I am rehauling this chapter for the third and final time. It was previously called The Eastern Alliance. Old checkers, make sure you read the chapter before this (The Dragon King Ascendant) as it bridges the time skip somewhat. Questions and comments can be directed this story's forum. Find the link on my profile.
Eleven years of marriage had not taught Lyanna to love Dragonstone. The island was damp and dreary in a way not even Northern winters could be. The castle stank of brine and, depending on the wind, faintly of dead fish or brimstone. It was too small and treacherous a land to ride Winter anywhere. Flying with Jon or Harry was the only real fun to be had. She still had no patience for reading or women's work. She was no painter or musician. The smallfolk had no patience for her. She still had nightmares of the stone dragons and gargoyles eating her alive.
King's Landing was little better since her father had retired and returned home to Winterfell. The smallfolk had perhaps even less patience for her. The streets smelled of shit. The Red Keep grew stifling in the summer but at least she had more room to avoid Melisandre and her ilk. She could browse the markets or ride through the kingswood with Winter.
Summerhall was open and airy, a summer residence in a rural land with few villages surrounding it. There was no smallfolk around to judge her or call her barbarian. The air smelled only of nature or freshly-cut hay. She and Winter were still exploring the forest trails around Summerhall. If she was even fortunate some of her family would deign to join her.
"Needlework is a servant's past-time," Visenya said for the fourth time that hour. "I want to go riding."
Lyanna did not look up from her very simple stitching of a dragon's head. She tried not to grit her teeth "Your father has not yet deemed Lycaon large enough to ride, dearest."
The term of endearment sounded as false as it felt. Jaehaerys was Harry and Daenerys Dany. Visenya was neither Senya nor darling nor dearest. She was simply Visenya. Lyanna hated being on such formal terms with her own daughter. Even Aegon occasionally allowed Rhaenys to call him Egg.
Visenya sniffed down at the needlework she had not even touched. "This is servant's work. Father is the most powerful man in the kingdom. I am no servant."
"Sewing is one of the few practical skills deemed respectable for women of our rank," Lyanna said stiffly. "You could at least try it with me. It's one of the things I enjoyed doing with my mother."
Visenya curled her lip. Her eyes stared like knives. "Why would I ever care about what you enjoy? You aren't me."
Lyanna bit her tongue to keep from screaming. It did not stop her face from flushing bright red. Visenya's face smoothed into an expression of perfect neutrality as she turned to stare out the window.
Not for the first time she wished her good-mother were there. Visenya was a girl of but nine and could leave her Lyanna, a mother and queen, feeling the impertinent child. Rhaella tolerated no such disrespect. She was one of the few adults Visenya even heeded anymore. Lyanna wished for but a fraction of her good-mother's grace and restraint.
"You do not like learning or the arts, for you throw both books and instruments into the fire. When I agreed with your father to let you learn swordplay, you grew bored and nearly killed a boy when you threw your sword away. Is there anything I can get you to enjoy?" I was born a wolf, and at times you seem more bitch than I do, Lyanna did not add.
Visenya did not turn away from the window. "I want to go riding."
Lyanna too longed for the outdoors. Her chambers offered a broad view of the pastures and the rolling hills beyond. Winter's coat, nearly white in his old age, was easy to distinguish from the herd grazing below. He had been her mother's gelding once. She had taught Dany and all of Rhaegar's children, save Visenya, how to ride upon him. Visenya had sneered and demanded only a dragon for a mount.
Winter was too old to gallop now, but he could still work up a canter. Lyanna loved nothing more than to lean into him and pretend they were both one. Racing the wind on Winter felt freer than flying.
"Your father has business today and Aegon isn't permitted passengers." When Visenya's countenance didn't change, Lyanna hopefully offered, "If you let me teach you to ride a horse, you don't need to learn how to stitch. You can get outside and out of this stuffy room. It can even be considered practice for learning how to ride Lycaon."
A shadow passed overhead. Lyanna squinted and made out green scales. No wonder her daughter was so distracted.
"Is he going hunting?" she wondered. Her daughter loved talking of her dragon.
Visenya did not answer. Her eyes were distant and dreamy. Lyanna had never seen her daughter so lost in thought.
Lycaon did not continue on to the woods. He swooped back toward Summerhall. Several horses whinnied and galloped to the other side of the pasture. Most were accustomed to dragons. The dragons often flew to castles for food or in search of their masters.
Lycaon circled lower. His shadow loomed over the pasture. The horses, sensing his hunting intent, erupted into a frenzy. They scattered in all directions. Several rammed into the fence. Others trampled men that moved to reign them in. A brown charger tried to jump to freedom and brought the fence down with it. Lyanna's heart pounded as if she herself were hunted.
"Visenya!" she cried. "What is he doing?"
Lycaon dove. An almost white horse screamed as it was enveloped in a blaze of orange-yellow flames. Lyanna screamed with him.
Visenya smiled.
Twelve years of marriage had not taught Lyanna to love Rhaegar again. It had first wavered when he had looked despairingly upon their newborn son and assured her it wasn't her fault. Rhaegar had eventually warmed up to Jon and Lyanna to her husband. She had thought it dead when Rhaegar had consoled her but once on Valarr's death and then never spoke of him again. Twice their sons had become an afterthought to him.
Rhaegar had bought her the finest mare in Willas Tyrell's stables. Then he agreed with Visenya that Lycaon was indeed big enough to ride since he had killed a horse on all on his own. He seemed almost proud at the thought. Lyanna knew then that their love had died.
Visenya spent most months at Summerhall with Lycaon. Lyanna tried not to spend time on Dragonstone when her daughter was present. Rhaegar allotted certain funds to those farmers and fishermen who had their livelihoods disturbed by dragons. She knew Rhaegar paid the most on Visenya's behalf though Lycaon did not favor livestock.
When the raven had come bearing news of Rickard Stark's death, Rhaegar had insisted on her riding with him. Ghost was not large enough for a second passenger, after all, and the royal family had to present a united front to their realm.
Lyanna learned soon enough to put on a false face. Her good-mother had covered her scars and feigned an affable marriage even as Aerys had declared her dead children bastards and left her chambers with bloody hands. Lyanna could tolerate an apathetic husband that treated their son decently and doted upon their daughter. Rhaegar had not shared her bed since shortly after the conception of their twins. He turned a blind eye to her lovers as long as they were discrete. Her sources reported Rhaegar kept mistresses for no more than several months and left no bastards in his wake.
Dragonstone remained just as dull and dreary. Rhaegar still insisted holding court there at least once a month until Aegon came of age. Lyanna understood very little of Dragonstone's concerns, but the king's rulings always sounded fair. Just sitting occasionally at Rhaegar's side reminded the realm they had a queen who cared for their interests... even if she was more knowledgeable of forest rights than fishing disputes.
The last man of the day, a merchant who hotly disputed the taxes upon his Lyseni silk before it had even entered King's Landing, took far too long for Rhaegar to dismiss. Lyanna had barely risen from her seat when the doors slammed open.
Harry was generally a good-natured boy. Today his black hair was disheveled and his face twisted into a snarl.
The Conqueror had constructed the Chamber of the Painted Table so that he might look down upon the Seven Kingdoms and plot his campaign. Now Harry stormed down the length of Westeros so that he might glare upon the king in his raised seat.
"Father," he growled, brandishing a crumpled paper in his fist. "What is the meaning of this?"
"A copy of the finalized terms for your betrothal to the eldest daughter of Arsenio Lascaris," Rhaegar said calmly. "Much of it has already been discussed with you."
"Not the clause that sells off my first-born daughter!"
"It was but a show of good faith, Jaehaerys." Rhaegar waved a dismissive hand. "The Tyroshi are a discerning people. When they agree to a marriage pact, they wish for such ties to endure for decades. You talk as if such a daughter would be sold into slavery rather than to the heir of one of Tyrosh's most powerful families. The issue shall not be raised again for many years, if ever at all."
"It shouldn't have been discussed at all!" Harry roared. "Marry me off to whoever you damn well please, but leave any child of mine out of this!"
Violet eyes narrowed beneath the slender gold crown of Aegon III. Rhaegar had not looked so displeased since the letter had arrived from Sunspear declaring that Viserys and Arianne had named their newborn daughter Elia. "You are a member of my household and will remain dependent upon me until I grant you an income of your own, if I ever deign to do so. You are both my subject and a boy of two and ten. I am your father, your head of house, and your king. You will not challenge me again."
Harry's green eyes blazed. "A father who sells off his unborn grandchildren is no father of mine."
Rhaegar stalked down from his seat. His son glared defiantly back. When Rhaegar rose a hand, the windows seemed to shake with the force of their fury. Lyanna lept up, the shriek catching in her throat.
"Your Grace!"
Rhaella loomed between father and son like the Mother herself. Gone was the ghost of Aerys' fragile wife. Rhaegar blinked, staggering back in horror at almost striking his own mother down. He shakily gave Harry his leave.
Harry was already leaving. He did not look back.
Lyanna picked up her skirts and hurried after him before the Queen Mother descended upon her son with a mother's fury.
She caught up to him as he ripped the last of the contract to pieces and scattered it to the winds.
"I tore my room apart when my father announced my betrothal to Robert Baratheon," she ventured softly. "He never asked me even what I thought of him."
Harry's head didn't turn from the window. His shoulders shook. She could not see his face.
"Please, Lya," he croaked. "Not now."
"All right," she said. After a moment she crept up and wrapped her arms around him. He flinched but did not pull away. "I'll be in my chambers."
It was not Harry who found her an hour later, but Jon. She could scarcely understand his hysterical babbling.
He and Dany had been about to race their dragons around the island when Hedwig, docile little Hedwig, had shrieked and attacked Solthys head on. The larger dragon had swatted her aside. Solthys had advanced on Hedwig until Caelix had bodily placed herself between them.
Lyanna followed Jon up the narrow paths of the Dragonmont. Drogon and Ghost guarded a smaller cave's entrance like massive gargoyles. The black dragon rumbled ominously. Ghost only snuffled Jon's hair. Drogon's red eyes bore holes into their back, but made no move from his post.
Hedwig had retreated deep into the cavern where no larger dragons could enter. Harry was already by her side, murmuring softly as he applied a thick salve to the ugly gash upon her neck. Her left wing was mottled dark purple from where she had fallen. She bared black fangs whenever Harry daubed her wound.
"The bite Caelix gave Solthys is even worse," Jon whispered.
Lyanna suppressed a smirk. If gentle Hedwig's wounds were to scar then the Silver Queen's shimmering scales should be just as untarnished.
It took Lyanna thirteen years of marriage to see Harry seated at his father's right hand. Such an honor was usually reserved for Aegon as the heir or Lyanna as the queen, but they were not the ones meeting their betrothed for the first time.
Even from the Great Hall Lyanna heard the clamor of strange instruments and songs in bastardized Valyrian. It sounded as if Arsenio Lascaris, the lying old bastard, had brought twice the amount of performers he'd promised. Kevan Lannister must have fled to his chambers with a barrel of wine after glimpsing the staggering costs ahead of him. Rhaegar would be determined to make Aegon and Harry's nameday celebrations even grander in comparison, and then Aegon and Rhaenys' wedding grandest of all.
Rhaegar spent more time at Dragonstone and Summerhall than King's Landing, but he had still breathed new life into the Red Keep. Most of the nineteen dragon skulls that had loomed over the Great Hall in Aerys' time had been removed elsewhere. Balerion's colossal obsidian skull was centered directly above the Iron Throne. It was flanked to the left and right by skulls almost as large.
Officially, these were Vhagar and Meraxes, the dragons of the Conqueror's sister-wives. Meraxes, however, had died far smaller than Vhagar and Balerion. Her true skull had been substituted for Meleys'.
Solthys the Silver Queen, curled behind the Iron Throne, opened her mouth in a yawn. Her obsidian fangs were the only hint of the black dragonbone concealed beneath her shimmering hide of silver and gold. At ten years old she was dwarfed by the remnants of her ancestors. The bones of Balerion were a sobering promise the current Targaryen dragons could one day grow just as powerful.
It was Hedwig's first time inside since she had been a young hatchling. At three years old, the dragon was scarcely large enough to carry two passengers. She stubbornly refused to remove her head from his lap.
Lyanna flashed him a smile. Harry returned it with a small grimace. Her poor stepson was usually so good at maintaining an air of composure Lyanna struggled for sometimes.
His doublet was rich black-and-red velvet, of a far stiffer style than he would ever wear of his own free will. Harry did not wear his house colors so blatantly unless Rhaegar or Rhaella ordered him into them. The gold coronet was always donned at sword-point.
I was four-and-ten when Father told me I'd be marrying the Prince far sooner than I ever expected to marry Robert. Harry will be no older.
Though Harry was to meet his betrothed today their wedding was not until the beginning of the new year. Aegon was to be married to Rhaenys directly on his fourteenth nameday.
Having dreaded her impending marriage to Robert, it had once seemed a miracle Lyanna had instead married the handsome prince with the silver harp and silver voice. After he had protected her secret at Harrenhal, and honored her as his Queen of love and beauty regardless, Lyanna had knelt before the heart-tree of Winterfell and thanked the old gods for intervening on her behalf.
Now she was simply grateful Harry was not as stupid and naive as she'd been at his age.
Arsenio Lascaris did not care he was presenting his favorite daughter to a boy of but three-and-ten, even if Harry's clothes now reeked of sulfur and smoked ham. When Hedwig had hatched for Harry, Arsenio had not only offered Rhaegar his choice of his daughters and a dowry fit for a king instead of a second son, but a prize all of Casterly Rock's gold could not buy Tywin Lannister.
Seated beside Rhaella, Lyanna did not feel underdressed in a simple gown of gray and white. Her good-mother also favored unfrivolous styles, albeit ones with high collars to hide the scars no amount of time could erase. Daenerys was on Rhaella's other side, very much her mother's miniature in a similar dress of blue-green fringed with gold.
At first glance, Aegon and Rhaenys looked the perfect prince and princess. It didn't take Lyanna long to notice how they kept sharing quick glances and secret smiles, the same sort Bran had given many serving girls of Winterfell.
Rhaenys had been a doting older sister, one who had looked after Aegon like Lyanna once had sweet little Benjen. Her mind still retched at the thought their wedding night was fast approaching - or how anxiously they awaited it.
Lyanna had been prepared to castrate Rhaegar until he had vowed their daughter would never marry Jon. Rhaenys may have always loved Aegon more than anyone else, but it was still impossible for Visenya to have a civil conversation with her older brother. They did not deserve a miserable lifetime together.
Visenya's latest betrothed was some sickly little lordling rumored to be on his deathbed. Rhaegar's poor record for selecting potential husbands was an argument for another day.
Jon, who had been rolling his eyes at the flirting of his older siblings', grew even glummer when a seething Visenya took her seat beside him. It took an army of handmaids to force even a simple black gown and braid upon her. In her mind's eye Lyanna envisioned a third child beside them, a pale-haired and gray-eyed boy, to balance their conflicting personalities. Rhaella had assured her the pain of losing a child never truly away, that it was perfectly natural to sometimes wonder over what might have been. Lyanna had lost but one child. Rhaella had buried five.
Lyanna swore when she realized the maids had forgotten her daughter's coronet. Even Jon had his half-hidden in his messy hair.
The corner of Rhaella's mouth twitched into a disapproving frown. Then she caught the eye of one of her handmaidens. Poor Emma Edgerton's hands shook as she approached Visenya with a spare coronet. Visenya froze like a hound about to bite. Beneath her grandmother's eye, she remained frozen as Emma dropped the coronet on her head and bustled away with the quickest curtsy Lyanna had ever seen.
Birthing Valarr had nearly killed her. He had certainly killed whatever siblings might have been born after him. Sometimes his twisted visage haunted her nightmares. Other times it was the ghost of the boy that might have been. She wondered why she loved a little urn of ashes that had never lived to trouble her more than the daughter who was like her in so many ways. The daughter who had smiled at a horse's dying screams.
Emma had just returned to her position when the first contingent of Tyroshis entered. Their eyes widened at the sight of the Dragon King upon his Iron Throne before they slipped into graceful bows. Their bright blue robes were so voluminous and their garish green hair styled so elaborately Lyanna had trouble telling their genders.
The Tyroshi choir sang in the high and sweet voices of eunuchs. Lyanna had difficulty understanding even High Valyrian, but she easily recognized a number of familiar names of both dragon and Targaryen alike. She did not need to look at Rhaegar to know he was sitting even straighter in his pointy throne from the sweet praises these strangers sang of him and his lineage.
Their praise extended to all royals in the hall. Lyanna heard herself likened to a winter rose. The last and longest part was dedicated to Harry, mostly filled with honorifics earlier used for Rhaegar - Brother of Dragons, Son of the Dragon King, Son of the Silver King, and so on. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. Hedwig rumbled at the disturbance.
When the first present entered, the eunuch choir then sang of the meaning of each and every gift. Lyanna wondered if Arsenio had driven himself into ruin in his effort to impress the Westerosi court and its Dragon King.
The presentation droned on until the wooden icon was carried in. Though done in the ostentatious Tyroshi style, the figure carried the scales of the Father. For one heart-pounding moment, Lyanna thought the artist had modeled the Father after Aerys.
It took a bit of squinting to recognize Rhaegar's face beneath the Father's characteristic beard. Rhaegar had always remained clean-shaven to avoid any unfavorable comparison to his father.
Six more representations of the Seven followed. The Maiden had Rhaenys' olive skin and the Crone Rhaella's silver braid. The Mother had features that vaguely resembled Elia Martell's. The Smith looked rather like Hoster Tully, the Hand who had helped forge the terms for the marriage agreement. The Warrior had Harry's black hair and green eyes. The cloaked Stranger looked indistinguishable from all other depictions.
Beneath the drone of the chorus, the crowd broke into murmurs. Melisandre's red robes made her easy to pick out in the crowd. Her face, which had not aged a day since Lyanna had first seen her a decade prior, showed open contempt at the reminder far more people in King's Landing adhered to the Faith than those that had converted to the red god. Her flock, mostly converts from the Faith, tried to look more neutral.
Arsenio Lascaris knew his Westerosi politics well, for seven more icons followed. The first showed a world engulfed by winter and ruled by beings with ice-white skin. The latter panels depicted a man with purple eyes and silver-blonde hair trying and failing to temper a blade in water and then with the blood of a lion. The fifth panel showed him plunging his sword into a faceless woman, the sixth him wielding a burning blade. The seventh icon showed him cutting down one of the ice-white beings as summer bloomed behind him. Melisandre and her followers broke into pleased murmurs in seeing Aegon's face upon Azor Ahai.
Lyanna was surprised when a third and final set entered. The first five depicted naturalistic scenes that had no significance. The sixth showed a massive wolf hunting in a winter wood. Only with the final icon, one painted a bone-white tree and blood-red face, did she realize the Tyroshi had been trying to depict the old gods.
She wondered what her father might have thought of them.
Rickard Stark had tried so hard to reintroduce the old gods to those south of the Neck. A fair number of Northmen had migrated south and requested a place for their worship. The Red Keep's godswood was unreachable to smallfolk and the unsanctified kingswood across the Blackwater Rush. Flea Bottom's removal had cleared room for saplings. None of the weirwood cuttings from Winterfell had taken root and the heart tree was instead an oak. Those of the red god's temple, so close to the Dragonpit, grumbled at having the old gods so close to Rhaenys' Hill.
When Arsenio Lascaris himself entered, Rhaegar rose from the Iron Throne to meet him. Solthys raised her head in idle curiosity.
For a man draped in at least ten lairs of richly-dyed purple cloth, Arsenio carried himself gracefully. Beneath the beard of dark purple curls his face was handsome enough. His accent was thick but his Westerosi flawless as he conversed with Rhaegar. His gaze continually flickered from the three dragon skulls above the Iron Throne to Hedwig.
Southron politics bored Lyanna, but even she had known Arsenio had entered negotiations with the Iron Throne not to pawn off a daughter, but to claim Visenya's hand for his own grandson - or one of his sons, if the boy died early. After months of ravens flying back and forth across the narrow sea, he had offered Rhaegar a grand dowry and his choice of his daughters only under the condition Harry's firstborn daughter be betrothed to an eligible Lascaris upon birth. An egg, preferably from Hedwig or another living dragon, would be part of her dowry.
Even Lyanna had known Arsenio cared little how Targaryen blood entered his line, only that someone of his name one day rode dragons too.
Rhaegar cared not for the Tyroshi's blatant ambitions. His gaze never left the last and greatest of wedding gifts Arsenio presented to him.
Tyrosh was said to value greed above all else and few could compete with the Lascaris family in wealth or prestige. Arsenio boasted numerous Archons in his ancestry and a line that dated to the days of the Valyrian Freehold. If the Valyrian sword he presented to Rhaegar was not an old heirloom, as he fastidiously claimed, then there was certainly no one left alive that would dare claim otherwise.
The blade was far shorter than Ice, but with the telltale smokiness of Valyrian steel. The onyx pommel, carved in the shape of a snarling dragon head with ruby eyes, must have been far younger.
Rhaegar spun some pretty speech of how the blade represented the renewal of ties between east and west. Lyanna was unsurprised he dubbed it Darkfyre and that it would forever more remain a treasured possession of House Targaryen.
Only then did Arsenio nod. A eunuch holding a gilded box hurried to his side.
When it came to agreements, Tyroshis were a paranoid people. Those wishing to make a new trade contract were expected to openly declare their prior ties so interested partners did not commit to an unknown party. This tradition dictated even marriage. The subjects of a betrothal contract both wore gold bands on their fingers to denote they were no longer on the open marriage market. A third ring was given to a trusted soul expected to witness the marriage and see the contract come to fruition. After the ceremony all three bands would be reforged into a single ring for the bride to wear until her dying day to symbolize the lasting union between the three parties.
Lyanna had seen sketches of the design Rhaegar had proposed. Gold bands had not been elaborate enough for him. Each ring bore the head of a single dragon. When Irenna married and formally joined their house, the rings would be reforged into the three-headed dragon for her to wear.
She was glad Westeros had no such traditions. She could remain in the Red Keep for weeks on end and happily pretend her husband didn't exist. Rhaegar could do the same to her on Dragonstone.
"Finally," Jon muttered as the bride-to-be was escorted into the hall.
Irenna Lascaris was quite hard to make out beneath the voluminous golden robes and a crown laden with precious stones. She gracefully knelt before Rhaegar even as her head and shoulders quivered from the strain of her crown.
Once Lyanna looked past the finery, the girl resembled the portrait Arsenio had sent. The few curls that escaped her crown were dark auburn. Her face was pale and thin. Her features were those of a queen's. Irenna was no gangly girl blossoming into womanhood, but a flower in full bloom.
Arsenio had offered Rhaegar any of his five daughters. Rhaegar had demanded his best. The numerous envoys he'd sent to Tyrosh had agreed Irenna to be the most graceful, most gifted, and most beautiful of her sisters.
She was also the oldest.
Black hair aside, Harry resembled Rhaegar's childhood portraits and so would likely grow into a man of similar features. Such a day had not yet come. When Harry rose to stand beside his father, Lyanna was painfully reminded the boy was but three-and-ten. Irenna Lascaris was seven years his senior. She had to look down to gaze upon her betrothed's face for the first time.
In the past year Aegon, who had once matched his twin in height, had sprung a head higher than him. Lyanna prayed Harry's growth spurt wasn't far behind.
Rhaella had scolded her concerns. She had reminded her Jaehaerys was but three-and-ten. He had years yet to grow into himself. Rhaegar had not been considered tall until he was seven-and-ten.
Lyanna's first years in the royal court had been disastrous. She was proud to see Harry was nothing like her. He did not gawk at his betrothed or her even more exotic father. He barely stuttered as he introduced himself and extended his hand.
Irenna's neutral expression vanished when Hedwig stirred. Her eyes widened in fear and surprise as the white dragon rose to loom over Harry's shoulder and appraise his betrothed with unblinking amber eyes. Irenna did not scream. She stopped breathing altogether.
Hedwig leaned lower. One humid huff ruined any progress the servants had made in taming Harry's hair.
Beneath the pointed gaze of her father, Irenna took Harry's hand. Her gaze never left Hedwig's.
Lyanna thought she glimpsed a hint of wonder in her face. Lyanna had once felt the same for Rhaegar.
For Harry's sake, she hoped that light never faded from Irenna's eyes.
Arsenio slipped the first ring over the fourth finger of his daughter's left hand. Her dragon head was as red as any that fluttered on the royal house's black banners.
Harry was presented with the second ring. His hands trembled slightly as he slid it on. Not only was the little agate dragon as white as the real Hedwig, but it even had her black speckles. Yellow sapphires glittered in its eye sockets.
Rhaegar, as contractor of the marriage, was granted the final ring. Lyanna had expected his head to be the same the shimmering silver and gold as Solthys. The dragon had instead been carved from sleek onyx. Black was the second color of House Targaryen. It was an unfortunate coincidence Aegon's dragon was the same color.
When the final ring was forged, Lyanna hoped Rhaegar's head would be on bottom, for otherwise it would be dominating the other heads or forever between them.
The edits to the chapters after this are not so extreme. Medieval and Renaissance monarchs who really wanted marriages to stick would indeed sometimes make really crazy contingency plans - including some for unborn grandchildren that could possibly be born. I modeled Tyrosh heavily after the Byzantine Empire. The three-part wedding ring is also an iteration of an old Greek tradition.