Chapter Text
The wedding feast had ended in blood, and though vows had been spoken, the hall still reeked of death. Ser Joffrey lay cold in the ground, slain by Ser Criston Cole’s treachery, and Laenor wept for the boy who had once held his heart. Rhaenyra, now his wife, had held him through the storm of his grief, whispering comforts she did not truly feel, because duty left little room for tenderness.The wedding feast had ended in blood. What should have been a night of triumph her union with Laenor Velaryon, the binding of fire and sea had soured into chaos. Ser Joffrey’s body had been carried away broken and lifeless, his laughter forever silenced by Ser Criston Cole’s rage.
When at last Laenor’s sobs quieted and he surrendered to a restless sleep, Rhaenyra lay beside him, staring into the darkness.
She did not mourn Joffrey. She mourned what his death revealed: the weakness of men, the fickleness of vows, the rot within the court that even a wedding could not conceal.
But above all, she raged.
At Alicent.
The day replayed in her mind, bitter and sharp: Alicent’s entrance into the hall, clad in Hightower green, a serpent shedding its skin to bare its fangs. Her supposed friend ,her stepmother had sounded the drums of war in the very hour meant to bind houses in peace.
What a vile hypocrite. Alicent, who had swept into her wedding hall cloaked in Hightower green, each step a declaration of war. The audacity of it still burned in Rhaenyra’s veins the gall of that girl, that woman, who dared judge her while she herself had crept into King Viserys’ chambers before her mother’s pyre had even cooled. Piety, duty, virtue she wore them like armor, yet all the while grasped for power with desperate hands.
She who had stolen into her father’s chambers while Rhaenyra’s mother’s pyre still smoldered. She who wrapped herself in piety, while crawling on her knees to seize a crown through her womb. And yet it was Rhaenyra who was judged, whispered about, picked apart for her every choice. It was Rhaenyra who was the scandal. Rhaenyra who was whispered about, condemned, spied upon. She clenched her jaw as she lay beside Laenor’s restless sleep, fury swirling like fire in her chest.
Her jaw tightened as she closed her eyes, fury coiling in her chest. “You will choke on your own virtue one day, Alicent,” she thought, her mind heavy with wine, grief, and hate. “And I will be there to watch.”
Sleep claimed her with those words, heavy and bitter as ash.
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She woke in silence.
No muffled sobs from Laenor. No bridal silks tangled around her limbs. The air was cooler, tinged with salt and smoke. Slowly, she blinked, the haze of dreams lifting only to find herself staring at walls she knew all too well.
The pale blue tapestries. The narrow windows overlooking the Blackwater. The oaken chest at the foot of her bed, carved with seven-pointed stars.
Her maiden’s chamber.
Her heart lurched violently against her ribs. This room had been hers before before her father had named her heir, before she had moved into the grander quarters reserved for the Crown’s successor.
Rhaenyra sat up sharply. Her body felt lighter, slighter. Her hands were smaller. She reached up, touching her face smooth, unlined, untouched by years of strain and loneliness after her father's second marriage. Her gown was no queenly night-robe of woven silver, but the simple linen shift she had worn as a girl.
Panic gripped her throat. Where was Laenor? Where was the wedding bed? Where were the jewels that had crowned her just hours ago?
She stumbled from the bed and caught sight of herself in the looking glass. Her reflection stared back- the face of a girl. The girl she had been, not the woman she had become.
“What in the fourteen hells…” she whispered. The chamber spun around her. “What in the name of the gods is happening?”
A sharp rap came at the door. Rhaenyra startled, her heart slamming against her ribs.
“Princess?” her maid’s voice came soft, carrying the quaver of mourning. “Lady Hightower waits outside and begs audience.”
For a moment, Rhaenyra could not breathe. Her blood froze in her veins.
Lady Hightower?
The name rang in her ears like a curse.
Her thoughts tangled her mother’s funeral, the black banners, Alicent’s veils of green and black, her false friendship, her treachery that would span years. It could not be. It should not be. And yet here she was, in her maiden’s chamber, in her younger body, staring down a past she thought she had long buried.
“What in the fourteen hells is going on?” she whispered again, the words trembling on her lips as the world she knew slipped away like smoke.