Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 75: Chapter 75: Before the Cry

Seven months passed without blood being spilt in a royal hall, which was close enough to peace for men who mistook quiet for healing.

The Red Keep adjusted itself around Driftmark as a tree grows around an axe wound. The scar remained. Courtiers learned which names to avoid, which glances to soften, and how far to stand from boys who had once fought in a cave beneath a dead woman’s funeral.

Alicent’s household grew more guarded. Otto’s smiles became more precise. Ser Curtis Crakehall remained dutiful, polished, and near enough to Aemond that the prince’s shadow seemed to wear white.

My own days did not become easier. They became ordered.

I wrote to Black Rat at Dragonstone, to Grey Worm, to lords who answered slowly and lords who answered too quickly. I trained when my side allowed it and when it did not. I stood beside Rhaenyra at feasts, councils, garden gatherings, and stiff little meals where half the room congratulated her pregnancy while the other half measured what another child might mean.

I watched my sons grow by inches, bruises, questions, and small acts of stubbornness. I taught them High Valyrian whenever time could be stolen from duty, and I learned that no battlefield tested patience quite like five boys arguing over whether a mispronounced word still counted if the speaker had meant well.

Jacaerys turned nine before the fifth month ended.

He took the age seriously, as if nine were not a number but an office. On the morning of his nameday, he appeared at breakfast with his hair combed too neatly, his shoulders held too straight, and an expression copied from men three times his age. Rhaenyra saw it first and hid her smile behind her cup. I did not hide mine quickly enough.

Jace noticed. "You are amused because I am trying to behave properly," he said, with the controlled patience of a boy determined not to sound offended and failing by half.

"I am amused because you look as if you expect someone to ask you to settle a border dispute before the porridge is served," I replied.

Rhaenyra lowered her cup. "Your father is being unkind, but not entirely inaccurate."

Jace frowned at both of us, then glanced down at his sleeves as if they had betrayed him. "I only thought I should look more responsible now that I am nine."

"Nine is a fine age," Rhaenyra said. "It is not yet an age that requires you to look as though joy has been taxed."

Aerion leaned around Rhaegar to inspect his older brother. "If joy is taxed, Jace will pay all of ours because he is the heir and heirs pay for things."

Rhaegar sighed with the weary dignity of a child who believed himself surrounded by fools. "That is not how taxes work, and you should not speak about matters you clearly do not understand."

"I understand that Jace looks like a sad lord," Aerion replied. "That seems important."

Jace tried not to smile. He lost.

The stiffness did not leave him entirely after that morning, but it changed shape. He still wanted to be seen as worthy. He still listened too hard when men spoke of succession, dragons, or loyalty. Yet training gave that hunger somewhere useful to go.

Ser Arryk liked him more than he admitted.

I saw it in the care he took correcting him, in the way he never allowed praise to become sweet enough to soften the boy, and in how he pushed Jace one step further each week. Jace learned footwork first, then measure, then patience. He was not the strongest boy in the yard, nor the quickest, but he began to show something more valuable than either. He remembered instruction. He hated repeating mistakes more than he hated being struck.

"You are improving," Ser Arryk told him one morning after Jace managed to hold a line through three clean exchanges.

Jace flushed with pleasure. "I felt steadier that time, though I nearly turned my wrist too soon on the second pass."

"You did turn it too soon, my prince, but this time you noticed before I had to tell you. That is progress worth keeping."

Jace looked as if he had been given a jewel.

Lucerys grew differently.

He did not excel. Not yet. Perhaps not ever in the way Jace might. His gift was not hunger for mastery, but endurance of discomfort without letting it make him cruel. The flinch near his face did not vanish all at once.

It retreated slowly, after weeks of careful repetition with Ser Erryk, after dull blades moved near his cheek and stopped being the cave each time, after he learned to breathe before his body could flee.

Some days were better than others. On bad days, he grew quiet and ashamed. On better days, he asked to try again before Ser Erryk could suggest it. That mattered more than any clean strike.

One afternoon, I watched him hold his guard while Ser Erryk’s practice blade passed close enough to stir a strand of silver hair near his temple. Luke’s shoulders tightened, but his eyes stayed open. He stepped back only as far as needed and brought his sword across with a late, awkward block.

Ser Erryk lowered his blade. "That was steadier than last week, my prince. Not perfect, but honest work rarely looks perfect while it is being made."

Luke breathed out slowly. "I wanted to move farther back, but I remembered what you said about giving ground only when I choose it."

"You remembered well. Fear may speak first, but it does not have to command."

Luke looked across the yard and found me watching. He did not grin. He was too self-conscious for that. But his mouth softened, and the practice sword settled more naturally in his hand.

I nodded once. His back straightened a little.

The twins turned six in a storm of noise, argument, and cake stolen before it was meant to be served.

Rhaegar became more watchful with each passing month. He listened from corners, asked questions that began simply and ended somewhere uncomfortable, and had developed the habit of studying adults as if they were texts written in a language he had almost learned.

Aerion, by contrast, treated life as a door that opened faster when kicked. He climbed where he should not, spoke when silence would have saved him trouble, and laughed so freely that even the servants forgave him too often.

Their dragons grew with them.

Vermax became broader through the shoulders and less tolerant of handlers who approached carelessly. Arrax remained smaller, pale and quick, never far from Luke’s attention. Vhalalor watched Rhaegar with a stillness that made the dragonkeepers uneasy. Tyraxes snapped at shadows, buckets, and once at Aerion’s cloak, which Aerion insisted was proof of affection rather than poor discipline. Little Oyyaor remained attached to Viserys with the devotion of a creature who believed the world was made of food, warmth, and one solemn child with soft hands.

Our youngest son turned four during those months and became convinced that High Valyrian existed mainly to let him rename household objects. Cups remained dragons. Chairs were sometimes ships. Once, with great confidence, he informed Rhaenyra that her embroidery frame was a goat.

Rhaenyra laughed until she had to press a hand to her belly. "You encourage him too much," she told me afterwards, still smiling as Viserys marched away with his nurse and his conquered cup.

"I encourage linguistic bravery," I said. "Accuracy can follow later, once he stops declaring war on furniture."

She rested against the window seat, one hand over the swell of her pregnancy. It had become impossible to hide by then, and she no longer tried. Pregnancy suited her in a way that made the court soften around her and sharpen behind her back.

Men looked at her and saw abundance, legitimacy, danger. Women offered congratulations and calculated futures. Viserys glowed whenever he saw her. Alicent praised the gods with perfect courtesy and tired eyes.

Rhaenyra followed my gaze toward the yard below, where Jace and Luke were finishing their lesson. "You watch them as if you can measure how much danger each month has taken from them."

"I watch because measuring is easier than trusting," I replied.

"That sounds like something Vaeron would say before accusing sentiment of poor accounting."

"Vaeron would add a column for sentiment and then complain when it refused to balance."

Her smile faded slightly, though not into sorrow. Vaeron’s absence sat with us often, quiet but present. His letters from Essos came regularly, full of profit, caution, and dry remarks about Braavosi paymasters who counted coins as though each one contained a trapped ancestor.

Celeste remained on Dragonstone with Aegor and Vaerya, and Black Rat’s reports kept the island disciplined in Vaeron’s absence. Still, there were days I missed my brother’s bluntness more than I expected.

Daemon began bringing Baela and Rhaena to the capital more often as the months passed.

He never called the visits what they were. He did not say he wished his daughters to grow used to the boys they would one day marry, nor that he wanted to see the court with his own eyes, nor that Driftmark had left him restless in ways even Caraxes could not burn out of him. He arrived, smiled like a man who had heard a private joke at the court’s expense, and let his daughters loose among my sons under watchful eyes.

Baela and Jace became competitive almost immediately.

She refused to treat him as delicate because he was the heir, and Jace did not know whether to be offended or grateful. She raced him across courtyards, challenged him over dragon lore, and laughed when he tried to sound too solemn. If he spoke like a future king, she answered like a future queen who had not yet agreed to be impressed.

During one visit, Jace explained to her that Vermax had begun responding better to commands given before mounting rather than after. He spoke carefully, as if presenting before council.

Baela listened with her arms folded. "That is useful, but Moondancer listens because she respects me and because I do not sound as though I am giving a speech to a table of old men."

Jace blinked. "I do not sound like that."

"You do when you are trying very hard to be important."

"I am not trying to be important. I am trying to be clear."

"Then be clear more quickly," Baela said, and ran before he could answer.

Jace chased her, indignant and laughing despite himself.

Rhaena and Lucerys found each other more quietly.

She did not press him about Driftmark. He did not speak of Vhagar unless she did first. They walked in gardens, fed scraps to the dragonkeepers’ cats, and spoke in the cautious, gentle way of children who understood that some subjects were not avoided out of indifference but respect.

Rhaena noticed things. She noticed when Luke stood steadier in the yard. She noticed when his face changed at the sound of Aemond’s name. She noticed the difference between being protected and being smothered.

One afternoon, after watching him train with Ser Erryk, she waited until he had wiped the sweat from his brow and put away his practice sword.

"You did not close your eyes today," she said.

Luke looked down at his hands, embarrassed but pleased. "I almost did when Ser Erryk moved too quickly, but I remembered to breathe first."

"That seems like a good thing to remember."

"It is harder than it sounds."

"I know," Rhaena said. "When people say Vhagar’s name, I remember to breathe too."

Luke looked at her then, and whatever answer he had prepared changed before it reached his tongue. "I am sorry that he took her that night."

Rhaena did not answer quickly. Her gaze moved toward the distant line of the Dragonpit beyond the walls, though Vhagar was not there and never would be contained by such a place.

"She was not mine because I wanted her," Rhaena said at last. "I know that now. I still hate knowing it."

Luke nodded. "I think there are things people say are true because they are, but that does not make them kind."

Rhaena looked back at him. "That sounds like something your father would say."

"It probably is," Luke admitted. "He says many things, and some of them stay in my head even when I do not ask them to."

From the archway, Daemon watched them with an expression difficult to name. He had grown thinner since Laena’s death, not weak, never that, but drawn tighter around the edges. Grief did not soften him. It made him quieter, which was worse. When he noticed me beside him, he tilted his head toward the children.

"They look less miserable than I expected," he said.

"That is high praise from you."

"I am known for generosity when the mood takes me."

"The mood must be rare."

Daemon’s mouth curved. "It is more valuable that way."

We stood in silence for a while. Baela had caught Jace by the sleeve and was accusing him of cheating in a race he had not known had formal rules. Rhaena and Luke spoke softly near the fountain, their heads bent close enough to make the betrothal feel less like ink and more like something that might one day have roots.

Daemon’s amusement faded. "Do not let the court make weapons of them before they understand the cost."

"I am trying to give them enough childhood to survive being born who they are."

"That is not an answer."

"It is the only honest one I have."

He accepted that, which from Daemon was nearly kindness.

Then the Stormlands changed.

The raven came near dusk, carried in with other letters but sealed in black. Lord Boremund Baratheon had died in his sleep at Storm’s End, old enough that no man could call it murder and important enough that every faction in the realm would feel the ground shift beneath his passing.

I read the message twice.

Rhaenyra sat across from me, her pregnancy heavy enough now that she moved with care but not complaint. She knew before I spoke. Perhaps she saw it in my face. Perhaps she had been waiting for this loss since the first time I named Boremund one of our best hopes.

"Borros is Lord of Storm’s End now," she said.

"Yes."

"He is not his father."

"No, and the realm rarely has the courtesy to replace useful old men with sons of equal sense."

She took the letter from me and read it herself. "You should go."

"I had intended to suggest it."

"You intended to suggest it in a way that made it sound like a military necessity rather than an absence from your very pregnant wife."

"That is because I value remaining alive in this marriage."

Rhaenyra looked up from the letter, and for a moment the heaviness between us eased. "Wise enough, then. Go to Storm’s End. Be seen mourning Boremund properly, speak with Borros carefully, and return before this child decides to arrive without you."

"I will make no promises on behalf of a child who already kicks as though impatient with council procedure."

"She kicks when you read letters aloud because she has better judgement than most lords."

I looked at her belly, then back at her. "She?"

Rhaenyra’s expression became deliberately innocent. "Your king hopes for a granddaughter, and I have decided not to argue with him before the gods prove otherwise."

Viserys did hope for a girl. He had said so too often, with that aching softness that made refusal feel cruel even when no one had asked anything of us. A granddaughter, he thought, would be a blessing untouched by rivalry. He had not learned that this family could make rivalry out of anything.

I left for Storm’s End two days later with a small escort, enough dignity to honour the occasion and not enough force to look like suspicion. Rhaenyra watched me depart from the steps, one hand resting over the child and the other raised in farewell. I had faced raiders in mountain passes with less reluctance than I felt leaving her then.

Storm’s End received us with rain.

It came sideways across the cliffs, carried by wind that made banners snap like whips. The castle rose out of the storm as it always had, broad, brutal, and enduring, a fist of stone against sea and sky. Boremund had suited that place. Borros did too, though in a different way. His father had been weathered strength. The son felt more like a closed gate.

The funeral filled the great hall with black wool, wet cloaks, old banners, and the smell of salt carried in by every open door. Boremund lay beneath the crowned stag of his house, his face stern even in death.

Age had taken him, not fear, not poison, not a sword in the dark. There was dignity in that. In King’s Landing, men died surrounded by whispers. At Storm’s End, Boremund Baratheon had gone to the Stranger in his own bed while the sea battered the walls outside.

Borros accepted my condolences with the courtesy owed to rank.

"My father held great respect for the Princess Rhaenyra," he said, standing beneath the storm banners of his house. "He remembered Queen Aemma fondly and spoke often of old ties."

"Your father was a man whose word carried weight because he did not spend it carelessly," I replied. "Rhaenyra grieves his passing, and so does the King."

Borros’s face did not change much. "The King honours my house by remembering him."

The words were proper. The warmth was not there.

I did not press. A funeral was a poor place to demand friendship from a man measuring the size of his new seat. Borros had his father’s pride without his father’s settled confidence. Men like that could be won, but not by reminding them of the shadow they had inherited.

Manfred Dondarrion found me after the rites, near a side chamber where the noise of the hall had thinned, and the storm pressed against the shutters. He looked older than when I had last seen him at Blackhaven, though not weaker. Age had settled on him like armour left too long in smoke.

"My prince," he said, clasping my forearm. "You came quickly."

"Lord Boremund deserved that much."

"He deserved more than dying before his son learned patience, but the Stranger does not consult me."

I almost smiled. "Few men are brave enough."

Manfred grunted, which from him might have been amusement. "Borros is not hostile to you, not yet. He is proud, new to lordship, and surrounded by men telling him that every courtesy offered to Dragonstone is a chain around his wrist."

"That sounds very much like hostility being taught to walk."

"It can still be interrupted before it learns to run."

He led me deeper into the chamber, where three men waited with cups untouched in their hands. Lord Selmy of Harvest Hall was lean, grave, and watchful, with the look of a man who listened before deciding how much of himself to reveal. Lord Swann of Stonehelm had broader shoulders and a courtier’s polish over a marcher’s caution. Lord Tarth of Evenfall Hall was younger than the others, blue-eyed and composed, his cloak still damp from the rain.

Manfred did not waste time. "You know Prince Othorion," he said to them. "If you do not, you know the Red Pass Road remains safer because he buried men there instead of excuses."

Lord Selmy inclined his head. "Harvest Hall remembers when trade could move again without every cartmaster hiring twice the guard and praying twice as hard."

"The road was held by many hands," I said. "Blackhaven’s among them."

Manfred gave me a look that suggested he had no patience for elegant modesty. "The prince brought disciplined spears when discipline was scarce. Let the man be thanked without trying to divide the gratitude into smaller pieces."

Lord Swann’s mouth twitched. "Lord Dondarrion warned us you were difficult to praise."

"He may have mistaken discomfort for difficulty."

"That is often how men describe humility when it stands too near pride," Lord Tarth said.

I looked at him more closely. "Evenfall breeds philosophers now?"

"Only when the weather traps us indoors."

The exchange eased the room by a fraction.

We spoke for nearly an hour. Not of rebellion. Not of war. Not openly of succession, though every word walked near it. Lord Selmy spoke of marcher roads and the importance of predictable royal support. Lord Swann spoke of ship movements along the southern coast, of merchants who listened carefully to rumours before deciding where to risk their cargo.

Lord Tarth asked after Rhaenyra’s health and then, more carefully, after the King’s. None of them pledged anything. Pledges made too early were often worth less than the breath spent on them.

Still, they listened.

They wanted to know whether Rhaenyra remembered houses that were not great enough to dominate councils but old enough to matter when banners were called. They wanted to know whether the sons of my body would be raised as princes who understood obligation beyond birth. They wanted to know whether the foreign swords at my back answered to my ambition or to order.

I gave them enough truth to be useful.

"Rhaenyra will need lords who speak honestly more than lords who flatter loudly," I told them. "The realm has enough men eager to praise whoever seems strongest by sunset. I have little use for such loyalty, and neither does she."

Lord Selmy studied me over his untouched cup. "Honesty is easier to request than endure."

"I know. That is why I value men who have already survived speaking it."

Manfred snorted. "He means me, though he is too polite to burden the room by saying so."

"In your case, my lord, honesty travels with enough force that no man could miss it."

Lord Swann laughed then, not loudly, but genuinely. Lord Tarth smiled. Lord Selmy’s severity softened at the edges.

It was not victory. It was an opening.

Before I left the chamber, Manfred drew me aside. The others withdrew with enough tact to pretend they were not doing exactly that.

"Boremund’s death hurts you," he said.

"Yes."

"Do not waste grief trying to make Borros into his father. Speak to the stormlords beneath him. Respect him, do not corner him, and give his pride fewer reasons to run toward Oldtown for comfort."

"That sounds like advice purchased by long suffering."

"I have known Baratheons all my life. They are thunder given appetite."

I looked toward the hall, where Borros stood surrounded by men already teaching him how much his favour was worth. "Will Selmy, Swann, and Tarth hold if the realm breaks?"

Manfred’s expression hardened. "No man knows who holds until breaking begins. But they listened today, and listening is the first thing pride forgets."

I returned to King’s Landing with rain still in my cloak and Storm’s End in my thoughts.

Rhaenyra received me in our chambers, standing because she refused to be found reclining like a fragile thing, though one hand braced against the back of a chair. Her belly seemed lower than when I had left. Or perhaps fear made me see signs everywhere.

"You look tired," she said.

"I rode through enough rain to make the sea seem unnecessary."

"That is not an answer, but it is descriptive enough to be forgiven."

I kissed her brow, then her mouth. "Boremund was honoured well. Borros was courteous and cold. Manfred helped me speak with Selmy, Swann, and Tarth."

"Useful?"

"Potentially. They will not leap because I smiled at them over funeral wine, but they are not deaf to us."

"Then the journey was worth taking."

I looked down at her hand over the child. "Was it worth leaving you?"

"For three weeks, yes. For four, I might have become unreasonable."

"You are often unreasonable sooner than that."

Rhaenyra’s eyes narrowed in a way that would have concerned a wiser man. "I am carrying your child, my prince. Choose your next words with the care of a man who enjoys breathing."

"I meant that your reason is so formidable it overwhelms lesser minds and appears unreasonable only to the weak."

She considered me, then laughed despite herself. "That was shameless."

"That was survival."

The child moved beneath her hand. Rhaenyra’s laughter faded into a softer expression, one that belonged neither to court nor crown nor faction. She took my hand and placed it where hers had been. The kick came again, firm and impatient.

"She knows your voice," Rhaenyra said.

"She objects to it."

"She has taste, then."

The next weeks tightened around us.

Rhaenyra’s time grew near. Viserys visited often, sometimes with gifts too delicate for a child not yet born: a silver rattle, a soft blanket embroidered with dragons, a tiny pendant shaped like a three-headed dragon that made Rhaenyra sigh after he left because it was beautiful, impractical, and heavy with all his hopes.

Alicent came as well, proper and composed, offering prayers for safe delivery. Her courtesy was flawless. Her eyes lingered once on Rhaenyra’s belly with an old grief quickly hidden. I did not comment on it. Some wounds did not become less real because they belonged to someone dangerous.

The children grew restless as the household shifted into the anxious rhythm before birth. Jace asked questions about whether babes always came at night or whether that was only in stories.

Luke became gentler around Rhaenyra, bringing cushions without being asked. Rhaegar watched the maester with suspicion. Aerion wanted to know whether the child would be born knowing High Valyrian if we spoke it loudly enough through Mother’s belly. Viserys asked whether the babe could share his cup-dragon.

Rhaenyra answered all of them with more patience than any council had ever received. Then, before dawn on a grey morning, her pains began.

The chamber changed at once.

Maids moved with quiet urgency. The midwife was summoned. The maester arrived and was nearly sent away twice by Rhaenyra before being allowed to remain where he could be useful and not irritating.

My sons were taken to another room despite their protests, though Jace tried to stand his ground until Rhaenyra told him, with remarkable calm for a woman in labour, that obedience would comfort her more than hovering.

I was permitted inside at first.

Rhaenyra gripped my hand hard enough to make the bones grind. Sweat dampened her hairline. Her face was pale, but her eyes were clear and furious, as if birth were an enemy she intended to defeat by refusing it the satisfaction of seeing her afraid.

"You have commanded men in battle," she said through clenched teeth. "Tell me honestly whether they complained this much while being wounded."

"Most of them complained with less eloquence."

"That is because most of them lacked my education."

The midwife gave me a look that suggested I should either be useful or remove myself before I became an obstacle. When the next pain took Rhaenyra, all humour went from her face. She folded around it, breath sharp, hand crushing mine.

I could do nothing.

That was the cruelty of it. No sword could answer. No letter could prepare terms. No guard could take the danger from the room and throw it down the stairs. I could stand beside her, speak when she needed my voice, and endure the knowledge that endurance was not the same as protection.

After a time, the midwife pressed her lips together and looked toward me. "My prince, it would be better if you waited outside now. The princess needs space, and we need room to work."

Rhaenyra’s grip tightened before I could answer. For one moment, I thought she would refuse. Then she drew a breath, mastered herself, and looked at me with pain-bright eyes.

"Go before I decide I want you blamed for all of this," she said.

I bent and kissed her damp forehead. "I will be just outside the door."

"You had better be, because if you wander off to write a letter during this, I will have you dragged back by the ear."

"I would not dare risk the midwife’s opinion of me falling any lower."

Rhaenyra managed something close to a smile before the next pain stole it.

Then I was outside. The door closed between us.

I stood in the corridor with my hands empty at my sides. Ser Lorent Marbrand waited nearby. Two Unsullied stood at the far end, still as carved stone. The keep beyond was beginning to wake, servants moving softly, whispers already travelling faster than footsteps.

Somewhere, my sons were waiting with questions no one could answer yet. Somewhere, Viserys would soon be told. Somewhere, Alicent and Otto would learn that another child was arriving into a family already too full of claims, wounds, and dragons.

Behind the door, Rhaenyra cried out.

I had stood before armies, kings, sellswords, and dragons. I had faced drawn steel without stepping back. I had watched men die by my orders and written their names afterwards so they would not vanish entirely into numbers.

Yet outside my wife’s chamber, listening to her pain with nothing to command and no enemy to strike, I felt more useless than I ever had in battle.

So I waited. And on the other side of the door, our future fought its way into the world.