Author note at the end.
That 7 dollars is gonna last me a while.
You know what my biggest fear is?
Not public speaking, I can handle that, My true, soul-deep terror is awkward social interactions.
The kind where your one-night stand decides to camp in your apartment for the next two days and you have to invent increasingly creative excuses or when a group of elderly women with arthritis are asking you to let them cut on a long coffee queue and you realize you’re about to become either the asshole who says no or the sucker who lets them cut.
There is no clean exit, only varying degrees of social death.
This feels exactly like one of those situations.
“Should I call you Queen?” I asked playfully.
“Should I pour a pan of hot oil on your face?”
Got it.
She’s at that time of the month.
“I wouldn’t encourage that particular endeavor,” I said with a mild shrug, stepping neatly to the side as her fist swung through the space where my face had been a second earlier.
“It doesn’t benefit either of us.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she muttered, glaring daggers.
“You never do anything that doesn’t benefit you.”
Young Orys toddled along behind her, completely oblivious, giggling as if his favorite uncle and his mother were simply playing an especially enthusiastic game of tag.
I sighed, long and theatrical.
“It truly was not my grand master plan to make your husband king.”
Her gaze sharpened instantly.
The instinct of a woman raised among three sisters in a noble court kicked in hard.
“You made your brother king, my prince,” she said, each word bitten off cleanly.
“When you set that crown on his silver brow, you were not thinking of him as a husband. Or a father. Or even as the idiot he so often is. You crowned your brother.”
I let myself drop into the nearest chair.
Orys immediately climbed into my space, and I found my fingers carding gently through his pale hair.
“I crowned a dying man’s last wish,” I muttered.
Orys laughed and patted my knee as if that settled the matter.
Cassandra lowered herself into the seat at the far end of the table.
For a moment she simply watched me.
“I do not know if you put any faith in the power of curses, Daeron,” she said quietly.
“But I do. The words of a grieving mother carry weight. Rhaenyra mourns her child, she has sent letters across the realm. She names your brother a murderer. A usurper. A false king.”
Her hand drifted down and pressed slowly against her stomach.
A faint grimace crossed her face.
“If anything happens to this child,” she continued, voice tighter now, “I would blame you every bit as much as I blame him.”
I looked up sharply.
“You’re with child?”
She gave a single, small nod, tears were already threatening at the corners of her eyes, though she refused to let them fall.
“You have started a war, Daeron.” Her voice was low, almost steady.
“And my children are now the heirs of a king. Rhaenyra will stop at nothing to secure what she believes is hers.”
I didn’t answer right away, because she was probably right about Rhaenyra, but it wasn’t my sister who kept me awake at night.
It was Daemon.
“Take my suggestion, My Queen,” I said, shifting Orys slightly in my arms so the boy could rest more comfortably against my shoulder.
“Take Orys and leave for Storm’s End. I will ward Visenya in Oldtown under Lord Ormund’s care for the time being. She will be safe there.”
Cassandra let out a short, humorless snort and shook her head.
“You think your brother, the king, would simply allow you to take his heir out of the city?” Her voice carried quiet disbelief.
“He may be an irresponsible father, but he does love them in his own way. And if the Red Keep itself falls, I doubt any castle in the realm will be enough to save my children.”
I didn’t argue.
Her words landed cleanly because they were true.
I adjusted my hold on Orys and continued more quietly.
“It was decided in the Small Council that I am to fly for the Eyrie and then on to Winterfell. My task is to bring the Lord Paramounts of the Vale and the North to raise their banners for our cause.”
“You made him king,” she said simply.
“Now you must make certain he remains one.”
I offered a small nod and a faint smile. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
Aemond, for his part, was already set to fly for Pyke and Riverrun.
That division of labor had been my suggestion.
I had also argued successfully against sending any dragonrider to Storm’s End.
A raven to Lord Borros would be enough.
Everyone with sense already understood the quiet truth: if the Greens prevailed, it would be Borros’s grandson who eventually sat the Iron Throne.
Privately, I still hoped the confrontation between Aemond and Lucerys would play out the way it did.
A mad queen was far more dangerous than a predictable enemy but a mad queen was also far more easy to overthrow.
You could usually anticipate the moves of someone intelligent, a person driven by pure rage was another matter entirely.
She would crumble or I like to think it would be that easy.
I rose carefully, settling Orys more securely against me for a moment before handing him back.
“I did not start this war, My Queen,” I said.
“It had been creeping through this house for years, like a snake under the floorboards. It seems I was merely the set of fangs that finally struck.”
Cassandra accepted her son without comment, though her eyes lingered on me a second longer.
I gave her a final nod and stepped out of the chamber.
Two white cloaks stood at attention on either side of the door posted to the Queen’s protection.
I paused for half a second, just long enough to register their faces, then kept walking.
In the books and show I remembered, the Kingsguard had fractured cleanly when the war began.
One twin had chosen Rhaenyra, the other Aegon.
Men had defected sides, died for their choices, or vanished into the chaos.
But now both Arryk and Erryk remained in the Red Keep, while Steffon Darklyn and Willis Fell were already on Dragonstone and had almost certainly sworn to Rhaenyra by now.
Criston Cole, of course, had been elevated to Lord Commander here.
I really needed to get a grip on these fucking reins and ride whatever tide was currently trying to drown the crown.
Let’s hope I actually managed it.
A/N: I know, I know, this is a filler chapter, hence the name of the Chapter.
Read N-word..
I don’t have the pass.