Not long after our arrival to Winterfell Bran had insisted to speak with me, Daenerys and anyone we deemed necessary. So once all the immediate preparation for the impending battle with the Night King and his army were dealt with all parties gathered in the grand hall.
What my little brother said though, was something no one was prepared to hear. Bran shared the truth about the union of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, and about me, my true heritage. Once he finished explaining the room was completely silent; everyone stunned and stuck within their own thought.
'Aegon Targaryen,' my true name echoes in my head like some bad afterthought. 'I'm not a bastard, I'm not even a Stark, or I am but…' then a truly painful realization came, 'I'm not Ned Stark's son.'
With those words I had the urge to look up, to see the sisters and brother that are not actually my siblings. But they were still my family, my true family, maybe even more so than before. But that doesn't change the past, except that I was never actually the Bastard of Winterfell. I am a true born Stark, just not of the Stark I thought, the one I yearned to accept me as a member of his house.
I continue to watch my siblings… or cousins, more accurately; Sansa and Arya seemed to be processing the information in their own, quiet, ways. I looked to them for answers but my attention shifted once more when I got a glimpse of silvery hair and new kind of ache consumed me.
'Daenerys,' my heart started calling out for her but, oh Gods she is my blood. 'She's my aunt,' but even as this realization is trying to sink in there is the endless echo of yearning I feel for her. What we have shared wasn't just mindless lust or passion; being close to her, getting touch her, to feel the warmth of her skin, it had become a need.
And now. We knew it was dangerous from the start but now it had just become much more... twisted. Yet in truth, somehow it still doesn't seem wrong, just complicated. Despite myself, I can't help but wonder about all the inbred Targaryen's, stories about how even after all these centuries, their blood... but that train of thought was also broken with, 'my blood, our blood.' And once again I find myself looking over at Daenerys, searching for something I know I won't find.
This time though the inner turmoil that resulted didn't last long; it was quickly interrupted when Tyrion Lannister tried to comfort the stoic, dragon queen.
"Your grace this may complicate things but it doesn't have to change anything," began Tyrion, in his calming yet confident tone, "I know what you must be thinking but-"
"You know what I'm thinking," scoffed Daenerys.
"Your grace I only meant-" but he wasn't going to get the chance to explain himself.
"Yes, please enlightenment me about what I am thinking," her growing fury evident in every word she spoke, "tell me the thoughts running through my mind about the news that my entire family was slaughtered for a lie."
I have never seen Daenerys like this. She was shaking in fury but there was something else underneath it, something almost lost.
"Why don't you tell me how I feel about finding out that my life has been manipulated because of nothing," she continued, "except what, a petty man's jealousy."
I had yet to even consider that. The real ramifications of Lyanna and Rhaegar's relationship was more than anyone would have wanted to imagine; everything that has happened over the years, the rebellions, the bloodshed, the wars, they were all results of something as mundane as misinformation.
What started it, who fanned the flames of Robert's Rebellion, we may never know what happened. But one thing was clear, everything I had ever been told, that any of us had been told, it was all based on lies.
As much as this all troubled me though, I can't help the way my heart once again reaches out for Daenerys. She may have been radiating her own form of rage but, even from a distance, I can notice the heartbreak hidden in her eyes.
"I accepted that my father was a madman, that it was necessary for his people to betray my family," Daenerys's anger was subsiding and she was beginning to regain her stony demeanour but all I heard was the hurt attempting to crack through, "but what I.. what I can't accept, what I have never understood is why my entire family had to be executed in the process."
Bran's revelation didn't just change my story; the things that defined so many lives, hell the things that have defined all of Westeros these last years. It was all different now.
"Your grace-" Tyrion tried again but there was no point.
"You knew him," she interjected this time, this time the sense of betrayal laced her voice, "all the lords and knights that raised their swords against Rhaegar and then sullied any good that remained in his name. They all knew him yet they still all joined in destroying my brother's memory, my family's legacy."
I could feel myself wanting to apologize, and from the looks of it I wasn't the only one. Though Daenerys's words were directed at Tyrion, the things she said rang true for all of them. For every person that tried to ruin the history of House Targaryen.
"My House nearly disappeared," she stated, emotions once again leaving her, "it's memory tainted forever and now I'm being told it was all a lie."
"Tell me how you understand," her final words were as sharp and cold as the day we met, "explain to me how you know how I feel."