Please bear me if this chapter contains a bit of an info dump. I've got one hell of a foundation to build for this story. Anyone who wants to ask a question or engage in further discussion for this story can find a link to the forum on my profile.
Aerys did not know when his court had started to rot from the inside out, but he knew it had started when Tywin Lannister, once his loyal friend, had begun to covet power beyond even that of the Hand.
The kingdom whispered Aerys was mad even when he smoked out and executed the rumor-mongers, but Aerys was not blind. Tywin had boldly requested his daughter marry the Prince of Dragonstone even as he made arrangements to betroth his heir to the younger Tully girl. The older trout was promised to Lord Stark's heir just as Lord Stark's bitch was promised to Robert Baratheon. Jon Arryn had only a nephew and a brood of lesser nieces, but he had fostered Robert Baratheon to turn him against his own royal cousins.
Such an unholy alliance between the realm's strongest houses gave them unprecedented influence over the Iron Throne.
Aerys had tried to subvert them as best he could. His attempts to seek a foreign bride for Rhaegar, one unconnected to the viper's nest of Westerosi alliances, had failed. Elia Martell's distant dragon blood provided him the excuse to tie his treacherous firstborn to the weakest kingdom instead of the wealthiest. Inducting Jaime Lannister into the Kingsguard had both robbed Tywin of his heir and provided Aerys a valuable hostage.
When Elia had died, Aerys had acted just in time to wed the Stark bitch to Rhaegar instead of Robert Baratheon. Despite its size, the North was a distant and sparsely populated land. Lyanna was a heathen and had few friends south of the Wall. Her presence at court coerced her father and his fellow conspirators into compliance.
Yet no matter how many serpents Aerys slew, more always slithered out of the woodwork. It was no accident Robert Baratheon had woken up the day after Rhaegar's second wedding with a deflowered Tyrell girl in his bed or married to her a month later.
Aerys had hoped to one day overthrow Rhaegar's influence entirely and appoint Viserys, his true heir, as the new Prince of Dragonstone.
If he could not cure the infection through gentle means, then he would burn it out. Rhaella and Viserys had been sent away. When Rhaegar marched into King's Landing for his bloodless revolution, the city would ignite, and the boy would finally die in the blaze that should have killed him at Summerhall.
But reckless Rhaegar had acted too soon. Rossart and his pyromancers had not had the time to seed King's Landing with wildfire. There was perhaps enough stored beneath the Red Keep to ensure anyone inside it burned.
The footsteps pounding down the passage were gaining. Aerys knew he could not reach the main stockpile in time. Rhaegar's men would kill him on the spot and claim he'd broken his neck during the chase. Perhaps he'd be confined to his chambers, stripped of his crown, and then smothered in his sleep when the realm had forgotten him.
Aerys was a dragon, and dragons did not run or die cowering in the dark. They punished all who thought differently with fang and fire.
"Fire cannot kill a dragon," Aerion Brightflame had once said. Then he drank a cup of wildfire and died screaming.
But Aerion had been mad, a pretender prince, no true dragon. Aerys was a cornered king about to be captured and killed by his own treacherous firstborn. If the gods were to ever decree fire could transform a man into a dragon, this was that time.
Aerys fumbled with the small jar he had and cursed his trailing nails. "If I cannot rise from this a dragon, let me die as one. May Rhaegar's sons prove just as treacherous as he. May they deny him such a glorious end."
His pursuers rounded the corner. He laughed as he saw them headed by Ser Gerold Hightower.
"My own Lord Commander has come to kill me," Aerys said calmly. "Do not pretend you mean otherwise."
Ser Gerold raised his hands. "I mean no such thing, Your Grace. Your son-"
"Hah!" Aerys spat. "Rhaegar does not know the true meaning of 'Fire and Blood.' Allow me to show you."
He threw the jar of wildfire down at his own feet. Flames warm and green as summer erupted around him. Aerys laughed as his robes and beard caught alight. The fire was but cleansing him of his mortal impurities.
"Fire cannot kill a dragon."
Then he lunged upon the White Bull and showed him how dragons treated their prey.
Rhaegar was dismayed but unsurprised to learn his father had died laughing. After his imprisonment at Duskendale, the King had thought daggers behind every corner and every man out to get him. The aftermath of Duskendale had also kindled the King's pyromania that had ultimately consumed him.
Poor Ser Gerold had been identified by his formidable size and the charred remnants of his white armor. The terrible burns and horror stories of his few surviving men helped quell any rumors Rhaegar himself was behind the King's death.
However tragic the circumstances behind his coronation, Rhaegar was crowned and anointed without incident. He purposefully wore the humble gold band of the third Aegon, the same worn by his great-grandfather, the beloved King Aegon V. Then he could finally begin mending the bridges his father had burned.
Lyanna carried not only ice in her veins, the same ice she would pass down to Visenya, but the blood of the Starks. Brandon, her oldest brother, had killed himself in a drunken riding accident mere days after her royal betrothal was announced. Her second brother, Eddard, had thus married Brandon's betrothed. The birth of Robb Stark to Catelyn Tully had firmly bound her family to Winterfell and thus to the Iron Throne.
Rhaegar had briefly considered naming Rickard his Hand but had ultimately discarded the thought. Most people south of the Neck already complained there was already too much Northern influence at court. He settled for naming Rickard master of laws. Hoster Tully was a southron, a member of the Faith, and a skilled politician. He made a far less controversial Hand of the King.
Tywin Lannister's list of grievances against the crown were many and arguably justified. Releasing Jaime from his service (for the new Lord Commander, Barristan Selmy, had reluctantly approved of such) and naming Kevan Lannister master of coin had only mollified him somewhat. At least Jaime's swift marriage to Lysa Tully prevented him from protesting Hoster's appointment.
Oberyn Martell bayed for king's blood, but it was levelheaded Doran that ruled in Dorne. Rhaegar assured him his second marriage to Lyanna had been quick for all of their liking, but no one could replace Elia. No matter the children born to his second wife, of course Aegon and Jaehaerys, Elia's sons, were first in line for the Iron Throne. Doran had requested Rhaenys or Jaehaerys be fostered in Sunspear. Despite the age difference, he had even suggested a betrothal between Arianne and Jaehaerys.
Rhaegar couldn't risk Rhaenys. Jaehaerys may have been a superfluous son in the eyes of the prophecy, but in the eyes of the realm he was second-in-line to the crown. Dorne would not turn his own son against him. Now that the succession had been fixed, Rhaegar had been comfortable offering Viserys as a suitable alternative to both fostering in Sunspear and a betrothal to Arianne. Doran was proving amenable to it.
Mace Tyrell was a solid loyalist, though a bit too vocal in how beautiful little Margaery was. His good-brother, Lord Paxter Redwyne, made a fine master of ships.
Robert Baratheon had reportedly been furious upon learning his betrothal to Lyanna had been broken. Jon Arryn had calmed him down enough to attend their wedding. Rhaegar dimly remembered his cousin drinking away his sorrows. It was no surprise to him Rhaegar had thus stolen young Janna Tyrell's maidenhead. They were wed a month later and their daughter born eight months after.
And they're already expecting a second child! Why not Lyanna?
Rhaegar had come dangerously close to losing a second wife in childbirth. The maesters assured him that, with rest, she would be capable of bearing more children in the future. For now, their dark-haired and gray-eyed son remained their only child. Lyanna had wanted to name him Jon for some ancestor of hers. Rhaegar had agreed with the sentiment; Jon was a plain and solid name, one that could belong to a maester or septon.
Despite her age or her history with the King, Rhaella did not call for moontea when she discovered the last child of Aerys's rooted in her womb. After a long labor, she had welcomed a healthy daughter, Daenerys. The arrival of his long-awaited little sister decades too late only emphasized how far Jon was from the Visenya of Rhaegar's dreams. The dragon still awaited its third head.
With a day of holding court winding down, it was all too easy for Rhaegar to lose himself in his brooding.
His last audience member of the day entered. She was taller than most of his knights. When she dipped into a graceful curtsey, the cut of her red dress emphasized both the swell of her breasts and the ruby choker that glittered at her throat. Exotic as she was, the King's interest was barely piqued.
"You are a priestess of the red god, are you not?"
"The one god there is, Your Grace," said Melisandre of Asshai. Her copper hair fell in a curtain around her heart-shaped face. "I have followed R'hllor for years beyond count."
"My father welcomed a red priest into his hall, once," Rhaegar stated dismissively. "Surely even you have heard of the Wildfire King? Still, Thoros of Myr could not convert my father, who was drawn like a moth to the flame. Last I heard, Thoros is a favored companion of my cousin's who worships only the wine bottle. Why do you think your message will be any better received here?"
"I did not come for you, Your Grace, but Azor Ahai."
Where he heard that name before? "That is the prophesied hero of your faith, is it not? I cannot profess to know much about him."
"My faith is the world's, Your Grace, for the world can either embrace the light or submit to the darkness. Long have I prayed to R'hllor for a glimpse of the man destined to deliver us from the Great Other. At long last, I was granted clarity." Melisandre's red eyes fearlessly gazed into his. "When the red star bleeds and darkness gathers, Azor Ahai shall be born again amidst salt and smoke to wake dragons out of stone."
Rhaegar shivered in a way he hadn't since first cradling the promised prince in his arms. His gaze caught Ser Arthur's as he rose from the Iron Throne.
"Come with me."
As Ser Arthur Dayne led the way through the Red Keep's twisting passages, his torch their only illumination against the darkness, Rhaegar told Melisandre of Summerhall.
"My great-grandfather, Aegon, was a kind king, a weak king. The realm preyed upon his kindness until he feared for not only his life, but the lives of his loved ones. Aegon became convinced our family's salvation rested within the eggs we'd jealously hoarded since the death of the last dragon. Since their extinction, our realm was wracked by strife, and even the most petty of rebellions threatened to dislodge us from the Iron Throne. Only in the shadow of dragons had Westeros known true peace. Only in the shadow of dragons could we be safe again."
In the flickering torchlight, Melisandre's ruby seemed to glow with a light of its own. "How did he think to hatch them?"
"Once, whenever a new babe was born into my house, a dragon egg would be laid into their cradles. It was always hoped this egg would hatch into that babe's dragon. If the egg never hatched, tradition demanded that egg be burned alongside them on their funeral pyre. When the dragons died and the eggs became too precious, this custom died out."
Or so his Uncle Aemon had reconstructed from the few sources available to him. Records of their house's dragonlore were fragmented. He believed much of their family's secrets had been passed down verbally and then lost in the Dance of Dragons. Baelor's fear of heretical texts and other such disasters had decimated what little had been written down.
"Aegon came to believe he had but six loyal kinsmen left to him; his three surviving children, my parents, and me, their unborn child. That gave him seven Targaryens and seven dragon eggs. The septons assured him seven was a powerful number, for the seven faces of our Faith. Aegon called for his family to gather at Summerhall, his dear childhood home. It was there he intended to hatch a new generation of dragons. I, the future of our family, was to be born there too.
"My parents were unsure what what wrong. If they ever knew or suspected, they never told me. Whatever happened, Summerhall burned even as I was born. Aegon and his oldest son, Duncan, didn't make it out alive. Lost with them and many others were the seven dragon eggs. Jaehaerys, my grandfather, took possession of what remained of our dragon eggs and died three years later. Shaera, my grandmother, went to her grave insisting he had ordered them all destroyed for the grief they caused our family. So did my parents claim and so did I believe."
The section of wall they stopped before had once been adorned with a fresco of the Targaryen dragon. Scouring the Red Keep for wildfire caches had uncovered the heavy oak door and the secret chamber concealed behind it.
Ser Arthur passed the torch to Rhaegar's expectant hand. Then the King led them inside.
Objects more valuable than jewels glittered in the torchlight.
"Perhaps Jaehaerys could not bear to destroy them and so sought to lock them away forever. Perhaps this chamber dates back to the Dance and a time when my ancestors worried for the future of our dragons and was forgotten in the turmoil."
Rhaegar's gaze settled upon the egg that had first drawn his eye. The silver and gold shell had veins of fiery colors that gleamed in the torchlight.
Melisandre held out a hand. When Rhaegar passed the torch to her the flame flared up, illuminating the entire chamber and its priceless contents.
The egg's substantial weight prompted Rhaegar to lift it with both hands. When Aerys had ruled, charlatans had visited court and peddled what they'd claimed to be dragon eggs from Asshai or salvaged from the Valyrian Freehold. Their eggs had been pretty but hollow, light enough for Rhaegar to pick them up and feel no promise of fire inside.
Though this egg was heavy with life, the shell was cold and hard as stone. Whatever spark slumbered inside had long since been extinguished.
"They are not dead, Your Grace, only dormant." When Melisandre reverently brushed the shell with her fingertips, the egg warmed in Rhaegar's hands. "They are but embers that need a spark to kindle their flames."
"Fire and Blood," whispered the ghost of his father.
Aerys had ordered the charlatans burned alongside their false treasures on the off-chance a true dragon could hatch from the ashes. Rhaegar wondered how right his sentiment had been.
"Promise me, Rhaegar."
"Whatever sacrifice your magic demands, I am no kin-slayer. You are not to touch my family; not my mother, not Viserys, not Daenerys, not my wife, and certainly not my children."
Melisandre withdrew her hand and the egg grew cold and lifeless. "There are but two gods, Your Grace. R'hllor is the source of all that is light and life. The Other, whose name must not be said, is all that is cold and dark and evil." Her burning eyes pierced his own. "Surely it is no coincidence Azor Ahai was born with a twin whose hair is black as night? A twin who took his mother's life?"
"That is the King's son you're threatening, red witch!" Ser Arthur roared. "How dare-"
"Enough," Rhaegar said, before Arthur could draw Dawn and before Melisandre's flames could do anything more than flash dangerously bright.
"I cannot see the dark-haired twin in the flames, Your Grace," Melisandre warned. "If he is not the champion of the Great Other then he is an outlier, one outside of the R'hllor's control. Did his birth not already delay the birth of your daughter? I saw her in the flames, your Visenya; brilliant as flame and fearless as a dragon. Azhor Ahai shall need her."
"Delay?" Rhaegar latched onto the word. "Then she shall still be born?"
"If you allow me to act soon, Your Grace, your first dragon shall wake as she is born. Is that not a powerful portent for your people?"
For the sake of the realm, for the sake of the very world, Rhaegar could not deny her. The dragon required its third head. Aegon and his brides required dragons to burn away the night.
"Dragonstone is the ancestral seat of my house. Our dragons thrived on the Dragonmont as they had nowhere else. It is certainly a warmer place to hatch dragons than in the cold darkness of King's Landing. The surrounding villages are also teeming with dragonspawn and their descendants. The bastards of kings are still king's blood, are they not?"
"They are your, Your Grace, and the innate fires of the Dragonmont can compensate for any... dilution."
Rhaegar's heart soared. "We are in agreement, then? My blood is not to be harmed?"
"I shall harm neither your Queen nor Queen Mother, nor the blood of Prince Viserys and Princess Daenerys, so I swear upon the flames of R'hllor." The torchlight pulsed with the power of the red woman's vow. The light flared again when she swore to harm neither Aegon nor Rhaenys nor Visenya. "Neither shall I harm Prince Jon or... Prince Jaehaerys... so I swear upon the flames of R'hllor."
Rhaegar nodded firmly. Then he both ordered Ser Arthur to secrecy, especially on exactly how the dragons would be resurrected. Arthur Dayne hesitated for only a moment. He swore his obedience upon Dawn.
"Excellent," the King said. "We set sail for Dragonstone immediately."
He assumed that was the end of it.
