Once again, she and Jacaerys sat opposite each other.
Her son’s brown eyes were wide open, and his fingers trailed nervously up and down his doublet.
He moved to speak, so giddy with anticipation his entire body was trembling.
“Do not,” Rhaenyra warned, resignation in her voice.
In a flash, his face fell and he settled back into his seat.
To her undying relief, the door opened then, and her husband stumbled inside the chamber.
“Ah, dear wife, there you are.” Ser Laenor’s plump lips stretched into a lopsided smile.
Rhaenyra regarded his filthy surcoat with dismay.
The embroidered seahorse was half submerged in a stain of red.
Considering the smell of strong wine that had followed him in, she thought the image was terribly apt.
“I was told you have been looking for me.”
“Where have you been?” she demanded, struggling to keep her voice low and even.
He puckered his lips and blew a breath.
“Oh, just out and about with Ser Qarl.
We were taking a stroll near Rhaenys Hill when we fell down somewhere and found ourselves by the docks.
And then afterwards…” He paused, an actual giggle bursting from his lips.
“Well, I could not tell you.
I just know there was a lot of wine.”
Her nails dug into her chair armrest, and she let out a desperate chortle.
“Oh, how marvelous for you…”
Laenor kept his grin wide, but the longer he gazed upon her face, the more his expression dropped.
“Has something happened?”
“Has it?
Well, I do not know.
Jace?” Rhaenyra pointed her finger at her son.
“Will you tell your father what has happened?”
Her son squirmed, fingers working the buttons of his doublet.
“Well, I was at the pit, training with Aegon and Aemond.
We were practicing dragon commands, and I had finally gotten Vermax to spit fire for me…”
“Oh, that is wonderful!” Laenor exclaimed, dropping down on one knee to be at eye level with him.
“See, I knew you could do it!
You will be a proper dragon rider in no time!
We should celebrate and get wine for the entire keep, no?”
The silence that befell them was deafening.
Jace regarded her with a mixture of uncertainty and sadness.
Laenor stumbled over his words.
“No?”
Unable to stand this mummer’s farce, Rhaenyra shot up from her seat.
“Jace, leave us.
We shall finish this later.”
In place of arguing, her son rushed out of the chambers, tears streaming freely down his cheeks.
“Gods, what have I missed?” Laenor demanded, trying to steady himself into an upright position.
Attacking the rings on her fingers, Rhaenyra paced about her chambers.
Surrounded by fools.
Truly, she could not have conceived a worse fate for herself.
“The better question is, what have you not missed?”
Her husband released a labored sigh and toppled over into the chair Jace had been occupying moments earlier.
The thing was far too small for him, so his legs lay sprawled like draperies.
“I have just been out for a bit.
Things have been hard for me of late…”
“It is the third time this month, Laenor.” She forced through gritted teeth.
Pinpricks of anger stabbed into her skin, and she ached to cast her woolen house robe off.
“I am beginning to think things are always hard for you.”
“They are, if you must know.”
“And you think they are not for me?” she whirled around.
“We had an agreement.
We do our duty, but we also explore happiness.
Now I have not begrudged you your indulgences, but as it stands, I am the only one who has done the duty portion of this arrangement.”
“I am a knight.
And a warrior.
And I have played my part here faithfully for nine years.”
The chortle burst from her lips before she could stop it.
“You have done nothing.
You may have titled yourself husband and father, but you did naught for me or our children, save pass them your name.”
Laenor squinted, stuttering, “What more do you want of me?”
A slew of words came to mind.
Commitment, responsibility, diligence, devotion.
But these were all things she had spent years repeatedly demanding of him.
In the beginning, he was willing to comply.
Ser Joffrey’s death had left him grief-stricken, confined to his chambers, and drowning his sorrows in wine.
It was only the news of Ser Criston’s unexpected pardon that drove him out of his self-imposed exile.
“How?” he had demanded of her after the news of the Small Council’s ruling had spread to the keep.
“By all rights that brute of yours should be dead.”
“Yes,” she conceded.
The thought of her white knight on the executioner’s block made her heart ache.
Despite him spurning her before her wedding feast, she still had tender feelings for him.
And some distant part of her believed he could still be hers.
But the violence he committed so brazenly had brought her head back from the clouds and planted it firmly on the ground.
It was malicious and ill-tempered.
Full of resentment and hidden rage.
Worst still, it had occurred completely unprompted.
“Yes, he should be dead,” she had repeated.
Alicent’s intercession on his behalf was what confounded her the most.
The man was nothing to her, a sworn brother of the Kingsguard she had only ever issued commands to.
It was only later, when she had confronted Alicent before the heart tree, that Rhaenyra realized the truth of things.
He had told her about their indiscretion, and by extension, her lie.
Though Alicent had called it treachery.
“Please, Alicent, you do not understand,” she had sobbed, tears streaming down her face.
Her friend’s doe eyes, once so full of warmth and naive affection, had gone dead and cold.
“It is Your Grace, stepdaughter.
And I do understand.
I understand perfectly now.
I have spent years defending you, defending the goodness and righteousness I thought you possessed.
And all you have done is throw it all back in my face.”
“No, I did not, I…”
“You got my father dismissed.
The one man who held my best interests at heart is gone.
So you could protect yourself.
Uphold your rule-bending.” She paused, yanking off the emerald band Rhaenyra had given her for her fourteenth name day.
It was twin to the ruby ring she bore on her left index.
“Your father was right.
You and Daemon are truly mirrors of one another.
Harsh, impulsive, ready to trample everyone and everything to protect yourselves.
I can see it now.
I see you for what you are.
And I will not rest until everyone does as well.”
Afterward, it was Rhaenyra’s turn to mourn and drown her sorrows in cups.
Her only friend, the last love, left her in this miserable world, gone.
She had half a mind to seek out her father then and ask him to disinherit her.
But it was Laenor who brought her back to her senses.
“You cannot surrender now.
It is what she wants.
She and that vile brute would like nothing more than to reduce you to nothing.
She may preach about righteousness all she likes, but it is she who keeps a murderous dog about to do her bidding.”
Rhaenyra eyed him over the brim of her wine cup, her head spinning.
“Then what would you have me do?”
Her husband smiled.
“What we agreed on.
Do our duty, but explore happiness.
And once that is done, we seek justice.”
Vengeance she wanted to correct but held her tongue.
That did not make him less right.
Yet with each passing year, his initial enthusiasm diminished.
His failure to produce an heir and his subsequent passing of that responsibility to Ser Harwin left him restless and flighty.
He was eager to parent their twins at first, but after his mother spurned him for their obvious parentage, he grew distant toward them.
Ser Qarl coming into his life was the final blow.
The handsome knight may not have replaced Ser Joffrey in his heart, but he did much to make the Knight of Kisses a pale shadow of a memory.
It was plain to Rhaenyra that whatever commitments to duty he had had long expired.
She did not care.
Neither of them had wanted this match, and she loved him enough to not begrudge him seeking joy.
But it was his indifference to their children that she could not suffer.
“Do you even know what Jace has done?”
She took his raised hands as an invitation to relay the tale of his foolish prank at the pit.
When she finished, all her lord husband deigned to do was shrug.
“Gods, that boy.
No sense in him whatsoever.” Pausing briefly, he examined his nails.
“Has the Queen said anything about it?”
Rhaenyra pursed her lips, bile rising in her throat.
“No, but I am certain she is at my father’s side right now, dripping poison in his ear.
Probably urging him to send Jacaerys away.”
The wrath she glimpsed in Alicent’s brown eyes when she suggested fostering her children at the Vale sent gooseflesh crawling up Rhaenyra’s skin.
She is not likely to forget that.
Just as she remembered every other slight, real or imagined.
“Right then, go speak to your father and mend things.
Tell him it was all just a silly jest.”
Rhaenyra buried her face into her hands.
When I am queen, I will ban all drink at court.
The amount of sense it robbed people of was unseemly.
“Of course, I am going to speak to my father about this.
I have no other recourse!”
“Good.
Then what do you need me for?”
Those words were like a slap across the face.
“Mother have mercy…” she exclaimed.
“I want you to speak to your son.”
He heaved a sigh.
“You would have me scold him…”
“No, I…” Pausing to compose herself, she knelt at the foot of his chair, pinning his eyes.
“I would have you reassure him.
Speak as father and son, get him to confide his troubles to you, and then help mend them.”
The way his mouth dropped open, Rhaenyra was certain he would protest.
To her relief, no words came out.
“Fine,” he finally announced.
The flatness of his voice filled Rhaenyra with sorrow.
“Good,” she forced herself to say.
Gripping his forearm, she pondered her next words briefly and decided she had nothing to lose.
“You will also write your mother.”
“What, what for?”
“Have her send us a ward.”
The mellow expression on his face hardened, and he rose from his seat.
“Not this again…”
“Jace needs companionship.
A trusted friend of his own age who will be his ally,” she grumbled.
“He has no one in the Red Keep because of Alicent’s meddling.
It is no wonder Aegon can make him go along with any vile mischief he can think up.”
“And you think someone from my own family would do?” His mocking tone bade her bite her lip.
“They are just as likely to join in the shunning.”
She turned away from him, at her wits end.
Her husband’s family had been another thorn in her side ever since she had announced she was heavy with child.
Rhaenys had been so thrilled at the prospect of grandchildren that she had given the last eggs Meleys had laid to be placed in her twins’ cradles.
But she came to rue her decision the moment she spied their brown hair, brown eyes, and pug noses.
She may not have been able to take back the dragons, but her mother-by-law could take herself away, as far away from court and her kin as she could.
Lord Corlys had been another matter.
His pride did not allow him to turn his back on his son, lest he admit Laenor’s failure.
That did not mean he strived to be a doting grandsire.
He might agree to send a ward if Laenor insists enough.
Just to keep up appearances.
It remained to be seen if the rest of his house would agree, chiefly, his brother Vaemond.
“Try, Laenor.
Just try.
For your son.”
Another resigned nod, as her husband moved to adjust his disheveled surcoat.
“As you wish,” he tossed her a smile, but Rhaenyra could not bear to return it.
It should not be my wish, but yours.
He whirled on his feet and moved toward the door.
“Oh, and come to my chambers this night.”
He froze midstride, slowly craning his head at her.
“Oh?” his bushy brows went up.
“Another dalliance, is it?
You know if your calendar is not correct, the chances of anything…”
“I refuse to rely on chances.” She hissed.
“Even if his seed does not take hold, I would rather my husband be seen sharing my bed.”
Another resigned shrug.
Those should be his house words.
Resigned to my fate.
He exited her apartment in a flurry, the clatter of his boot heels slowly vanishing down the long corridor.
Only when complete silence engulfed her did Rhaenyra allow herself to heave a shaky sigh.
And now I stand alone.
She had expected Laenor’s half-hearted compliance.
Nevertheless, his disinterest hurt her.
I cannot let him go.
He and his name were all that stood between her and the Queen’s wrath.
And though her father was willing to defend her, not even Viserys’ stubborn will could stop an entire kingdom from demanding her head.
If only we had not married.
If her father had wed her to Harwin, things would have been different.
He would have defended her claim and protected her and her children’s honor.
And his efforts would have actually counted.
If only I had married…
The thought came to her sudden, unbidden, as thoughts of him always did.
Daemon would have never allowed my children to be treated so.
He would have taken Criston’s head off for treason the moment he dealt Ser Joffrey the killing blow.
He would have ended Alicent Hightower’s influence over her father and barred her from ever speaking ill of her again.
And if any Reacher lordling dared to question her birthright in favor of Aegon, he would have mounted Caraxes and reduced their keeps to ash and bone.
Because he was the blood of the dragon.
Fire to her fire.
And he is also not here.
All her silly pining for him did not change the fact he had abandoned her.
Just then, she realized her hands were absentmindedly trailing the Valyrian steel necklace he had gifted her all those years ago.
Rising from her seat, she undid the clasp with trembling fingers.
End it, now.
It would be so easy.
All she had to do was throw it from the window.
It would fall into the darkness and disappear.
Never to be seen again.
A knock on the door bade her turn.
“Come!” she said, her cheeks flush.
“Princess?” the serving girl poked her head through the door.
“The king and queen request your presence in his chambers.
They wish to have words.”
Tracing the metal links, Rhaenyra regarded the piece absentmindedly.
The ruby resting in the middle of the pendant seemed unusually bright today.
As if it were burning from within.
“Yes, of course.
At once.” She hooked the thing around her neck once more and headed for the door.
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