Chapter Text
It was the new year and the beginning of what appeared to be spring when the invitation to visit the enigmatic Dragonstone reached the Royal Family. And in the eyes of the intrigued Court, no one celebrated the news more, and more publicly, than King Viserys Targaryen; The Peaceful.
The invitation came from Princess Rhaenyra herself. The Disinherited. The Silent One. The famously absent one. The invitation came from the very princess whom Aemond had never met in all his years of life. Although he knew she was his half-sister, Aemond thought of her more as a myth. A story and a warning to scare him before he went to sleep. But now, on the night before leaving for the domains of that same princess, he paused to reflect deeply on her in the privacy of his small, neat solar.
He hadn't had time to do so before. Before, he had been too busy arranging for his trunks to be properly packed and for a couple of his treasured Valyrian texts to be carefully wrapped. Before, he had been too busy learning every word he had to recite to win the favour of a woman who had never attended his name days, despite the blood ties that bound them. His grandfather himself had trained him for days, in the company of the Queen Consort. While the King burned with excitement like a child in his chambers and prepared gifts for the elusive ghost that was his daughter, Aemond, Aegon and Helaena learned everything they needed to know about the woman they had despised in favour of a firstborn son so many years ago.
"She also likes lemon cakes and, to a lesser extent, buns filled with meat, vegetables and spices," he suddenly remembered his mother saying, while Ser Otto pressed his lips into a grimace that seemed both stern and approving at the same time. "...On the other hand, she always wanted a sister, and since she has already accepted Heleana, it will be easier for you to win a place in her heart. Even so, you will have to make an effort..."
"She already has brothers in her heart," Aegon interrupted her, in a bad mood. And Aemond knew, even now, that it was entirely due to the lack of watered-down wine and privacy that the eldest son had been experiencing lately because of the upcoming visit to Dragonstone. "She doesn't need us. Lady Arryn has given her more than enough replacements. And if they weren't, she has children to fill any void she may have."
Aegon was right, of course, Aemond reflected in the moonlight. Sitting at his desk, twirling the pen between his growing fingers, he recalled how close Queen Alicent had come to slapping her son for interrupting her efforts to instruct them. He remembered the steel in his grandfather's eyes, and the expression of petty amusement on his brother's face. He remembered how smug he looked at being superior for once, even at the expense of his own interests. Aemond, however, was not so amused to admit what even that budding drunkard could see.
Princess Rhaenyra had brothers and children to spare. Ever since Lady Arryn had arranged her own marriage to Lord Stark, things had become significantly tense. Aemond had sensed this even as a child. Aemond knew, ever since he learned to walk, that he had to be patient and silent. He had to be a shadow on the wall, a seemingly perfect puppet, who could be overlooked when discussing matters of state. And his wisdom at such a young age had provided him with information that Aegon had no intention of using and in which Heleana had no interest. Neither of them saw what he did: the past was an incalculable source of information. A source from which they must learn in order to fine-tune their future. They did not see, as he did, that knowledge was power in the absence of dragons.
Fortunately, Aemond was more intelligent. More cultured. More educated. He had devoured with genuine passion the few Valyrian texts left behind when the princess departed for good. What's more, he taught himself to read them. Aemond, though still only a child, carefully devoured all the letters that others saw as insignificant. And from them he learned a bitter truth. His mother was a late replacement and her marriage had no major advantages. The then Lady Alicent was a shadow of the former Queen of King Viserys, who managed to get her dowry, rights and privileges back as compensation after the annulment of her marriage to the King. Queen Aemma was released from her marriage contract after a final miscarriage. She was cast aside in favour of the fertile daughter of a second son with no lands, armies or great wealth.
She had been humiliated in practice, yet she emerged victorious in the end, in Aemond's opinion.
The former Queen departed a year before her own daughter did. She left with half of the Princess's House (half-built in haste) for Dragonstone, to act as a kind of Regent on behalf of Rhaenyra, who was still Heiress at the time and resided part-time in the Fortress. She left on the arm of the King's brother. She left on the back of a barely claimed dragon, and since then she never set foot in the capital again, despite being summoned by royal decree on several occasions. Aemond knew that she had remarried the Lord Paramount of the largest kingdom on the continent when her daughter came of age. He also knew that, after two full turns of the sun, she had given birth to a replacement for the Lord of the North and two other siblings for the princess. Lady Arryn gave birth to three healthy children, two of them boys. She carried all three pregnancies to term successfully, even though everyone had assumed that her second marriage would be as barren as her first. Aemond also knew that she had established herself in Winterfell as a true force of nature, capable of forging ties with Dorne and the Iron Islands. How she had achieved this exactly was something that even Otto's spies, and by extension Aemond himself, did not know.
Thanks to his love of knowledge, Aemond knew that the Princess forged alliances after Prince Daemon acquired the Stone Steps for her with fire and blood. As a secret wedding gift. As a strategy to assure that woman, not yet despised, that she would never have to beg the Crown. Aemond knew that she had acquired maidens from all over the Kingdom while she was still Heiress, and that she had arranged marriages for them that still benefited her in the present. He knew that the Princess, a few months before being officially disinherited, married Prince Daemon after a brief courtship, for like her mother, she had obtained permission to find a husband herself.
And the Faith made a scandal of it. A real scandal. They declared the marriage illegitimate and pagan. And they condemned all the children born of it as bastards. However, it was of little or no use. Even though the prince had not obtained an annulment as Lady Arryn had done, he and Rhea Royce had sent ravens throughout the Kingdom to declare their marriage useless. Fruitless.
The Rogue Prince declared himself and his family excommunicated from the Faith. He turned his back on the predominant religion in favour of the Fourteen Flames. And even more boldly, he rejected and condemned the King as a Hightower, rather than a Targaryen. Prince Daemon flatly refused to capitulate to the King. He refused to yield to the will of the Throne, and threatened to enter into open rebellion against the Crown if he was not left alone.
And the King had agreed. Ser Otto himself, reluctantly, kept the poison he fed to the Privy Council and the court to himself. For what good would it do them to go to open war against a warmonger backed by dragons? At that point, after all, it was too late. The King had snubbed and lost the loyalty of the Vale by setting aside Queen Aemma. The King had snubbed and lost the loyalty of House Velaryon by marrying Lady Alicent and not Lady Laena. The King had angered an entire Kingdom and driven from the fold a House that had more dragons than his own. And even more, a House that had the greatest wealth on the continent, after the Crown itself.
The King categorically disinherited the princess, just a few months after Aegon's birth, and then watched her leave for her family's ancestral seat, taking with her nothing less than all the dragons and eggs under her command. And all for a single night alone with his eldest daughter.
A single night alone with a despised child still burned among them, along with the consequences that a weak, grieving, and drunken King had brought upon them due to his lack of intelligence.
After all, Viserys signed a contract without the careful supervision of his Hand. After all, Viserys gave the princess complete autonomy over herself and her seat. He dispensed with Dragonstone, the eggs, the dragons in their entirety, and absolutely every single Valyrian relic other than his sword, crown, and daggers. The King gave authority to a defamed girl. He gave her such a great gift that it left them all defenceless. And still, to this day, they were paying dearly for that foolishness. That stupidity ran rampant, for copies of the document were sent to all the Houses, and the princess somehow ensured that the clauses were irrevocable, even for the King's highest authority.
But things were slowly changing, he told himself as the ink stained his fingers. In a tortuous but sure way, the ravens with the isolated and prosperous Dragonstone were exchanged more frequently than ever. And a few years ago, they even enjoyed a formidable victory, for the princess had extended an invitation to the King and Helaena in honour of the name day of one of her eldest sons. It had been shortly before Daeron's departure for Casterly Rock. Although neither he, nor Aegon, nor Aemond had been invited. Neither had the Queen or the Hand, which was a complete snub. But a victory was a victory. And the King and Helaena had left, only to return with a gift for which everyone had worn their knees raw, praying day and night in the Sept and in the sanctity of their private chambers.
Those had been dark and anxious days. But both Aemond and the others endured them with fortitude. With enviable dignity. And their patience was rewarded as soon as Helaena arrived at the Courtyard of the Fortress, carrying a pale golden egg in her hands that were too small.
"It was Prince Baelon's idea, blessed be he," the King said proudly that day. Aemond remembered how radiant and almost healthy he looked. He remembered seeing him smile then with more sincerity than he had ever done in his entire life. "He became very friendly with Helaena, and he and little Visenya insisted on finding the egg themselves. We have promised to return in a few moons, whether it has hatched or not. Ah! And Rhaenyra even gave us a few dragon guards to make sure the hatchling here thrives properly."
"Without a doubt, the princess is a very thoughtful soul, my King," Ser Otto murmured, in a tone that seemed pained, as it became clear that the King expected a flood of praise for his daughter. "May the Seven protect her and grant her long life."
Queen Alicent echoed the blessing with apparent warmth. After a brief but meaningful glance in her direction, Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron did the same.
After the formalities in the courtyard, Helaena retained the honour of holding the egg only until the lively dinner with the King was over. As soon as Viserys left, the Hand snatched it from her hands and transferred it to Aegon.
"Give me back my egg!" Helaena begged that one time, her eyes teary and half-focused. "Visenya gave it to me! It's mine! It's not for him."
Otto had slapped her, his rings clinking against her hand. Aemond remembered falling silent. He remembered swallowing the persuasive argument he had been about to use on his sister. Aegon, slightly tipsy from the wine he had been drinking on the sly, held the egg more tightly and pressed his lips together. Queen Alicent stiffened, stared at her daughter for a long minute, then forced all her children out of the room. But it didn't help much. They heard the beginning of the shouting match anyway.
The next morning, unbeknownst to the King, the egg and the dragon guards were reassigned in their entirety to Aegon.
Perhaps that was why it did not thrive.
Perhaps that was why it grew cold. Before dinner, and throughout it, Aemond had felt the movements of the hatchling through the shell and scales that covered it. He had felt its burning heat and the pulsing of the life that dwelled within. But a few weeks later, it was nothing more than a precious stone. A dead thing. It was nothing more than a stark reminder that they had failed.
It was then that the people added a new nickname to the infamous list of names they called the crown prince. They all began to call Aegon the "Dragon Slayer." The dragonless one. The Unworthy.
Those were dark days, to be sure. Especially because all correspondence with Dragonstone ceased as abruptly as it was absolute. Especially because the dragon guards left under the cover of darkness, never to return.
It took years. It took pleas. It took humiliation. It took everything it had to re-establish communications with the princess and her family, but in the end, it was achieved.
And finally, an invitation had arrived again. This time, it was extended to the entire royal family. And it was more crucial than ever that Rhaenyra liked them. They hadn't told him in explicit words, of course, but it was common knowledge that, by now, the princess would already know about the cooling of the egg and that they had spurned her goodwill by giving it to Aegon.
"If they had left it to Helaena, perhaps those future visits would have included us too," Aemond thought, not for the first time. "Had we been more prudent back then, perhaps today we would all be dragon riders..." Aemond sensed he was right. However, they would never know. Ser Otto, his mother, and Aegon's incompetence had ruined that possibility.
Fortunately, Aemond would not have to suffer them much longer. After all, he was growing up, and although he did not claim to be the most intelligent man in Westeros, perhaps one day he would come close to being so.
Soon they would depart for the mysterious Dragonstone. Soon he could prove his worth, if he was patient enough. Cunning enough.
And the Seven knew, in all their glory, that Aemond was.
"««««««««««‹·«»««»
They departed an hour after breaking their fast, leaving Ser Otto in charge of the Kingdom's security. The invitation had not extended its benevolence to him. And although it was a new open snub to his position as Hand of the King, no one would go against Princess Rhaenyra's wishes this time.
They simply could not afford to do anything contrary to pleasing her.
So the Hand dismissed them at the docks with greater severity than ever before. He dismissed them with clenched lips and a look that Aemond Targaryen would never forget as long as he had blood in his veins.
"The future of the Kingdom, and of our House, I must remind you, depends on the success of this visit," he said before watching them leave, his voice as tense as it was low. Aemond noticed that his fingers were like claws on Aegon's shoulders. But it was him and Queen Alicent he was looking at. "We have no room for failure. And I trust you know that nothing less than excellence is acceptable on this occasion."
Aemond had wanted to crack his puppet mask for the only time in his life. He had wanted to tell him to his face that his failures were, almost entirely, his fault. However, he nodded like the perfectly polite prince he was and left with complete serenity.
He boarded the ship, went to his quarters, and read until the evening of his first day at sea. That night he dined with the King and encouraged the conversation to revolve around the only time he and Helaena had been welcomed to Dragonstone. That night he trained in swordplay with Ser Criston Cole and then with a very sober Aegon. That night he went to bed early and dreamed of dragons.
He dreamed that he was flying over the island he had never set foot on, riding a mount as wild as it was formidable.
And the next morning, amid favourable winds and rapid progress, he fantasised about the moment when he would come face to face with those magnificent creatures. The King, when he was lucid, had spoken to him about Balerion, the Black Terror, in a nostalgic tone, full of old affection. His mother had told him that they were unpredictable, chaotic and hostile creatures, although she had once known the only decent one of her kind up close: the dragon Syrax. She had told him, glancing briefly at the walls and doors, that Syrax had been an almost gentle dragon, even pampered. The Hand was less kind in his descriptions. Even less so than his mother. The only time he stopped to answer his questions about the beasts of Dragonstone, he called them a massive weapon that needed to be brought back into the fold. And that was it.
Helaena, on the other hand, was the greatest source of information at her disposal. Due to her brief stay at Dragonstone, she knew more than anyone else who was willing to satisfy her curiosity. Although she had to be bribed with promises of exotic creatures and special cages for them, she finally agreed to recount the few encounters she had had with the Old King's mount. The Bronze Fury was terrifying, she told him, but under Prince Aemon's command, he let her touch its hot scales on one occasion. And Dreamfyre, the only dragon that had remained until Aegon's birth in King's Landing, even consented to take her on a flight, under the command of Princess Visenya, daughter of Princess Rhaenyra.
Lady Rhaena Celtigar, the eldest daughter of Lady Laena Velaryon and the future Lord Celtigar, commanded a dragon born in her cradle. A dragon named Morning that strutted at the slightest provocation. And Dragonstone, her sister told him, was full of provocations in the form of baby dragons, for never before since the fall of Old Valyria had there been so many living dragons and hatched eggs.
All of the adult dragons had riders. All except for one of the wild ones. Cannibal had succumbed to the charms of having a rider after four years of constant persuasion by Prince Baelon, the first son of Princess Rhaenyra. Meleys was still the property of Princess Rhaenys, and Vhagar lay under the yoke of Lady Laena. Seasmoke belonged to Ser Laenor, and a dragon named Grey Ghost had fallen for the flattery of Ser Laenor's dubious eldest son. Caraxes was still loyal to Prince Daemon, and Silverwing remained faithful to Lady Arryn since her infamous claim upon leaving the capital.
"So between them, the Whore of Dragonstone has ten adult dragons at her disposal," whispered the Hand on the night of Helaena and the King's return home. It had been shortly before they took the egg from his sister. It had been at the exact moment when the King left them to rest in his own chambers.
Ser Otto had been very pale. He had been more upset than any of them had ever seen him. However, the paleness and fear in Aemond's mother's large eyes far surpassed his.
Queen Alicent shuddered and began to tear at her nails with unusual violence. Aemond remembered it perfectly.
"Six of those ten dragons have gone to war," his great-uncle Hobert interjected. The infamous great-uncle Hobert, who had come to stay for only a year at the Fortress after the destruction that had struck the Hightower in his time, and who had instead spent five sun turns in the capital with what remained of his once large family. "Six dragons that know how to dodge scorpions that we don't even have, since Dorne flatly refuses to give up its secrets. Six dragons against one egg given to a girl and nothing but schematics and prototypes that may not work at all".
It was at that precise moment that Helaena lost without ceremony. She had given too much information to her elders. She had condemned herself because she was born short of the vision he possessed. She condemned herself because she was born with a womb and not a cock.
No, they could not allow a girl to have a dragon when the crown prince lacked his own mount. That had been clear from the start. From the exact moment the invitation was extended to Helaena alone. However, as far as he knew, the process would have been less traumatic for his sister. She would have been granted the privilege of keeping the egg in her chambers for the first few weeks, to keep up appearances. She would have been granted the privilege of being the priority when it came to sharing the tasks of raising the dragon that was born. But panic had taken hold of them.
And even now, knowing what a disaster that decision had been, he couldn't blame them. At least, not entirely. He himself had been afraid. After all, after setting aside the former Queen and the princess, they had lost kingdoms and dragons. After letting the Velaryons go, they had lost gold, ships and dragons once again. The situation had been precarious from the very beginning, and things only got worse with the birth of Aegon.
After all, people still whispered about the misfortune that had occurred during his birth. The Citadel itself had written about it, despite the renunciation of the Crown and the Hightowers.
People still talked about the fall of a bloody red star on the day the princess left for good. They still talked about the violent natural disasters that had shattered every Sept throughout the Kingdom. They had christened it a cursed day. The day when more than a hundred thousand people died across the continent. From humble maidservants to septas, nobles and soldiers. Anyone near a religious site had suffered. Or had died.
And the association of the terrible event with the birth of the new prince was not long in coming.
"It is nothing more than a misperception," declared the Crown with a thousand swift ravens . "However, the Throne is committed to helping repair our afflicted people.
Between one disaster and another, the royal coffers continued to suffer from that time on, even though some fifteen years had passed. The Faith, reluctant, had barely forgiven them. In their eyes, the Targaryens did nothing but offend them or cause them misfortune in appearance. As a direct consequence of those beliefs, his mother was only allowed to enter the city's Sept once a month, and only after paying generously for the invitation. Ironically, Aegon was the one who spent the most time among incense, prayers and septas. But it did little to improve public opinion.
The crown prince had only been named for fifteen days. And yet he already had more enemies than the king himself. It was said and known that he had an insatiable appetite for whores, maids, and noble ladies. It was said that he had an appetite for meat, drink, and irresponsible hunting. And it was true. But even Aemond admitted that his brother had certain redeeming qualities. He was good with numbers, he could be charismatic when he wasn't drinking, and he knew how to give speeches when necessary. His brother had a certain intelligence that he rarely used, except when he wanted to get his way. With the right guidance, he might become a decent king.
The gods knew this to be true, but the Hand, as astute as he was in some things, did a terrible job of guiding him. Aegon feared him. He did not respect him. The Queen believed that beating him served to train him, when it only generated resentment that would one day take its toll. Great-uncle Hobert was more of the same. He pushed too hard and offered too little, compared to the power of the Throne or the dragons.
None of them saw what Aemond saw. Someday, he predicted, that would isolate them and drive them from Aegon's court. But he was another story. He had learned to handle, in a way, the worst aspects of his older brother. He had broken through the prince's armour and had his loyalty due to various favours.
Favours he would collect one day. In due course. Now they were too young. They were still too subject to the adults who wielded power in their name. But in the future... No, better not to go down that road.
He would have time to entertain certain ideas later. For now, Dragonstone awaited.
For now, he could make out the outline of the island through the thick layers of fog covering the Fortress that belonged to them by birthright.
And soon they would strike the first blow to reclaim it.