Chapter 120: Chapter 120: The Years Between
The Red Keep learned to make trouble quieter.
That was the first lesson of the years after Aegon’s disgrace. Not that the court became kinder, wiser, or less hungry for advantage. It simply became better at closing doors before servants could hear too much, better at moving girls from one household post to another, better at turning coin into silence and silence into peace. The first incident faded from open rumour because Otto wanted it dead, Alicent wanted it contained, and most of the court preferred not to look too closely at sins that wore a prince’s face.
Aegon did not improve quickly. That was the difficulty.
For a time, Ser Curtis Crakehall and Ser Willis Fell kept him watched closely enough that even his foolishness had fewer places to breathe. They alternated their duty with grim patience, and neither man seemed inclined to soften the task simply because Aegon complained.
Curtis was harsher, more watchful, and less bothered by the prince’s resentment. Willis Fell was older, quieter, and had the irritating habit of making disappointment feel heavier than rebuke.
Aegon hated both methods. He endured neither well.
There were fewer scandals for several months, but fewer was not the same as none. Wine found him too easily. Companions with empty heads and noble names found him faster. He learned not to behave, but to avoid certain kinds of witness. That was worse in some ways. A boy corrected into virtue might yet become a man. A boy corrected only into caution became more careful about where he rotted.
Alicent saw it. I knew she did, because no mother looked at her son that way without understanding more than she wished to admit. Shame sat on her like a second veil in those years, visible only when she thought no one important was looking.
She defended him when politics sharpened too close to his throat, but she did not defend his conduct in private. I heard her voice once through a half-open door, low and strained, telling him that the gods saw what lords tried to hide.
Aegon answered with something bitter. The door closed before I heard more.
I did not use him as a weapon. Not openly, and not in whispers.
That choice was not mercy toward Otto. It was not kindness toward Aegon. It was discipline. Rhaenyra had insisted that rank could not erase wrongdoing, and I would not turn that principle into a tool only useful when aimed at enemies. Some of our supporters thought me too restrained. They did not say so to my face, but men rarely needed courage to be overheard by the right servant.
Rhaenyra understood. "He will damage himself without our help," she said one evening after another matter had been swept away with coin and careful reassignment. "If we reach for every scandal, we teach the court that we care more for advantage than the people he harms."
"And Otto will accuse us of cruelty."
"He will accuse us regardless. I would rather be accused for what we are than become what he describes."
She said it tiredly, not triumphantly. That was how those years felt. Tired. Not empty, never peaceful enough for emptiness, but stretched between small victories and slow decay. The realm did not break. It ripened toward breaking, which was more dangerous because men could call it stability while the rot deepened beneath the skin.
Vaeron returned from Astapor before the first year had fully turned.
His ships came into Blackwater Bay under a hard grey sky, carrying new Unsullied and the smell of a journey no amount of sea wind could fully cleanse. I went to meet him before the court could dress the arrival in whatever meaning pleased it.
Grey Worm stood with me. Black Rat too. Both watched the men disembark with expressions that did not change, though I knew enough by then to understand that stillness could hide more than ignorance.
Vaeron came down the gangplank last. He looked thinner. Not weak. Vaeron Galeris did not know how to look weak without resenting the room for noticing. But the journey had sharpened him.
His hair was tied back carelessly, his cloak salt-marked, and his eyes carried the particular anger of a man who had completed a necessary task and hated everyone involved, including the one who had given it to him.
He stopped before me. "I bought fewer boys than the masters wanted me to buy," he said without greeting. "They tried to convince me that half-training could be finished cheaply if we took them now. I told them I had not crossed the sea to purchase children with spears larger than their arms."
"How many?" I asked.
"Seventeen hundred and eighty-two fit for immediate service, or close enough that Grey Worm can judge the rest. Two hundred more were older support men, handlers, armour workers, cooks, and camp servants who had no wish to remain when given the chance to leave. I bought their contracts too because leaving them there felt like choosing blindness."
"That was well done."
"It was disgusting."
"I know."
"No," Vaeron said, voice quiet enough that only those closest heard it. "You remember enough to know. I have just been there again."
I accepted that because it was true. He had done what I asked. That did not give me ownership over his revulsion. The new Unsullied were not sworn that day. They were fed first.
Then they were given rest, clean water, and translators. Some had heard rumours of us. Some had not. Some watched Grey Worm and Black Rat with the wary attention of men looking at impossible futures wearing familiar faces.
The offer came later, spoken in High Valyrian and repeated carefully: service for pay, food, arms, and command under men who had been what they were. Refusal would not mean death. They could work, leave, or take time before answering.
Many swore eventually. Not all. The ones who did not were allowed to keep breathing. That was the small beginning of decency, and it still felt like washing blood from stone with a cup of water.
Celeste was waiting for Vaeron when the first duties ended.
She did not run to him. Celeste had too much pride for that in front of soldiers and sailors. But she crossed the yard quickly, with Aegor at her side and Vaerya clutching her skirts before deciding she was old enough not to. Vaeron saw them, and whatever hard shape Astapor had left on him cracked for a moment.
Aegor bowed because he had practised. Vaerya did not. She went straight into her father’s arms. Vaeron held her tightly, then drew Aegor in as well with one arm. Celeste stood before him, and for a moment neither of them spoke. Then she placed a hand against his face, thumb brushing the salt from his cheek.
"You look terrible," she said.
"I brought you gifts."
"If they are soldiers, I refuse them."
"One is a silk scarf from Lys."
"That is better. You may come home."
He laughed then, softly and with more relief than humour, and kissed her hand before pulling her close. I looked away. Some moments belonged to others.
Arlan was there too in his white cloak, standing just far enough from Celeste to avoid crowding the reunion. When Vaeron finally noticed him, he stared for a heartbeat longer than courtesy allowed.
"My good-brother becomes Kingsguard while I am away," Vaeron said. "I leave for Astapor and return to find my family has become more respectable without my permission."
Arlan bowed slightly. "I apologise for the inconvenience. I tried to look unworthy during the ceremony, but the cloak worked against me."
Celeste gave her brother a fondly irritated look. "Do not encourage Vaeron. He has only just returned, and I would like at least one evening before sarcasm ruins the household."
Vaeron looked at me. "She says this as if sarcasm did not preserve me across half the world."
"It likely preserved the sailors from worse."
"Exactly."
That night was one of the better ones. There were not enough of those.
The new Unsullied changed the court’s breathing again. Otto did not attack the matter too openly because the men had been freed, paid, and brought under existing command rather than paraded as slaves. Larys did what Larys always did. He allowed the right men to wonder aloud whether a prince needed so many foreign spears if his loyalty was as steady as claimed.
I let him wonder. The numbers mattered more than his words.
Halfway through those years, the Dread Legion crossed the Narrow Sea again.
Qohor had sent word of Dothraki raiders pressing boldly against its outlying lands. Caravans had been burned, herds taken, and the roads feeding the city’s wealth tested by riders who knew exactly how far fear could travel before steel answered it.
The contract was rich, but coin was not the only reason I accepted it. A sellsword company that sat too long in comfort became dull. Worse, in Westeros, it became easier for enemies to call it a private army waiting for treason.
Jasper took the infantry. Landrey took the cavalry. Rollis read the terms twice, cursed the Qohorik for writing like men paid by the word, then admitted the pay was good enough to excuse several insults to clarity. Dick went with them to keep the ledgers honest, which meant half the men complained more about his arithmetic than the Dothraki.
I remained in Westeros with the Unsullied.
That decision sat poorly with me, though it was the correct one. Rhaenyra needed me near. The children were growing faster than peace deserved. Viserys had begun to decline in ways no maester could disguise for long.
So the purple banners crossed east without me, the white sword within the crescent wreath riding toward Qohor while I stayed behind and learned that absence could feel like cowardice even when chosen wisely.
Jace understood more than I expected. "They will be safe?" he asked as we watched the last of the ships leave the bay.
"No."
He looked at me, startled. I did not soften it. "They are soldiers taking a contract against Dothraki raiders. Safe is not the word. Prepared is better."
"Do you wish you were going?"
"Yes."
"Then why stay?"
"Because not every duty allows a man to choose the one he misses most."
Jace was quiet after that.
By then he was no longer the boy who had flown beside me to Highgarden with wonder shining through his discipline. He was taller, broader at the shoulder, still young, but visibly becoming something men at court could no longer dismiss as easily. He rode Vermax with confidence now, not recklessness. He trained hard, listened more than he spoke, and had begun to understand that every room offered more than one battle.
Luke changed more gently.
Arrax grew with him, pale and quick, and the bond steadied him in ways swords never quite managed. He still lacked Jace’s natural gravity, but he had kindness that made people lower their guard. That was no small gift. At twelve, he remained sensitive enough to bruise from careless words, but he no longer carried himself as if every whisper already believed the worst.
Rhaegar and Aerion became more themselves with every year.
Rhaegar watched before acting, sometimes so long that men mistook him for hesitant until he answered with something uncomfortably precise. Vhalalor flew at last, and Rhaegar treated the achievement not as triumph, but as confirmation of a process he had already mapped in his head.
Aerion nearly burst from pride when Tyraxes took his first true flight.
He declared, before half the yard, that the realm had been waiting for this development without knowing it. Rhaegar replied that the realm had managed surprisingly well in ignorance. Aerion threatened to remember the insult when he became famous. Rhaegar told him memory required attention, and that ended the conversation only because Rhaenyra appeared.
Viserys, our Viserys, grew solemn in a way that sometimes unsettled me. He remained fascinated by dragons, but his fascination had deepened from childish delight into study. Oyyaor accepted him patiently, which suited them both.
He asked questions about old Valyria that no child his age should have known how to frame properly, and sometimes I saw Rhaenyra looking at him with a strange softness, as if the name he carried had begun to feel heavier.
Aemma became impossible. That was the simplest way to put it.
She grew from a baby into a small silver-haired tyrant with bright eyes, quick feet, and absolute faith that Aeggel existed to support every decision she made. The salmon-pink dragon remained delicate in colour and entirely undelicate in temperament. She stole meat from larger bowls, snapped at boots, and once set fire to a cushion in a chamber Rhaenyra disliked enough not to mourn it properly.
Then came Maelor.
He was born halfway through the years between Maidenpool and the wedding, on a morning washed pale by rain. Rhaenyra laboured long but steadily, with the strength I had learned to trust and fear in equal measure. When the child finally cried, the sound seemed to loosen something in the room that had been held too tightly for hours.
A boy. Our seventh child. The septons noticed before I cared to. So did the court.
Seven children for the Seven, they whispered. Seven blessings upon the princess. Seven signs that the gods had not turned their faces from Rhaenyra’s line. Men who had mocked foreign blood found themselves less comfortable mocking a number that septas repeated with shining eyes. I did not suddenly become devout because a count had pleased the faithful, but I was not foolish enough to reject a useful omen when others offered it freely.
Rhaenyra held Maelor that evening, exhausted and radiant in the quiet way that followed survival. "They are calling him a sign," she said.
"They would call a rainstorm a sign if it fell during the right sermon."
"That does not mean they are wrong."
"No," I said, looking at our son. "It means they are eager."
Maelor was small, red-faced, furious with existence, and perfect. His hair came in pale as moonlit silver. Beside his cradle, his egg sat blue-white with faint darker veining, cool-looking even in candlelight.
It hatched within the month.
Jaevalzar emerged pale blue, almost mist-coloured along the wings, with darker blue shading near the spine and tiny horn nubs that made him look permanently offended. The dragon was not large, of course. No hatchling was. But he was strong, loud, and determined to make every nurse regret thinking a cradle room could be orderly.
The omen grew. Seven children. Seven dragons. The court could argue many things, but it could not make that look small.
Otto disliked it. He hid the dislike well, but not from me. Alicent reacted differently. She sent a gift for Maelor, finely made and pious without being pointed. Rhaenyra accepted it. Their peace remained fragile, full of cracks and old wounds, but motherhood still built narrow bridges where politics would have burned them.
Aemond changed the most visibly among Alicent’s children. At fourteen, he had grown tall.
Too tall for the boy I remembered from Driftmark, though five years had passed since that night and children had a cruel habit of making time visible. He trained with Ser Curtis Crakehall often, and whatever else could be said of Curtis, he knew how to shape violence.
Aemond became lean, disciplined, and hard-eyed. He began defeating men-at-arms in the yard, not comfortably, not with the effortless grace of songs, but honestly. He lost often enough to learn and won often enough to be dangerous.
I watched him sometimes. So did Jace. Aemond noticed both of us noticing.
One afternoon, after he forced a guardsman back with a sharp sequence and took a hard strike to the ribs for overcommitting, he recovered, adjusted, and won the exchange on the next pass. The men watching murmured approval. Aemond removed his helm, breathing hard, one eye bright with satisfaction he tried to bury beneath severity.
Jace stood beside me. "He is getting better," he said.
"Yes."
"He hates that we see it."
"He hates needing anyone to see it. That is different."
Jace frowned. "Does that make him more dangerous?"
"It can. A man who trains to prove himself may become skilled. A man who never stops needing the proof may become reckless when skill is not enough."
Jace looked across the yard, where Aemond had already turned back to Ser Curtis for correction. "Should I hate him?"
"No." That answer came too quickly for comfort, so I added the rest. "You should remember Driftmark. You should protect your brothers. You should not pretend insult and injury vanish because time passes. But hatred is heavy, and you will have enough to carry without picking it up before you must."
Jace listened. He did not answer at once. Then he said, "I do not know if I can like him."
"I did not ask that."
"Good."
There was still a boy in that reply. I was glad of it.
The court kept moving.
The Dread Legion sent letters from Qohor: first arrival, then skirmishes, then a larger engagement against a small khalasar bold enough to think Qohorik coin made its defenders soft. Jasper’s reports were blunt and bloodless in style, which meant I had to read twice to understand the cost.
Landrey wrote less often but with more detail about horses, terrain, and the difficulty of making Dothraki chase what did not want to be caught. Rollis added a note at the bottom of one letter saying that if I ever again accepted a contract where the enemy could ride for three days on bad water and spite, he would haunt me while still alive.
They won. Not quickly. Not without dead men. But they won enough that Qohor paid and asked whether the contract might be extended. I refused for the time being. I wanted the Legion near enough to recall before the realm began asking questions with swords instead of tongues.
Then, in the middle of 131 AC, the court gathered for the wedding of Aegon and Helaena. It had been five years since Driftmark. Aegon was seventeen. Helaena was fifteen and a half. An unsettling age to be married, but Otto Hightower pushed for this to happen.
The match had been expected, discussed, arranged, defended by tradition, and polished until it could be presented as unity rather than necessity. Brother to sister, dragon to dragon, the old Valyrian way wrapped in the Faith’s blessing because the Targaryens had long ago taught Westeros to swallow exceptions if they came crowned.
Yet whispers moved beneath the splendour. Helaena was young. Too young, some said softly. Old enough, others answered too quickly. The court did what it always did with discomfort. It dressed it in silk and called the result duty.
The wedding was splendid. There was no denying that.
The Red Keep blazed with colour. Targaryen banners hung from the walls, green and black appearing in clothing rather than cloth, because no one wished to admit how clearly the colours had begun to speak.
The throne room filled with lords, ladies, knights, septons, and household officers. Musicians played from the gallery. Tables groaned beneath food and wine. The royal family stood together where all could see them, and for a few hours the court pretended that standing near one another meant being whole.
Helaena looked beautiful and distant.
Not unhappy exactly, though happiness seemed too simple a word for her. She wore pale colours and gold, her silver hair arranged with care, her eyes moving sometimes to things no one else noticed.
When Aegon stood beside her, he looked handsome, restless, and too aware of being watched. He smiled when required. He drank more than he should have once the vows were done, though not enough to disgrace the evening.
Alicent watched them with a face full of prayer and fear. Otto looked satisfied. That told me more than the septon’s words.
Rhaenyra stood beside me through the ceremony, composed in black and red, our children arranged near us like a living answer to every whisper that had tried to make them smaller. Jace stood tall now, nearly a man in bearing if not yet in years. Luke remained at his side. The twins watched with different forms of impatience.
Viserys listened solemnly. Aemma behaved only because Rhaenyra had promised consequences specific enough to be believed. Maelor slept in his nurse’s arms, and somewhere safely away from the feast, Jaevalzar likely made his displeasure known to anyone within hearing.
During the dancing, Rhaenyra’s hand tightened around mine. At first, I thought she had seen something in the hall. Then I followed her gaze.
The dancers moved beneath torchlight, bright and graceful, laughter rising where steps tangled or wine softened restraint. Aegon and Helaena had been given the splendid wedding expected of royal blood. Music, vows, feasting, noble witnesses, and enough ceremony to make the histories kind if they chose to be.
Our wedding had ended in blood.
Ser Criston Cole had murdered Emeric before the celebration could become memory. I could still see the moment too clearly when I allowed it: the shock, the violence, the sound of joy collapsing into screams, Rhaenyra’s face as the day was stolen from her.
She did not speak for a long while. When she did, her voice was low enough that only I could hear. "I thought I had stopped mourning it."
I turned slightly toward her. "Our wedding?"
She nodded, eyes still on the dancers. "Not the marriage. Never that. But the day. The feast. The music. The chance to remember it without seeing him die."
I held her hand more firmly. "I mourn it too."
"You never say so."
"Some griefs become part of the furniture if left in the same room long enough. I forget others cannot see them."
That made her look at me. There was sadness in her face, but not only sadness.
"I am glad Helaena had this," she said. "Even if the match troubles me. Even if the court is using it as another stitch in a banner I do not like. She should have music. She should have something gentle before whatever comes next."
That was Rhaenyra too. Able to resent the politics and still pity the girl inside them. I looked toward Helaena, who was speaking softly to Aemond near the edge of the hall while Aegon laughed too loudly with companions at another table.
"Yes," I said. "She should."
Viserys seemed happy that night. That was the cruellest part.
He sat watching the hall with damp eyes and a smile that made him look almost like the father he had always wished to be. For one evening, the divisions in his house could be softened by candles and music. For one evening, he could pretend that marrying Aegon to Helaena had strengthened the family rather than tightened one faction’s knot.
He called Jace to him at one point and kissed his brow. He embraced Aegon later, spoke gently to Helaena, and laughed when Aerion said something bold enough that Rhaenyra closed her eyes in visible endurance.
The court saw a king surrounded by family. I saw the effort it cost him to remain upright.
His hands trembled more than they had three months before. His skin had thinned. Pain moved behind his eyes even when he smiled. The maesters hovered too near and pretended not to. Alicent watched him often. So did Otto. So did I.
The wedding ended late.
Music faded by degrees. Guests left in clusters. Servants began the work of cleaning what splendour left behind. Rhaenyra and I returned to our chambers with the children already taken ahead, the younger ones asleep or near enough.
At the door, she paused. "For one night," she said, "they will say the house looked united."
"For one night, perhaps it did."
"Did it?"
I thought of Aegon drinking, Helaena drifting, Aemond watching, Alicent praying, Otto calculating, Viserys smiling through pain, and our own children standing in the light while half the court measured them.
"No," I said. "But it looked close enough for men who needed to believe it."
Rhaenyra accepted that with a tired nod.
The wedding had been splendid. It was the last great brightness before the waiting began.
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