97 AC Kingslanding
The wide, black sea of Blackwater Bay stretched out before him.
He stood on the stone balcony of the Red Keep, balanced on the tips of his toes, leaning dangerously far over the edge.
A cold wind rose from the water and struck his small face, tugging at his short silver hair.
He did not flinch.
He had faced dragons.
He had faced traitors, priests, and kings.
He had sat upon a throne of swords.
He had faced the world.
A little wind was nothing.
So this is what I have become.
The thought was neither bitter nor joyful.
Below him, the city breathed in its sleep, its fires small and distant, the smell of salt and filth rising faintly from the sourroundings.
His city.
Built on his father’s dream and his own blood.
King’s Landing.
He flexed his fingers slowly, studying the small hands gripping the red stone railing.
A child’s body.
Soft.
Weak.
Useless, for now.
He had been born into weakness before, all men were and he had made himself into something else.
He could do it again.
He would do it again.
Maekar.
That was what his father had named him.
A Targaryen name, strong enough.
It even bore a faint resemblance to his past one, which he found almost amusing.
But somewhere between then and now, something had shifted.
He could feel it.
Gaps where there should have been memory.
Even the most important one.
Just who was he?
The man he saw.
He just couldn’t remember.
“Prince!”
The voice was young and female and full of fear.
A moment later hands were on his shoulders and Mary was crouching down before him, her green eyes level with his, her face pale with fright.
She was his maid.
She said nothing at first.
Just looked at him, breathing hard, her grip tight enough that he could feel it through his shirt.
Then she exhaled slowly and pulled him away from the railing by the hand, guiding him back inside without a word.
Only once the balcony doors were shut behind them did she crouch down again, both hands cupping his face.
“You are never to do that again,” she said quietly.
“Do you understand me?”
Maekar looked at her.
The fear in her eyes was real.
Love, perhaps.
The thought came before he could stop it.
He had not felt that in his past life.
Not from his mother or anyone else.
Not truly.
There had been power, fear, respect bought with blood and fire.
But this was something different, something that sat in the chest and he did not entirely know what to do with it.
He gave a small nod.
Mary held his gaze for a moment longer, as though deciding whether to believe him.
Then she pulled him briefly against her chest, one hand pressed to the back of his head, warm and steady.
She released him just as quickly, stood, and smoothed her skirts.
“Come,” she said.
“Let us get you dressed.”
She led him inside and stopped before the large mirror that stood against the far wall.
Maekar looked at his reflection without expression.
He was good looking, he supposed.
Silver-blond hair, violet eyes, features still soft but already noticable.
Tall for five years old.
His mother’s blood, probably, or his father’s.
Mary appeared behind him in the mirror, her long blonde hair falling over one shoulder, freckles scattered across the bridge of her nose.
She reminded him of someone.
His first wife.
Ceryse.
He had not been kind to her.
He had not been kind to most people, if he was being precise about it.
That was simply the truth of who he had been, yet he seemed to see it far clearer now.
Perhaps his vision had been clouded before…
“Black or green, my prince?”
Mary stood besides him, holding up two sets of clothing.
A doublet of deep black, and another of dark green laced with gold along the collar and cuffs.
Maekar looked at them both for a long moment.
Something about the choice felt harder than it had to.
Weird.
He stood there, arms at his sides, eyes moving from one to the other with an expression Mary would later describe to another maid as very funny.
After a while she shifted her weight, raising an eybrow.
“Red,” Maekar said.
She blinked.
“My prince?”
“Red.” He crossed his arms with confidence.
Mary glanced at the open wardrobe.
And indeed, hanging slightly apart from the others, was a red doublet, black and silver detailing running along the edges, a three-headed dragon stitched across the chest in silver thread.
She looked at it for a moment.
“Fine,” she said, setting the other two aside.
She dressed him with practiced hands, quick and efficient, straightening the collar, smoothing the front, fastening the small buttons along the side with fingers.
With that, Maekar was finally ready.
He walked through the open door with a straight back, while Mary followed a step behind.
The two Targaryen guards stationed at his door straightened at once, red armor catching the torchlight, just as their silver helmets.
He had been disappointed, when he first understood the situation.
No Kingsguard.
His father had explained it to him once, crouching down to his level with the patient tone adults reserved for children and idiots, saying there were simply not enough of them to go around.
And yet Baelon had seen fit to take two of them with him to Dragonstone, his new seat as Crown Prince, leaving his youngest son in King’s Landing with a pair of household guards in red plate and not much else.
“Prince.” A pair of servants appeared around the corner and dipped their heads as he passed, quick and practiced.
Maekar did not acknowledge them.
He continued walking, hands clasped behind his back, eyes moving slowly along the corridor ahead.
Yet, he supposed, it was good to build connections early.
Power was not only dragons and swords.
He had learned that lesson late in his first life, perhaps too late.
Loyalty was built from small things.
So he stopped.
His small retinue stopped with him.
He turned around slowly and looked up at the two guards, taking a moment to study them.
“What are your names?” he asked.
“I have never asked.”
The taller one blinked.
A brief flicker of surprise crossed his face.
“I am Roland, my prince.”
“And I am Lionel,” the one with the beard added, a moment slower.
Maekar looked at Roland first, then at Lionel.
Then he gave a single nod.
“Roland,” he repeated quietly.
“Lionel.”
He turned and continued walking.
The hall was already quite full when Maekar arrived.
The servants moved around the large table, setting out bread and fruit, their footsteps soft against the stone.
Morning light fell through the high windows in long strips, illuminating the dust in the air.
King Jaehaerys sat at the head of the table, a massive Targaryen banner hanging on the wall behind him.
Maekar’s steps did not slow.
But something in him felt wrong everytime he saw him.
It wasn’t anger surprisingly.
He had known, of course.
Since he first understood whose household he had been born into, whose table he would share, whose realm he now lived in.
Jaehaerys I Targaryen.
The man who had raised his banner against Maegor’s rule, who had watched the great houses flock to his cause one by one like birds abandoning a sinking ship, until there was nothing left.
Until even the Kingsguard had looked away.
Maekar did not know who had killed him.
That particular memory remained out of reach, frayed at the edges, gone.
But he knew who had made it possible.
The old man was looking at him.
He was very old now.
That was the first thing that struck Maekar every time, the sheer weight of years that had settled into him.
White hair, spotted hands, shoulders bent beneath decades of rule.
And yet his eyes were still sharp.
Still pale and watchful, moving across the room.
Maekar met his gaze and held it.
For a moment neither of them moved.
Then Jaehaerys smiled, the normal smile of a grandfather greeting a grandchild at breakfast, warm and uncomplicated.
Beside Jaehaerys sat Alysanne, her silver hair pinned neatly back, her hands wrapped around a cup of something warm.
She caught his eye as he entered and smiled as well, softer than her husband’s, with a tiredness behind it that had been growing for some time now.
He gave them both a small nod and climbed carefully into his chair.
Daemon was already at the table.
His older brother sat with one leg folded beneath him in a way that would have made any septa despair, leaning sideways in his chair with a piece of bread in one hand.
He was sixteen, and it showed in everything he did, in the way he sat, the way his eyes moved, the way he seemed to be waiting for something more interesting than breakfast to happen.
He looked up as Maekar sat.
“There he is,” Daemon said.
“Took you long enough, brother.”
The word brother sounded wrong somehow.
Maekar knew why.
Daemon hated him.
He hated him to the bone, for it was Maekar who had taken their mother from them, who had cost her life.
That was what they whispered, the servants, some maesters, even members of his own family.
Daemon most of all.
“Yes, brother,” Maekar replied.
And yet, he still liked Daemon.
In many ways, he reminded him of himself.
Or perhaps once was.
Daemon watched him with something between amusement and mild irritation.
Maekar said nothing further.
He reached for his cup.
Viserys arrived a few minutes later, straightening his black doublet as he walked, murmuring an apology to no one in particular.
He was twenty years old and carried himself more gently than Daemon ever had.
He dropped into his seat, reached for the bread, and noticed Maekar looking at him.
“Good morning,” Viserys said.
He was neither cold nor warm.
Of the three brothers, Viserys had always been the most neutral toward Maekar, neither seeking him out nor avoiding him.
After all, there was little they had in common.
Viserys was already married, and his wife, Aemma, was expecting their first child soon.
Aside from that, Maekar had only ever heard him speak about politics or his wife.
“Good morning,” Maekar said.
His gaze drifted past Viserys to the far end of the table.
Gael sat there, as she often did, slightly apart from the rest.
She was Jaehaerys’s youngest daughter.
She was not eating.
Instead she was looking at the window, her gaze distant.
He did not know exactly what it was about Gael that drew his attention.
Perhaps only the curiosity of the child whose body he wore.
Or perhaps something older in him recognised that kind of stillness and knew that it was not peace.
At the head of the table, Jaehaerys had turned to Viserys, his voice low and measured.
“Do not lose heart.
Balerion is old.
Older than any dragon alive.
He does not respond to many.”
Viserys shook his head, pushing a piece of bread around his plate.
“It is not that he hates me, grandfather.
He simply…” He searched for the word.
“He simply does not care.
As though I am not worth the effort of noticing.”
“Then notice him instead,” Jaehaerys said.
“Go to him.
Sit with him.
Let him grow used to your presence.”
Viserys nodded slowly, though the dejection did not quite leave his face.
Maekar listened to all of this with a stone-faced demeanor, his eyes moving slowly between Jaehaerys and Viserys as they spoke.
A slight, almost unnoticeable smile appeared on his lips.
It was brief, yet containing boundless pride and arrogance.
Gone before anyone could have named it.
Of course he wouldn’t choose you.
He reached for his cup and took a sip, setting it back down.
“Have you tried going alone?” Maekar asked.
Viserys blinked.
“I’m sorry?”
“Without the Dragon keepers and guards.”Maekar added.
Daemon watched the exchange with open amusement, leaning back in his chair.
“And what would you know about it?” Viserys said, the dejection in his voice turning into something closer to irritation.
“Your egg did not hatch either.”
Maekar looked up from his plate and met his brother’s eyes.
Then he raised both hands slightly, a small, unhurried gesture.
“True,” he said.
Alysanne had been watching her youngest grandson since he sat down.
She did it often, and she suspected he knew it, though he never gave any sign.
That was one of the things about Maekar.
He absorbed everything and returned very little.
She had grandchildren who were loud, grandchildren who were reckless, grandchildren who wore every feeling plainly on their faces.
Maekar was none of those things.
“Maekar,” she said.
He looked up at once, meeting her eyes with that direct gaze that she had never entirely grown comfortable with.
“You will study with the Grand Maester this morning,” she reminded him.
The annoyance that crossed his face was brief but visible.
He was usually so careful about that.
She had caught him slipping away from his lessons more than once, disappearing into some corner of the keep for hours at a time and the Grand Maester had taken to sending a servant to find him before sessions even began.
She waited for the usual deflection.
Instead, Maekar straightened slightly in his chair.
“Grandmother,” he began.
“There is something else I wished to ask.”
“My nameday was last week” He paused, as though choosing his next words with some precision.
“I have not yet received a gift.”
Daemon looked up from his plate.
A slow grin spread across his face.
“You are keeping count now, little brother?
Probably the only one.”
Maekar did not look at him.
“I wish to begin training with a sword.”
The table went quiet.
Alysanne felt it before she had even processed the words, a cold sensation moving through her chest, the particular fear that had lived in her since the first of her children had not come home.
She had lost too many.
Too many graves, too many empty chairs that had once been full.
Maekar was five years old and the idea of putting a blade in his hand, however blunted, however supervised, settled in her stomach like a stone.
A loud laugh broke the silence.
Daemon, leaning back in his chair with the easy delight of someone who had just received an unexpected gift.
“Yes,” he said, pointing at Maekar with his cup.
“Yes, I will teach you.
Come find me after your lessons, little brother, and I will have you bruised and furious within the hour.”
Whether he meant it or was simply enjoying himself, Alysanne could not tell.
Either way it did not matter.
“Maekar, you are far too—” she began.
“Is that what you truly want?”
Everyone looked at Jaehaerys.
He had not raised his eyes from Maekar.
Maekar met his gaze without flinching.
“Yes,” he said simply.
Then he looked at Alysanne.
She already knew what was coming.
That same expression he wore when he had already made up his mind.
“I will allow it,” he said.