightness that the wintry blue of his late love struggled to match. But there was too much of a resemblance there for him to feel anything but aching as he looked at her.
“...Did you?” slowly he rose, beckoning her forward. She seemed hesitant to leave Jaime’s side. “What did you dream about, sweetling?”
She looked up at the Kingsguard, like she were asKing permission. Jaime dropped to his haunches, smiling at her, he motioned to Rhaegar. Visenya looked at him, then, still unsure as he came to stand before her.
Rhaegar smiled down at her, though the smile lasted only as long as her eyes were on him.
“I… I saw black wings and white winds- and I heard a roar, so loud, it felt like the castle was shaking,”
Instantly, Rhaegar’s interest was piqued. Surely not? He thought, if anyone of them were to have gotten their dragon dreams, it would have been Aegon. “Did Rhaenys tell you another of her scary stories? Maybe your nightmares lay there?”
Visenya looked at him with wide eyes. “...No,”
“Are you sure? One tends to notice candles burning late at night. Especially when there is whispering coming from the room,”
“No, that was last week,” Visenya gasped, clasping her hands over her mouth as she realized just what she’d said. Rhaegar would have laughed, had the action not been so- so Lyanna.
Thankfully Jaime found humor where he could not, though the stilted sounds halfway muffled underneath the lion’s gauntlet were far from a graceful roar. Maybe a cat, one hacking up a ball of hair, was a more apt description.
Visenya whirled on her guard, and Rhaegar could laugh openly as Jaime played the fool. It was no secret that the Lannister had taken a shine to the child. To the point where the smallfolk whispered he often acted more like a father than a bodyguard when he thought no-one was looking.
Rhaegar could only look fondly at the sight ahead, and stamp out the guilt gnawing at him as he did. Time. He thought to himself. I need more time.
Maybe time would allow him to be more of a father to Visenya. He hoped so.
Tuning back into their story. Rhaegar was surprised to see Arthur standing in the doorway. The two men locked eyes, sharing a look of exasperated fondness as Jaime coaxed a laugh out of the youngest princess of the realm.
“When me and Cersei had nightmares, we’d run to our aunt Genna, and she’d regale us with stories of her childhood. Of warm summers and laughter in the woods, sometimes, she’d even allow us to sleep with her. Once she kicked her husband out of bed to allow us in, when Tyrion joined us,”
Visenya managed a chuckle. “Not your father?” Rhaegar quirked a brow, stifling a smile behind his fist as he bemoaned the bluntness of children.
Jaime, to his credit, didn’t skip a beat. “Who do you think we had nightmares of?”
Visenya cackled. The sound like a summer breeze curling through fields of wheat. That sound, Rhaegar found, was Visenya all to herself. Open in a way that he hoped time would not reduce, loud and honest.
She turned to him then. “Could you tell me a story?”
Rhaegar felt himself smiling. “What stories do you wish to hear?”
Visenya looked hopeful. “One about mother?”
It wasn’t intentional. Visenya wasn’t a cruel child. She never had been, and never would be. It was an honest question, an arrow let slip instead of being loosed on purpose. Yet the two Kingsguard could feel it lance straight through their King’s heart.
“Another time, maybe,” he said. And the smile he sent her way was a wobbly thing indeed. Ser Jaime,” he said, turning to look at her protector. “Please make sure the princess finds her way back to her room.”
“ Oh… ”
Jaime looked like he were biting his tongue, it pained him. Rhaegar could see that clear as day- to see Visenya stricken like she undoubtedly was. He knew he’d lost some of the man’s respect in refusing, but the wounds were still too raw.
As it was Rhaegar dared not look down at his daughter’s form, Visenya wasn’t one to plead. He’d find no pleading face looking up at him like the one Aegon had grown fond of Recently. He’d just find the disappointed face of a child who had been told no many times. “Though a small detour through the kitchens might not be unreasonable,” he added, for the sake of his own guilt,”
“Of course, your grace,” Jaime stepped forward, lifting Visenya carefully off of her feet and into his arms. “Goodnight,” he said. Turning on his heel to carry her away, stopping only momentarily to wish Ser Dayne a good night as well before disappearing down the stairwell.
“I am sorry for the disrespect your grace, I will speak to him in the morning,” Arthur said, shutting the door behind him. Rhaegar had turned away as Jaime had done the same. Sparing him but a flash of Visenya’s watery eyes. As it were he could barely stand the sight that seemed to have burned its way into his mind.
He waved off Arthur’s concerns. “I take no offense where there was none meant. Jaime cares for her… I’ll not discourage that,”
“Even still, I fear they might be getting too close,” Arthur replied. “Would you rather we assign another to her protection, your grace?” Rhaegar knew what the sword of the morning feared. It had been a point of contention to even allow Jaime to keep his head. Killing Aerys had been a stain upon the Kingsguard that even years later left him in poor spirits with his brothers.
“Visenya is not like Aegon, nor like Rhaenys. Among the children at court she has few friends. I’ll not deprive her the man she likens her closest confidant,”
Arthur looked like wanted to say something more, but nodded his head. “Very well, may I take my leave, your grace?”
“You may, Goodnight, Ser Arthur,”
“Goodnight, your grace,”
Arthur’s retreating footsteps swiftly faded from earshot. Rhaegar wasn’t a fool, he knew the man would wait till morning if he didn’t hurry up.
Moving back to his desk, he posited himself in front of the candle again, only to get lost in its depth. It flickered and spun to the tune of some unseen wind, mesmerizing, in a word. Though Rhaegar wasn’t looking at the fire itself, not truly.
Black wings and white winds. A roar that shook the red keep . Visenya’s words rang through marrow and bone as he peered into the flame. Had she truly seen such things?
Then, like a wildfire, something overtook him. Ringing bells, blue eyes. The wall… crumbling. Flashes, wisps of truth, he could not get a good look at any of them. Until, at last, he saw it.
King’s landing, bustling with life. The great bells of Baelor’s sept rang in the sunlight. The shadows of great wings passed overhead. First one, then two, finally, a third, and the sun cowered away before its might.
Rhaegar smiled. The dragon has three heads.
He blew out the candle.