Chapter 142: Chapter 142: A Closed Gate
Oldtown appeared beneath the morning haze a day after I left King’s Landing.
From above, it looked too peaceful for what waited within it. The Honeywine curved through the city like a silver ribbon, catching pale sunlight between roofs, bridges, towers, and clustered streets older than many kingdoms.
The Hightower rose over all of it, a white spear against the sky, high enough that even dragonback did not make it seem small. Beyond the walls, fields stretched green and gold, and ships moved in the harbour with the ordinary patience of trade.
A city like that should not have looked dangerous. That was part of its strength.
Dravvaxx felt the tension before I gave any command. His wings beat slow and heavy beneath me, dark amethyst-black against the washed morning light. He did not like cities. He disliked crowds more, and Oldtown had too many eyes hidden in too many windows.
I kept him high long enough to make the approach visible, then brought him down in the open ground north of the walls, far enough from towers and scorpions that no man could pretend a crossbow bolt had been loosed by accident.
He landed with a shudder that ran through earth and saddle alike. Men on the walls watched. I let them.
Rhaenyra’s banner flew from the spear fixed behind my saddle, black and red snapping in the wind. Beneath my cloak rested the sealed summons, one copy for Aegon, one for Aemond, one for Daeron, and one for the Hightowers who had gathered them close.
I had not come with soldiers. I had not come with a fleet. I had not come to burn a city that had already decided whether it wished to answer law with courtesy or defiance. I came as the queen’s envoy.
Dravvaxx lowered his head and rumbled deep in his chest, silver eyes fixed on the city gates. "Easy," I said, laying one gloved hand against the scales of his neck. "We are not here to begin with fire."
The gates opened after some delay. That delay was deliberate. Oldtown wished me to wait outside its walls beneath the gaze of its towers, so that every man watching could see I had come and not been immediately received. I allowed it because some insults were worth less than the time required to answer them.
After a while, riders emerged in orderly formation. Hightower men-at-arms came first, green cloaks bright against mail, spears upright, banners held with enough discipline to show this was not a hurried reception. Behind them rode Lord Ormund Hightower.
Daeron Targaryen rode beside him.
He had grown since I last saw him. At sixteen, Daeron had the look of a prince shaped away from court and toward expectation. He was fair-haired, straight-backed, and dressed in green and black with enough Targaryen red worked into the cloth to remind any watcher that Oldtown had not sheltered a mere ward. His face did not carry Aegon’s loose arrogance or Aemond’s sharpened hunger. He looked younger than either when silent, and older when he tried not to show uncertainty. That made the meeting harder.
Ormund Hightower stopped several yards beyond the reach of Dravvaxx’s head. That was sensible. He dismounted with care, not fearlessly, but without the clumsy haste of a man pretending he did not fear dragons. Daeron dismounted after him, eyes moving once to Dravvaxx before returning to me.
I climbed down from the saddle.
Dravvaxx shifted behind me, large enough to make every horse in the Hightower party unhappy. Several men fought their reins. Ormund’s horse stepped sideways and was brought under control. Daeron’s mount tossed its head, but the boy held it better than I expected.
"Prince Othorion," Ormund said, bowing with proper form. "Oldtown receives you under peace."
"Lord Ormund," I replied. "I come under the seal of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, First of Her Name, lawful heir of King Viserys and crowned before the realm in King’s Landing."
The word queen settled between us. Ormund did not repeat it. Daeron’s face did not change, but I saw his fingers tighten slightly on the reins.
"I have come to deliver her summons to her half-brothers," I continued. "Aegon, Aemond, and Daeron Targaryen are commanded to answer the Crown and swear loyalty according to the oaths of the realm and the will of their father."
Ormund’s expression remained courteous. "Prince Aegon and Prince Aemond are not within Oldtown’s walls at present."
That answer arrived too smoothly. "Convenient."
"They are beyond the walls for their safety and rest. Their arrival was difficult, as you may imagine."
"I imagine many things, Lord Ormund. I prefer facts when dead men lie behind the difficulty."
Daeron looked down briefly.
Ormund did not. "The reports we received are confused. We heard that armed men sought to prevent princes of the blood from leaving a city suddenly under guard. Such matters are rarely simple in the first telling."
"They are simple enough where bodies are concerned. Gold Cloaks were ordered to prevent royal dragons leaving without command from the Crown. Aemond killed two men by his own blade, and a third died when Sunfyre was brought out. That is not confusion. That is blood spilt during unlawful flight."
"The Crown," Ormund said, "is precisely the matter in question."
There was no anger in his voice. That made the words colder.
I removed the sealed summons from beneath my cloak and held it up so all present could see the black-and-red wax. "Then let those who question it answer directly. I will deliver the terms aloud, since you claim Aegon and Aemond cannot hear them for themselves."
Ormund inclined his head. "You may speak."
"I do not need permission to speak my queen’s words."
His mouth tightened, though only slightly.
I broke the first seal. "To Aegon Targaryen, son of King Viserys and Prince of the blood," I read, my voice carrying across the open ground. "Queen Rhaenyra commands you to return to King’s Landing or send sworn submission recognising her as Queen of the Seven Kingdoms. If you submit peacefully, you will be treated as her brother and as a prince of House Targaryen. Your wife, Princess Helaena, and your children remain honoured and unharmed under the Crown’s protection. You will not be punished for fears placed upon you by others, but you will not be permitted to gather men, coin, or dragons against the queen’s lawful rule."
Daeron listened with his eyes fixed on the parchment. Ormund looked at me.
I opened the second. "To Aemond Targaryen, son of King Viserys and Prince of the blood. Queen Rhaenyra commands you to submit to her authority and answer for the deaths at the Dragonpit. If you submit, you will receive lawful judgement before the Crown, and witness will be heard regarding the circumstances. If you refuse, you accept the charge of defiance and bloodshed before the realm."
Several Hightower men shifted at that.
Then I opened the third seal and turned toward Daeron. "To Daeron Targaryen, son of King Viserys and Prince of the blood. Queen Rhaenyra recognises that you have not spilt blood against her men, nor have you fled lawful summons. She commands you to swear loyalty to her crown, as your father’s will and the realm’s oaths require. If you do so, you remain honoured as her half-brother and as a prince of House Targaryen."
Daeron did not speak at once. That silence was not refusal. It was struggle. Ormund saw it too.
I lowered the parchment. "The queen has left all three of you a road back to peace. She did not need to. Aegon fled with her father’s corpse still warm. Aemond killed men enforcing lawful command. Daeron, she could have named you with them and made your answer for you before you gave it. She chose otherwise."
Daeron looked at me then. His voice, when it came, was controlled but young beneath the control. "Is my mother safe?"
"Yes. Alicent remains in King’s Landing under guard and honour. Helaena and the twins are with her. They are watched, not harmed. Their treatment will remain dignified so long as those outside the city do not give the Crown reason to turn protection into harsher necessity."
Ormund’s eyes sharpened at that. "So they are hostages."
"They are royal women left behind by men who fled before dawn," I said. "Do not pretend Rhaenyra created that ugliness. Aegon did when he left his wife and children in the Red Keep while claiming safety for himself."
Daeron’s face tightened. That reached him.
I stepped slightly closer, though not far enough to leave Dravvaxx’s shadow. "Daeron, your sister offers you honour without chains. Do not let men older than you spend your life before you have chosen what it is worth."
Ormund shook his head slowly before Daeron could answer. "No woman has the right to rule the Seven Kingdoms while trueborn sons of the king live. That is the answer beneath all these seals, Prince Othorion. You may dress the matter in oaths, regency, mourning, and ceremony, but the realm was not made to kneel to a daughter over a son."
There it was. Not delay. Not confusion. Not fear for Aegon’s safety. The truth.
I looked at Daeron, but his eyes had dropped. He did not agree with ease. That much was clear. Yet hesitation was not loyalty, and silence in the presence of treason still gave treason room to breathe.
"Is that your answer as well?" I asked him.
Ormund answered first. "Prince Daeron is a loyal son of King Viserys."
I did not look away from Daeron. "That was not my question."
Daeron’s throat moved once. He looked toward Ormund, then toward the city behind him, then at Dravvaxx. I saw the weight around him: Oldtown, Hightower blood, the household that raised him, brothers within reach, a dragon of his own, a mother far away under guard, and a sister crowned in a capital that must have felt more like story than home.
When he spoke, the words were careful enough to hurt. "I hear Rhaenyra’s terms."
Ormund corrected him immediately. "You hear Princess Rhaenyra’s terms."
The correction hung in the air like a drawn blade. Daeron did not repeat it. He also did not deny it.
I folded the summons and held them out. A Hightower knight moved to take them, but I kept my hand still until Ormund himself stepped forward. He accepted the parchments with the grave courtesy of a man taking possession of something he meant to refuse.
"The queen requires answer," I said.
Ormund met my eyes. "Then carry this back to her. Oldtown honours King Viserys, but it does not accept that his preference can overturn the order by which kingdoms endure. Prince Aegon is the king’s eldest living son. Men will look to him because law older than grief points toward him. If Rhaenyra wishes peace, she should call a great council and allow the realm to speak."
"A council after she has been crowned, after the lords swore oaths, after she ruled as regent, and after Aegon fled with dead men behind him."
"A crown placed quickly does not end dispute."
"No," I said. "But neither does delay create right where none exists."
Ormund’s polite mask thinned. "You speak boldly for a man standing before Oldtown with one dragon."
"I speak boldly because I am standing outside Oldtown instead of burning its gates. Do not mistake restraint for lack of capacity."
Daeron looked sharply at me. Ormund’s men shifted again, less comfortably this time.
Dravvaxx lifted his head behind me and gave a low rumble that passed through the ground more than the air. The horses hated it. One reared, and its rider struggled to remain mounted.
I did not raise my voice. "Queen Rhaenyra offered peace. You have refused to recognise her right. If Aegon and Aemond hide beyond your walls, tell them they have been summoned. If they remain hidden, that too is an answer. If Daeron wishes to swear loyalty before this becomes war, he knows the road I arrived by."
Daeron’s eyes met mine again. For a moment, I thought he might say something more. Perhaps he wanted to ask whether Rhaenyra would truly spare him. Perhaps he wanted to ask whether his mother wept. Perhaps he wanted to ask whether brothers could remain brothers once lords began arranging banners around them.
He asked nothing.
Ormund bowed. "You have delivered your message. Oldtown will consider its answer with the seriousness due to royal blood."
"You gave your answer already."
"Then perhaps we have saved one another time."
"Yes," I said. "Perhaps we have."
I returned to Dravvaxx without turning my back fully until I was close enough to the saddle. That was not fear. It was sense. Polite men with fixed beliefs were often more dangerous than raging fools because they could kill while believing themselves guardians of order.
Dravvaxx lowered himself enough for me to mount.
Before I climbed up, Daeron stepped forward. "Prince Othorion."
Ormund looked at him at once. Daeron ignored it, though the effort cost him. "If I send word to my mother, will it reach her?"
I considered the question carefully. "If you send it through me now, yes. If you send it through Oldtown after I leave, I cannot promise whose hands will touch it before hers."
Daeron looked down, then shook his head slightly. "I have no letter prepared."
"Then prepare your conscience more quickly than your ink."
That wounded him. I did not regret it.
He drew himself upright. "Tell my mother I am well."
"I will tell her you stood in good health outside Oldtown while others answered for you."
His face flushed, not with anger alone.
Ormund’s voice cut in, controlled but firm. "The meeting is concluded."
I mounted.
From the saddle, Oldtown looked smaller than it had from the sky, though no less dangerous. Men could build towers high enough to challenge clouds and still be ruled by old ideas beneath them.
The Hightower gleamed in the distance, pale and proud, and somewhere beyond its walls Aegon and Aemond waited where I could not see them. Whether they were hiding, drinking, plotting, or being dressed in the language of kingship, I did not know.
Dravvaxx spread his wings, and every horse below fought fear again.
I looked down at Ormund one last time. "When the next message comes, it may not ask."
Ormund held the summons under one arm. "Then the next answer may not bend."
I gave the command, and Dravvaxx leapt.
The ground fell away. Oldtown opened beneath us, bright, ordered, ancient, and already lost to us in every way that mattered. I kept Dravvaxx high enough that no bolt from a tower could reach, then turned him east. The city diminished behind us until the Hightower was once more a white mark against the coast.
The flight back was quiet. Not peaceful. Quiet. There was a difference.
Wind took the place of courtly speech. Dravvaxx’s wings beat steady beneath me. Clouds gathered over the Reach in long grey bands, and the land below rolled on as if men had not just chosen the shape of its suffering. Fields lay green. Villages smoked from morning fires. Rivers ran unconcerned toward the sea.
I carried no uncertainty home. That was the gift Oldtown had given me.
Ormund had not hidden behind process for long. He had not asked for time because he lacked an answer. He had spoken the belief that would carry their banners: no woman had the right to rule while a trueborn son lived.
Everything else would be built around that. Aegon’s fear. Aemond’s bloodshed. Daeron’s duty. Alicent’s confinement. Otto’s arrest. The speed of Rhaenyra’s coronation. All of it would become decoration around the same hard stone. They would not bend because bending would require them to admit Rhaenyra’s crown had ever been lawful.
Daeron’s face stayed with me longer than Ormund’s words. That troubled me more than I liked.
He had not come eager for war. He had not mocked Rhaenyra or claimed Aegon king. He had asked after his mother, listened to the terms, and stood silent while older men shut the road before him. Yet silence could become a choice if held long enough. He was young, but he had a dragon. Youth did not keep flame from burning men alive.
King’s Landing waited ahead, crowded, anxious, crowned, and ignorant of the exact words I carried. Somewhere within the Red Keep, Rhaenyra would be reading reports, answering courtiers, watching prisoners, comforting children, and preparing for the answer she likely already feared.
I had flown west with her last clean road to peace beneath my cloak.
I flew east with the knowledge that Oldtown had closed it before I arrived.
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