Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 68: Chapter 68: Laena’s Funeral

It took five days for the funeral to begin.

A massive procession came from King’s Landing, a whole family dressed in black and prepared to mourn the wife of Daemon Targaryen, the mother of Baela and Rhaena, the daughter of Corlys Velaryon and Rhaenys Targaryen.

No dragons accompanied the convoy. They remained in the Dragonpit, restless behind stone and iron, though for Aemond, I assumed it made little difference whether they came or not. To a boy without a dragon, the absence of other dragons was not comfort. It was merely a quieter reminder of what everyone else possessed.

We arrived at Driftmark to the solemn sound of waves crashing against rock and wood creaking beneath the ships. There was no liveliness in the harbour, no open conversation, no laughter from sailors trying to fill silence with noise. Even the gulls seemed to have abandoned their usual song, as if the island itself had taken mourning seriously.

When we entered the great hall of Driftmark, Corlys greeted us with hollow eyes.

Rhaenys looked the same.

They had now lost both of their children. Laenor had died in battle, and Laena had died in the birthing bed. The Sea Snake had crossed half the known world, defied storms, pirates, princes, and war, yet there was nothing in all his voyages that could teach a father how to receive guests after burying the last child left to him.

"Welcome to Driftmark, Your Grace," Corlys said, his voice hoarse and worn thin by grief. "House Velaryon thanks you for coming to honour my daughter."

Viserys shook his head and stepped closer, his cane tapping softly against the stone. "There is no need for formalities between us today, Lord Corlys. We are not here as strangers, nor as courtiers chasing ceremony. We are here to mourn with you and with your house."

Corlys offered what could only be described as a pained smile. It was gratitude, perhaps, but gratitude dragged through exhaustion until little of its shape remained. Rhaenys appreciated her cousin’s sentiment; I could see that much in the faint softening around her eyes. Yet kindness could only touch the surface of grief like this. It could not soften the exhaustion of the grieving process, nor could it return what the sea and the birthing bed had taken from House Velaryon.

Daemon stood a few paces behind them with his daughters. His face told me all that needed to be known. He was broken.

Not loudly. Not theatrically. Daemon Targaryen did not collapse for the comfort of witnesses. Yet the man before me was not the confident, charismatic figure who usually wore arrogance like armour. He was cold, emptied of the swagger he so often carried into rooms before him. The sharpness remained, but it had turned inward.

In the show, they had tried to downplay how much Laena’s death affected him, especially when he sought to marry Rhaenyra shortly after the funeral. In this world, he truly looked like a grieving husband.

Over the years, I had begun to view Daemon differently. He was not the villain, the heartless tyrant, or the purely power-hungry man that simple stories preferred to make of him. In truth, I had come to believe he was one of the most misunderstood people in this universe. That did not make him harmless. It did not make him gentle. It did not wash away the violence, pride, or danger that lived in him as naturally as breath.

But he cherished family.

He may not have been the greatest parent, and love in Daemon often arrived armoured in mockery, impatience, and reckless lessons no sane nurse would approve. Yet he cherished those of his blood.

Rhaenyra, Jacaerys, my other children, Baela, Rhaena, even Viserys in ways too tangled for easy naming. He appeared before them with bravado and a certain level of cockiness, but beneath that you could glimpse the kindness and loyalty he tried very hard to pretend were not there.

Viserys reached his brother and placed a hand on his shoulder. "Brother, I am so sorry for your loss. When Aemma died, I felt as though a piece of myself had gone with her, and I know no words can fill the space left behind."

Daemon looked at him, and for a moment the old rivalry, old resentment, old love, and old wounds between them seemed to quiet under something simpler. His eyes softened. "Thank you for coming, brother. Laena deserved to be mourned by her blood, and by those who understood what she was."

His gaze then shifted to the group behind Viserys: myself, Rhaenyra, our children, Alicent, her children, Otto, and the many guards and attendants required whenever royal grief had to travel by ship.

Given the size of our party, Daemon could only offer us a nod of acknowledgement at the time, but his eyes lingered briefly on Rhaenyra and then on my sons before moving back to Baela and Rhaena.

The girls stood close together.

Baela, seven years old, had her chin raised as if daring anyone to pity her openly. Rhaena, five, looked smaller than she had the last time I saw her. Grief did that to children. It made the world too large around them.

After we were shown to our accommodations, everyone gathered on a rock face low and close to the sea. The air was sharp with salt, and the wind pulled at cloaks, veils, and mourning sleeves. Below us, the waves struck the dark stone in steady rhythm, as if the ocean had known before us how this day must sound.

At the centre of the gathering rested Laena Velaryon’s coffin.

It had been designed in her visage, and the carvings were intricate enough to make the wood seem almost alive. The shape of her face had been rendered with care, close enough to recall her beauty without becoming grotesque imitation. Sea horses curled along the sides. Waves had been carved beneath her folded hands. A dragon’s wing framed the upper portion, subtle but unmistakable.

Vaemond Velaryon appeared near the coffin, dressed in ceremonial garb marked with the seahorse of House Velaryon. He was the officiant of the funeral, and when he began the rites in High Valyrian, his voice carried strongly over the sound of the sea.

I disliked Vaemond. That did not make him poor at this.

"We gather at the seat of the sea to commit Lady Laena of House Velaryon to the eternal waters, to the dominion of the Merling King, who shall guard her in all days to come," Vaemond began.

The words moved over the rocks, formal and old, shaped by salt, blood, and tradition. His pronunciation was not perfect, but it held dignity, and dignity mattered more than perfection beside a coffin.

"As she sets to sea on her final voyage, Lady Laena leaves behind two true-born daughters of the shore. Though their mother shall not return from this voyage, they shall remain forever bound to her by blood, by memory, and by the sea that receives her."

Rhaena began to cry quietly. Baela did not.

Vaemond’s gaze moved briefly to the girls, and for all his pride, ambition, and sourness, the grief in his face was real. "My gentle niece, may the winds be as strong as your back, your seas as calm as your spirit, and your nets as full as your heart... From the sea we came, and to the sea we shall return."

The coffin began to move. Slowly, it slid down the ramp toward the water. No one spoke as it descended. The carved face of Laena Velaryon caught the grey light once, then the coffin plunged into the cold depths of the ocean, where her final voyage would begin.

I may have disliked Vaemond, but he was a good orator. It was difficult not to feel emotion stir as he spoke the rites. Around me, others felt it too. Viserys wept openly. Corlys looked like a man watching his own heart sink beneath the waves. Rhaenys stood still enough to make stone seem restless beside her.

Aegon appeared not to care. Helaena constantly looked at the crabs nearby.

They crept between the wet stones below the funeral ledge, claws lifted against the wash of the tide, concerned with scraps, salt, shelter, and whatever small purposes the gods gave creatures too low for banners. T

They did not care that Laena Velaryon had vanished beneath the waves. They did not care that the blood of Old Valyria stood gathered above them in mourning black, every family wound dressed well enough to pass for dignity.

"They are carrying pieces home," Helaena murmured.

Alicent leaned closer to her daughter, careful not to draw too much attention. "You should keep your voice low during the rites, Helaena. This is not the place for wandering thoughts, especially when your cousins are grieving."

Helaena blinked, as if only then remembering that other people heard words in a simpler way. "The crabs are not wandering, Mother. They take what falls and make use of it. Nothing is lost to them for long."

Alicent’s mouth tightened with the familiar strain of a mother who loved her daughter and did not know what to do with the shape that daughter’s mind had taken. She placed a hand lightly against Helaena’s arm, not quite silencing her and not quite comforting her either.

Aegon stood beside them with the empty expression of a boy who had discovered that funerals provided neither entertainment nor admiration. He shifted from one foot to the other, glanced toward the servants preparing wine higher along the path, and then looked back at the sea with the faint impatience of someone waiting for grief to finish making its point.

Aemond did not share his brother’s restlessness. Aemond watched Vhagar.

The old dragon lay beyond the gathered mourners, far enough from the coffin that no one could accuse her of interrupting the rites, close enough that no one on that shore forgot she was there.

Vhagar did not need to move to dominate a place. She rested half in shadow near a stony rise, immense and ancient, her wings folded like weathered sails, her hide carrying the dull green-brown of age, smoke, and old war. The younger dragons of our children were bright, restless, growing things. Vhagar looked less like a beast than a surviving piece of the Conquest.

Rhaena saw her too.

The girl stood close to Baela, one hand caught in the sleeve of her sister’s black dress. Baela held herself fiercely, chin high, eyes hard with a grief that refused to be seen pleading. Rhaena cried quietly, cheeks wet, her gaze moving between the water where her mother’s coffin had disappeared and the dragon who had once answered Laena’s voice.

There was no cruelty in Vhagar’s stillness. That made it worse.

A dragon did not mourn as men mourned. Perhaps she remembered Laena. Perhaps the bond between rider and dragon left some wound even in creatures too vast and old to show it in any way we understood. Perhaps Vhagar only breathed, waited, and endured, as dragons and mountains did.

I did not know. I only knew that Rhaena looked at her as if some part of her mother still lived in smoke and scale, too close to ignore and too terrible to approach. Aemond looked at the same dragon and saw something else.

He saw a door. That thought came to me too sharply for comfort.

I glanced toward him again. He had grown taller in the last year, though boys of that age seemed to grow in ambushes. His face had narrowed, and his silence had acquired edges. The absence that clung to him was not physical yet, but it had begun to define him all the same. In a family where children were measured by fire, the lack of a dragon was not a private disappointment. It was a public wound.

Aegon had Sunfyre. Helaena had Dreamfyre. Daeron had Tessarion. Our sons had Vermax, Arrax, Vhalalor, Tyraxes, and little Oyyaor. Baela had Moondancer.

Aemond had no dragon. Rhaena had no dragon. But grief made Rhaena smaller that day. Humiliation made Aemond taller.

After the rites, we moved back toward High Tide.

No one hurried. Mourning had its own pace, slow enough to be seen and dignified enough to excuse those who wished to watch others instead of grieve. The path up from the rock face was narrow in places, forcing families to gather and separate in small, revealing arrangements.

Velaryon guards kept the line orderly. Servants waited with cloaks, warm wine, and lowered eyes. The sea continued its work below us as if one more coffin had changed nothing. Perhaps to the sea, it had not.

Inside, the great hall of Driftmark felt too bright after the grey coast.

Braziers burned along the walls, casting gold over carved pillars and seahorse banners. Tables had been set, though the food remained mostly untouched at first. Grief made men perform restraint until hunger reminded them they were still bodies.

The adults gathered in clusters that looked accidental only to those who had never survived court. Velaryon near Velaryon. Rhaenyra near the King, which meant Alicent could not stand too far away without making distance visible.

Otto moved like a shadow that had learned manners.

He had aged in eight years, though not in any way that softened him. Some men shrank with age. Otto condensed. Every line on his face seemed placed there by calculation. He greeted Corlys with perfect sorrow, Rhaenys with careful respect, and Daemon with precisely enough sympathy to avoid insult while offering no warmth that could be mistaken for weakness.

Then his eyes found me. "Prince Othorion," he said, using the title with the careful precision of a man handling a tool he disliked but refused to let grow dull. "A grave day for House Velaryon, and for all who remember what Lady Laena represented."

"She deserved to be remembered as more than a symbol, Lord Otto," I replied. "Symbols are useful to the living, but the dead were people before we made them convenient."

His gaze rested on me a moment longer. "You always did prefer sharper terms than the room required, though I suppose grief allows a man some indulgence."

"I prefer honest ones when grief is already doing enough work without flattery joining it."

Otto’s mouth curved faintly. "Honesty has a way of sounding like accusation when spoken near mourning, my prince."

"Then I will leave accusation to men who came better prepared for it."

His eyes cooled, though his smile remained. Before he could answer, Viserys called for him, and Otto went with the smooth obedience of a man who knew retreat was not defeat if chosen before witnesses understood the field.

Rhaenyra appeared at my side shortly after, her eyes following Otto through the hall. "You enjoy reminding him that you see him, even when the rest of the room is trying very hard to pretend he is simply another grieving courtier."

"I enjoy very little about Otto Hightower," I said. "Reminding him that he is not invisible is simply good maintenance."

"That sounds dangerously close to enjoyment."

"It is possible I have developed poor habits in court."

Her gaze moved toward the alcove where the children had gathered. "He watched Jace and Luke during the rites. He watches all our sons as if trying to find where the gods made a mistake."

"The gods did not make the mistake he wanted," I said. "That leaves him searching for mistakes men can still be encouraged to make."

In the alcove, Baela stood with her arms folded and her chin raised, trying very hard not to cry where others could see it. Rhaena sat beside her with her hands in her lap, looking smaller than she should have.

Jacaerys stood near them, solemn and careful. Lucerys hovered close to Rhaena, as if he wanted to help but did not know where to put his hands. Rhaegar and Aerion stood together, which was rarely a peaceful arrangement.

Aemond stood apart from them all. His gaze kept moving toward the windows that faced the coast. Toward Vhagar.

"It was my mother’s dragon," Rhaena said quietly. "She rode Vhagar. She loved her."

Aemond looked at her, his face tight. "Dragons do not belong to dead people forever."

Baela’s head snapped toward him. "Do not say that to her. Not today."

"I only said the truth," Aemond replied. "Vhagar has no rider now."

Rhaena wiped at her cheek. "That does not mean you can talk about her like that."

Aemond’s mouth twisted. "You do not have a dragon either."

The words were childish. That made them crueller, not less.

Lucerys looked at him with open hurt. "You should not say things like that when her mother just died."

Aemond glanced at him. "You would say that. You have Arrax."

Jacaerys stepped forward. "Leave her alone, Aemond. This is a funeral."

Aemond’s face reddened. "You all say that because you all have dragons. You, Luke, your brothers, Baela. Everyone has one except me and her."

Aerion tilted his head. "Maybe dragons do not like boys who complain so much."

Rhaegar gave a small laugh before he could stop himself. Jacaerys turned on Aerion. "Do not make it worse. Father will hear you."

Aerion looked offended. "I was only answering him."

"You were being mean," Lucerys said.

Aemond took a step closer, his anger finding somewhere easier to stand. "At least I am a real prince. You are only sellsword princes."

That silenced them. Jacaerys went very still. Lucerys flushed. Rhaegar’s hand closed around Aerion’s sleeve, whether to hold him back or steady himself, I could not tell. Baela looked as if she might strike Aemond herself.

Aerion’s face changed first. "Take that back."

Aemond lifted his chin. "No. Everyone says it."

"No, they do not," Jacaerys said, though the hurt in his voice told me he knew that was not true.

Aemond looked at him with all the bitterness a dragonless boy could gather. "They do. They say your father bought soldiers, so now you all act like kings."

I reached them before any of my sons could answer. "This has gone far enough," I said.

Every child turned toward me.

Aemond’s face went pale, then red again. Aerion looked as if he wanted to defend himself and knew he would only make things worse. Jacaerys lowered his eyes, already ashamed because he was the eldest and believed that meant every quarrel was partly his failure.

"This is Lady Laena’s funeral," I said, keeping my voice calm because anger would only feed the thing already growing between them. "You are all old enough to know that grief is not a game and that another child’s pain is not something to prod because your own pride hurts."

Aemond swallowed but did not look away. I gave him credit for that, though not enough to spare him.

"You repeated an insult you heard from adults," I continued. "That does not make it clever, and it does not make it yours. It only proves you were listening to people who should have known better than to place such words near children."

Aerion opened his mouth. I looked at him. He closed it again. Then I turned to Rhaena and lowered myself before her. "I am sorry. This day has already taken enough from you."

Rhaena’s eyes filled again. "It was Mother’s dragon."

"Yes," I said. "Vhagar was your mother’s dragon."

"Will she miss her?"

I looked past the window, toward the dark shape of the coast beyond High Tide. "I do not know how dragons miss people. But I do not believe a bond like that leaves nothing behind."

Rhaena nodded slowly, as if the answer hurt but still gave her something to hold. Baela put an arm around her sister.

Aemond watched us.

He heard every word.

That was when I should have understood how dangerous comfort could be when given in front of the wrong hunger. I had told Rhaena that Vhagar’s bond with Laena mattered. I had acknowledged, before half the gathered children of House Targaryen and Velaryon, that something remained between rider and dragon after death.

To Rhaena, it was comfort. To Aemond, perhaps, it was challenge.

The rest of the evening stretched long.

Men drank because grief permitted it. Women spoke softly in corners because grief required it. Corlys remained mostly with old captains and kin, accepting condolences with the stiff endurance of a man who had taken too many blows to fall from only one more. Rhaenys spent time with Baela and Rhaena, touching their hair, their shoulders, their faces, as if reminding herself that not everything born of her blood had been returned to the sea.

Daemon vanished for a while. No one asked where.

When he returned, his boots were wet to the knee, and his eyes were red. He stood near the fire with a cup he did not drink from, and for once no one bothered him. Even Otto had enough sense to let a grieving dragon remain where it had settled.

The King tired before midnight.

Viserys tried to hide it, but his body betrayed him. His hand shook around his cup, and pain carved his mouth thin when he rose. Alicent was at his side before anyone else, one hand at his elbow, her face suddenly less queen than wife. Whatever else could be said of Alicent Hightower, she knew the King’s body better than any man in that hall except perhaps his maesters, and she guarded its failures with a loyalty too complicated to dismiss.

"I am well enough to walk, Alicent," Viserys said, trying for irritation and finding only weariness. "I would prefer not to be ordered to bed before half the hall, especially when we are guests beneath a grieving roof."

Alicent kept her hand at his arm. "Then allow yourself to be advised with dignity rather than forced by weakness. You are tired, Your Grace, and tired kings should not pretend fatigue is treason."

Viserys frowned, then sighed with the weary surrender of a man who had lost the battle before deciding whether to fight it. "You have become very difficult over the years."

Alicent’s expression softened. "I learned from court, and court has never been gentle in its instruction."

He laughed faintly, and that laugh became a cough. Rhaenyra watched them. So did I. The King endured, but endurance was not strength. It merely delayed the moment when weakness stopped asking permission.

When Viserys retired, much of the hall began to loosen. The formal weight of royal presence lifted, leaving smaller griefs, sharper conversations, and children being gathered by nurses who had long ago learned that noble blood did not make bedtime easier.

Rhaenyra took Viserys II herself. He had fallen asleep against her, wooden dragon still clutched in one hand. Lucerys went willingly with the younger boys, though he looked back toward Rhaena twice before disappearing into the corridor. Jacaerys lingered.

"Father, I know Aemond should not have said what he did," Jacaerys said quietly, "but Aerion also should not have answered him like that. I wanted to stop it before everyone heard."

"You are right on all three points," I said. "Aemond should not have spoken that insult, Aerion should not have sharpened the quarrel, and you were right to understand that public anger gives enemies more than it takes from them."

Jacaerys looked annoyed that justice had proved inconveniently balanced. "Are we sellsword princes?"

There were many answers. Some were comforting. Some were clever. Some were lies with polished boots. I chose the one he would be old enough to hate and young enough to remember.

"You are princes," I said. "You are also sons of a man who has sold swords. Men who dislike you will choose whichever word wounds best, because enemies rarely care whether a blade is clean if it cuts."

His brow furrowed. "What should I do when they say it?"

"You must decide what they want from you before you decide what to give them. If they are trying to make you angry, deny them haste. If they are trying to make you small, stand where all can see you and let them explain why they fear a boy."

He thought about that with painful seriousness. "What if I want to hit them?" he asked.

"Then you are alive," I said. "Do not confuse every living impulse with a command worth obeying."

Jacaerys almost smiled. "That sounds like something Mother would say, though Mother also hits people in the stories Uncle Daemon tells."

"Your mother is wise enough to be selective."

That earned the faint smile fully, though grief soon returned to his face. "Rhaena looked very sad, and I did not know how to help her."

"Sometimes you cannot help grief," I said. "You can only refuse to make it lonelier."

Jacaerys nodded. He went after his brothers a moment later, already carrying too much thought for eight years old.

I remained in the hall until the fires burned low.

By then, the children were gone, the King was asleep or pretending to be, and the great houses of Old Valyria had withdrawn into their assigned chambers with old resentments for company. Guards changed posts. Servants cleared untouched food. The sea kept striking the island as if trying to remind Driftmark that all stone was temporary given enough patience.

Rhaenyra found me near one of the windows. "Daemon is with the girls," she said. "For tonight, at least, he has remembered that grief should not be left to children alone."

"For tonight is sometimes all grief allows," I replied.

She looked outward. The glass reflected her face faintly over the black sea. "Aemond watched Vhagar all evening."

"I saw him."

"You are worried because this night resembles something you remember."

"I am worried because this night has all the pieces of a story I hoped to break, and I no longer trust the pieces to fall differently simply because I know their names."

She understood the difference.

Outside, beyond torchlight and window glass, the night lay heavy over Driftmark. Somewhere beyond the rocks, Vhagar slept or did not sleep. Perhaps the old dragon dreamed of Laena.

Perhaps dragons did not dream of the dead. Perhaps she only breathed smoke into the dark and waited for the next will strong, foolish, or desperate enough to approach her.

"Aemond is proud," Rhaenyra said.

"He is humiliated," I replied. "Pride is dangerous enough, but humiliation teaches it to look for witnesses."

"And Rhaena is grieving."

"That may be worse still."

I thought of two children without dragons standing in the shadow of one that had helped conquer the realm. One wounded by loss. One wounded by lack. Adults liked to think children’s pain was smaller because their bodies were smaller. That was one of the first lies families told themselves.

A door had opened. History remembered this night. I no longer trusted history to keep the same shape, but I trusted its cruelty to recognise opportunity.

"We should set guards near Vhagar," Rhaenyra said. "Not because we accuse anyone, but because grief has made everyone careless and the old dragon should not become part of another wound tonight."

"We should," I said. "I will speak with Corlys and make the order sound like caution rather than suspicion."

Rhaenyra caught my wrist before I could move. Her grip was firm. "You must choose the words carefully. This cannot sound like an accusation against Aemond, or against a grieving house, or against Daemon’s daughters. Not tonight."

"That leaves very few useful words."

"Then use the few that remain."

I looked at her hand on my wrist, then at her face. Eight years had changed her. Motherhood had not softened the steel in her. It had taught her where to place it.

"I will be careful," I said.

"You say that most often when you are preparing to be dangerous."

"Then I will be effective instead, which is usually what I mean."

"That is not the same comfort, but it is the truer one."

She released me. I had taken only a few steps toward the door when a sound moved through the night.

It was not loud at first. A low, distant rumble rolled across Driftmark, deep enough to stir the glass in its frame and old enough to make every guard in the corridor turn his head toward the dark. It came from beyond the rocks, beyond the place where mourners had stood over Laena’s coffin, beyond the sleeping chambers and the ordered grief of noble houses.

Vhagar had made a sound no one in High Tide could mistake for wind.

The rumble faded. Then it came again, longer this time, carrying something that was not grief and not rage, but too close to both for comfort.

Rhaenyra was beside me before I realised she had moved. No one spoke for several breaths.

Then, from somewhere deeper in High Tide, a servant shouted that Prince Aemond was missing.

The night opened its mouth.