Chapter Text
Mother used to say their dynasty began with a drop of fire.
She said it with reverence, as though speaking of a god’s blood, not her own. She also said they breathed ashes, that fire ran thick through their veins—more curse than blessing.
“It begins with dragons,” she told him once, in the warmth of her chambers, her hand resting lightly on his hair, her eyes already far away.
But now he knew better.
“It ends with our dragons,” Aegon muttered to himself, the words bitter as bile on his tongue.
Dragons.
He’d had one. Stormcloud. A gangly thing, more legs than wings, all teeth and heat and eyes full of mischief. He’d loved him, and a part of him had died when the beast was torn apart above the burning bay. Now, the thought of scaled wings or the roar of fire made him ill. His skin crawled at the memory of their heat. They no longer kept him safe. They never had.
Still, Mother was right. They would never escape them—nor their fire, nor their shadow.
They haunted his sleep.
The dreams came each night like waves on a bloody shore. Always the same. Broken golden wings darkening the sky like rotted banners. Screams—so many screams—not hers, not at first. The others. The loyal ones. The ones who’d thrown themselves between his mother and death, offering up their flesh in vain. Then her voice, frayed and burning, calling his name through the smoke. Calling until the fire took that too.
The last thing she ever said was a curse. Not to the gods, but to the blood of her brother.
He always woke choking. Gasping for air. Whimpering for arms that would never hold him again. He wanted her. He wanted his father.
But his father lay at the bottom of the God’s Eye, bones claimed by the lake, called a hero in whispers. And his mother—
Fourteen bites.
That number. Always fourteen. The grotesque arithmetic of his grief. Sunfyre’s jaws tearing again and again into the woman who had given him life. Fourteen times before silence finally took her. Sometimes he could still smell it—char and copper, thick as syrup, clinging to the back of his throat like a second skin.
He should have died with her.
Why didn’t he? Why did he still eat, still breathe, still live like a ghost trapped in Maegor’s cold bones?
One word.
Revenge.
Would it not be too kind for them to find him rotted in a cell? A prince who starved himself out of sorrow? No. The realm would whisper of it, yes, but it would pass. What of those who still fought? The ones who kept his mother’s dream alive, in blood and smoke and secret vows?
Maegor’s Holdfast gave him nothing but time. Time enough to count each crack in the stone, each shadow that shifted like a lurking beast. And there, in the dark, he met Gaemon.
The boy they called pretender.
Raised by whores, wrapped in swaddling made of lies. Too cheerful. Too loud. Aegon disliked him for that—yet he did not hate him. Hatred required effort. He had no more to spare. He listened, sometimes, to the servants' whispers, but never spoke. Gaemon feared death. Aegon did not. Death would be a mercy.
Baela still lingered in Dragonstone’s shadow, chained by treachery. Rhaena marched south with the knights of the Vale, a falcon’s fury in her heart. When word reached him of her defiance, he smiled—and for that, they beat him until he could not stand. But their fear, oh, their fear when he smiled… That was worth it.
Each night, he prayed.
Not to gods. The gods had abandoned them. He prayed to the dead. To the loyal. To the fallen.
To his mother.
Only Baela and Rhaena remained to him. His sisters. His blood. His only family. Baela, bound and silenced. Rhaena, still running. He missed her. Could still remember her weeping after Luke fell. Could still hear her sobs echo in the Red Keep’s cold stone.
Mother had trusted the Sea Snake.
Now the old man bent his knee to the usurper. Now he drank wine beside the butcher of her line.
He thought of his uncle—the king. Cruel in ways Aegon had never imagined. He remembered those eyes: pale purple, but void of warmth. He remembered being torn from the arms of the women who had raised him, who had loved him. They screamed when the guards took him, but the king only smiled.
That wasn’t enough.
Each time Baela was sentenced to die, the king summoned him. And each time the sentence was lifted, he summoned him again. He wanted him to break. He had to sit, stone-faced, as Lord Velaryon’s betrayal was paraded before him. He was told he would be wed—to the usurper’s daughter, no less. He heard it from the man’s wine-slick mouth, spoken between laughter and jests about whores and burning queens.
Even their deaths had been horrifying.
A knock shattered the silence. A maid, pale and trembling, entered.
“The king requests your presence,” she whispered.
He wondered why they all trembled. In Dragonstone, no one trembled. There, his maid had fed him sweet cakes when Mother wasn’t looking. His shield had let him play knight. They were loyal. Here, there was only fear. Only whispers.
Maegor with teats. Madwoman’s son. Whore-queen’s whelp. Pretender.
He’d heard it all. And he knew none of it was true.
His mother had been kind. Strong. She had never let go of his hand, not even at the end. She’d given her life fighting. So would he.
He walked the halls like a ghost. The strangers watched him with unreadable eyes. The stones themselves felt colder than memory.
He thought of old kings. Of Jaehaerys, of Alysanne. What would they say of this Keep now, this nest of vipers where Targaryens were hunted in their own hall? What would King Viserys think, if he could see his house now?
Then he entered the room. The smell hit him first—rot and herbs and something worse. His uncle lay on his bed, skin graying, the infection in his arm barely hidden beneath silks and bandages.
“Nephew,” the voice rasped, dry as old parchment and twice as brittle. It clawed out from the bed like a dying thing, ragged and raw. The sound of it made Aegon's stomach clench.
Every time he saw him, the man seemed in pain. Not just the pain of a failing body—though that was clear in the way his breath caught, the tremble of his fingers—but something deeper, darker. A fear, perhaps. That Aegon would end him. Slip a dagger between his ribs while he dozed in a milk of the poppy haze.
If only it were that simple.
“How have you been?” the king asked, though there was no warmth to the question. His voice echoed in the chamber like a ghost unsure it wished to linger. Outside, winter clawed at the stone. The room was gray and cold, the hearth long since died. Even the sun had abandoned them, retreating behind clouds fat with snow. War did not welcome daylight.
Aegon did not answer. He never did.
Each time he was summoned, he stood silent beside the bed like a statue wrought of grief and steel. It infuriated the king—Aegon could see it in the way his jaw tightened, in the twitch of his wounded mouth.
“Mind your manners, boy,” the man snapped. There was no authority in it, only spite. He was king in name, a crown worn with more blood than gold, and Aegon a prisoner in everything but chains. “I assume you've heard the news. I'm to wed Cassandra Baratheon.”
He sneered as he said it. A broken thing trying to pretend at virility.
Aegon said nothing, but he thought: The Stranger would make a better match. Give you a kiss fit for a wedding night.
The king shifted, wincing, his scarred face twisting in what might have been a smile—or simply pain. So twisted was the ruin of him that it was hard to say. “For that, you know... I’ve been feeling quite nostalgic. I was never meant for another woman besides Helaena.” His one good eye gleamed. “I suppose I’ll finally have a pretty wife.”
Aegon’s lip curled slightly, almost imperceptibly.
He couldn’t even remember Helaena. Not clearly. Just flashes—fragrance, lullabies, the whisper of silk. But Mother had loved her, of that he was certain. She had screamed herself hoarse at his father for what was done to Helaena’s children. His uncle—this man—had been cruel long before the war. Cruelty was his only constancy.
If Visenya had lived, Aegon would have let her choose her own life. With or without marriage. With or without dragons. With peace, if peace could ever be found. But Visenya was gone, as was Baela. And all that remained was him.
“She was quite cruel to me… they both were,” the king said, as if reading his thoughts. “You’re as unlucky as I am, with two sisters. I’ve found them to be the most wretched creatures to ever walk the earth. A sister is no blessing. They are a curse.”
Aegon stiffened. The hatred stirred within him like a pot gone to boil. The room was still, save for the wheezing of his uncle’s breath. They were alone. And Aegon did not trust the stillness.
Then came the voice again—quieter, more casual. That made it worse.
“You know,” he said, “when I was five, Rhaenyra took me flying. Just once. Secretly. It was… incredible.”
That caught him. Aegon blinked. His breath caught.
He said nothing, but the warmth of the memory—the childlike wonder of it—felt wrong in the mouth of this man. He had no right to carry her in his heart.
“She liked sweet grapes back then. And pink dresses. I remember.” He winced and made to sit up, but his ruined body rebelled. Aegon took a cautious step back. “She liked it when I called her Nyra.”
Aegon clenched his jaw.
“There was a time,” he went on, staring past the ceiling, “when we were just siblings. She used to smile at me. I annoyed her endlessly, but she smiled all the same.” A bitter laugh escaped his throat. “Then the smiles stopped. Everything I did was wrong. And she hated me for it.”
Aegon could scarcely breathe. It was too much—too much pretending that they were kin in truth. That any of this could be mended with memories and melancholy.
“But back then,” the king murmured, softer now, “she was kind. That’s the sister I carry in my heart. That’s the one I buried the day she sent assassins after my boy.”
She didn’t, Aegon thought, the denial seething in his chest. She never would. It was Father. And even then—after what Aemond did to Luke—
The man who had killed his mother looked at him now, eyes heavy with something between guilt and pride.
“You look nothing like her,” he said.
No. He looked like his father. His mother had said so often. You have his strength, his fire. It had been her prayer. Her curse.
Their gazes locked.
“The first time we spoke,” the king whispered, “you asked me why I did it. How could I.”
Aegon flinched. He remembered that day with blinding clarity—his mother’s leg, hacked at the knee. The screams. The blood pooling like wine around Lady Massey’s feet. He remembered screaming it, again and again, as his mother was torn apart.
“I couldn’t forget your question. It haunted me. So here’s your answer.”
The king leaned forward, voice low, almost intimate.
“I did it because she wasn’t my sister anymore. I did it because I wanted to.”
Aegon’s hands began to tremble.
“Maybe there were other ways,” the king said, “but I didn’t care to find them. I just wanted her gone.”
The silence that followed was a sword without a hilt—impossible to grasp without blood. Aegon’s fists clenched at his sides.
He could kill him now. The man who had murdered his mother. Who admitted it without shame. He was within reach. But not yet. Not like this.
“Do you hate me?” the king asked, with something like amusement.
Aegon said nothing.
“Are you angry?” A hunger in his voice now.
Still, Aegon gave him no answer.
“Speak!” he barked. “I command it! I am your king!”
A bowl—water, herbs, something meant for healing—sailed through the air and struck Aegon across the brow. Pain flared, sharp and hot. A trickle of blood slid down his temple. He did not flinch.
He had learned that stillness cut deeper than steel.
He was no true king. Just a cripple on a crumbling throne.
Jace always said: a king is not mastered by his emotions. He rules for his people.
The king gasped for air, sagging back into his pillows.
“Go,” he rasped.
Aegon raised one brow. Then turned on his heel without a word and left him there—alone, broken, and dying in the dark.
He walked the halls like a ghost, barely breathing. When he reached his chamber, the door closed behind him like a tomb.
He slid down to the floor. His chest heaved. The weight of memory crushed him.
“Make it stop,” he whispered, voice raw.
Not to gods.
To his parents.
He looked up, eyes ringed red with sleeplessness, and saw it glinting in the pale torchlight—the Seven-Pointed Star, silver and sanctimonious, laid carefully on the table across the room. A relic. A mockery.
It shone too brightly in this place of ghosts.
King’s Landing was no holy city. It reeked of blood and rot and lies caked over old lies. The walls had drunk deep of treason. No prayer, no symbol, no star of silver or gold could cleanse it. And those who claimed to serve the gods? They had bathed in the same filth as the rest, smiling all the while. The Hightowers came cloaked in righteousness, but they were no saviors. They were butchers, cloaked in incense smoke and false virtue. They lit the pyre that burned them all.
Aegon stood.
He crossed the room and seized the star in both hands. He stared down at its polished surface, then drove it against the stone. Again. And again. Until the silver warped and bent, until the points broke and the face caved in. He ground it underfoot, reduced it to worthless scrap.
Then the frenzy took him.
He overturned the table. Smashed a window with a brass candelabra. Tore drawers from their chests, flung books and clothes and goblets in every direction. He was shaking by the time the guards rushed in, their faces taut with alarm.
They forced a bitter-tasting draught down his throat. He struggled, then sagged. Darkness claimed him.
He hated them.
He hated them all.
When next he woke, time had no meaning. The light through the shutters had shifted. The guards were new. The mess was gone. And a fresh iron chain was around his wrist, bolted to the bedpost like a dog.
He huffed. That green witch’s doing, no doubt. Alicent, ever fearful of fire reborn.
The days passed—but not the torment.
Until one night, something changed.
Voices down the corridor. Not the slow, muffled tones of servants, nor the bark of guards—but shouting. Chaos. Metal on metal. Screams, sharp and short, dying quick deaths.
Aegon froze.
He pressed himself against the cold wall, breath shallow, heart pounding like a war drum. The lock turned.
The door opened.
And in stepped a knight—no Lannister red, no gold cloak. He wore armor of sea-green and pale silver. The seahorse of Driftmark.
Aegon didn’t speak. He barely breathed.
The knight dropped to one knee. “Your Grace,” he said, voice low with awe, “the usurper is dead. Poisoned in the garden. May the gods, old and new, bless and keep you—King Aegon.”
The world tilted.
King Aegon.
He stared at the knight, unmoving, unblinking. Somewhere, distantly, he felt breath in his lungs again.
The usurper was dead.
He stared past the knight, mind reeling. He thought of Jace, brave and burdened. Of Luke, his sweet brother, terrified and proud as his dragon died screaming. Of Rhaenyra, his mother, who had never let go of his hand until they tore her apart. It should have been Jace, he thought. It should have been a queen.
“Who did it?” he asked, the words emerging like smoke.
“Unclear, Your Grace. But Lord Corlys has ordered Princess Baela’s release. The black loyalists are marching—by Sow’s Horn now, less than ten days away. Princess Rhaena rides with them. Her egg hatched not long ago.”
The Sea Snake. At last, that old serpent had slithered to one side of the line. He imagined his father somewhere beyond the veil, laughing bitterly at the thought. Alicent’s last son lay dead in a garden of roses and poison, and the dragons of Rhaenyra's blood still rose in smoke and vengeance.
For ten days, Aegon drifted through the Red Keep like a phantom. Meals were laid before him, untouched. Cloaks were draped on his shoulders, removed again. Servants bowed, and he did not look up. His steps echoed through the empty halls like footsteps of the dead.
On the morning of the third day, as he tied his cloak—the one that once belonged to Joffrey, black with crimson trim—the door creaked open once more. He didn’t look.
“I said I don’t want to see anyone.”
But the voice that answered wasn’t a servant.
“You look just like your father when you scowl,” came the voice of the Sea Snake. “He wore that same look every time someone crossed him.”
Aegon turned his head slightly, enough to see the old man limping into the chamber.
“Traitors infuriate me,” Aegon replied, cold.
Corlys winced as he lowered himself to one knee beside the chair, a quiet, painful act of reverence. Aegon did not stop him. He did not forgive him, either.
“I did what I had to do,” said the old man. “I loved my family. And even if you don’t believe that… Baela, Rhaena, you—they are all I have left.”
Aegon looked down at him, eyes unreadable. Not your family, he thought. Not your blood.
“Did you do it?” he asked.
“I did what had to be done.”
Aegon’s voice cracked then. “Is Baela safe?”
“She is,” Corlys said gently. “She waits beyond the gate. Rhaena is not though, her and Lady Arryn went to check Duskendale. But your council waits too. Those who fought for your mother, who believed in her even when all seemed lost—they await your word.”
Aegon said nothing. He crossed the room in silence and pulled Joffrey’s old cloak tighter around him. It smelled faintly of cedar and smoke. As he stepped into the corridor, he began to name the lords and ladies in his mind, a litany of the living.
Lord— Lady Sabitha Frey. Kermit— or was it Oscar? — Tully. Alyssa Blackwood— he believed. The Vale, the Trident, the Riverlands. Names of the realm his mother should have ruled. Names that might bend to him now.
“Actually, Your Grace,” Lord Corlys said, halting his steps.
Aegon turned slowly. There was no spark in his eyes, only a dull flicker of obligation. “What is it now?”
Corlys didn’t flinch. “Would you like to see her?”
It could’ve been a jest—but it wasn’t. Aegon nodded without speaking.
Corlys smiled, though the boy didn’t return it.
Why not before? he wondered.
He preferred not to ask.
They moved through the Keep toward the Hand’s Tower, abandoned now for over a year. The stone stairs spiraled upward with a chill dampness that clung to the walls. The place always smelled of ink and mildew, like rotting vellum. He hated it.
That is—until the door opened.
The room had no fire, only pale light from a single window. And there, standing with her back half-turned, silver hair glinting like a blade in the dusk, was Baela.
Taller now. Slim and proud. The years had lengthened her frame, and her hair spilled past her shoulders in thick waves. But her face—when she turned—was still Baela’s. Brave, defiant, and alight with something fierce and fragile all at once.
Their eyes met. Aegon blinked.
And then she was in his arms.
She kissed his face, his hair, his brow, her hands trembling as she held him. He froze at first—he always did now—but he let her. Just for her. Just today.
“Don’t cry, Baela… please,” he whispered, voice barely audible. His throat felt raw.
“I’m not,” she said, pressing him against her chest. “I’m just… happy to see you, baby.”
Her hands moved gently through his hair. He clutched her cloak, breath catching in his chest. No one else had held him since…
He didn’t think about that. Not here. Not now.
Only Lord Corlys watched, and Aegon didn’t care what he saw.
When they finally pulled apart, Baela smiled again.
“I’m happy to see you.”
But Aegon’s heart twisted in his chest. There was still fear. Still worry.
“Did they hurt you?” he asked.
He sounded like a child—and looked like one too, drowned in Joffrey’s old cloak, cheeks flushed and lashes damp. But he didn’t care. He needed to know.
“No, baby brother,” Baela said. “Thanks to our grandfather, they didn’t. Did that fool’s mother hurt you?”
Aegon hesitated. She hadn’t—not truly. But she had tried. He looked away.
Baela didn’t press. She knew that look. Her fingers touched his again, just briefly, before Corlys stepped forward, voice firm but gentle.
“We must keep going. The Lords are gathering.”
Aegon stepped away from her, back straightening. He was king now. He would not cling. He would not weep.
“They are,” he said, before the old man could. His voice was thin but steady. He would meet them. He would play the game.
Baela trusted Corlys.
But Aegon had learned what became of those who trusted too easily.
He would watch. And wait.
As he passed the Great Hall, he saw him.
Larys Strong.
The clubfoot walked with his cane and that thin-lipped smile, surrounded now by Corlys’ knights, Baela and Lord Velaryon. He bowed low. “Your Grace.”
Aegon did not stop. Did not speak. He walked on. Baela’s hand pushing him forward.
Let him rot, he thought. Let them all rot.
At the gates of the Red Keep, a crowd had gathered. Some were black-cloaked, others carried the banners of his mother’s cause. And there, by his side, stood the Sea Snake, voice firm and clear.
“The king is dead,” he said.
And then, as the sun broke through the clouds above the city that had swallowed his family whole, he raised his voice.
“Long live King Aegon.”
And this time, no one dared to say which Aegon they meant.
Chants echoed behind him.
Lord Tully approached and placed his sword at Aegon’s feet. He knelt and looked up with warm eyes and a boyish grin beneath a mess of red hair.
“I hope your reign is a peaceful one, Your Grace. May the gods watch over you.”
Aegon nodded, stiffly. He wished he could smile—Jace would have. Luke, too. And Joff, he would be the most outgoing one. But his face didn’t move. Behind him, he saw the grinning faces of boys and women. He bowed his head in respect, and more chants came.