Merry Christmas Eve, my faithful readers! Just in time, too! I am going to be honest with you, I have been dreading this chapter ever since I began writing this story. A secret identity shall be revealed, and a great tragedy will both take place in this chapter. But without further ado, go on and read my Christmas gift to you.
Author's Note: Violence, blood, gore, and disturbing scenes ahead.
Lord Hightower's Solar and the Red Keep
Twenty-Eighth Night/Twenty-Ninth Day of the Tenth Moon
Twenty-one years ago, early in the third moon of 129 AC, King Viserys I Targaryen concocted the Black Conspiracy in his bedchamber with his manservant Wesley, Ser Steffon Darklyn of the Kingsguard, and Lord Lyman Beesbury, the Master of Coin, to help secure the ascension of his beloved oldest daughter, the then Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen, as Westeros's first ruling queen after his death. Fast-forwarding to the night of the twenty-eighth day of tenth moon, the ironically named "Green Conspiracy" had sprouted in the solar of Lord Lyonel Hightower at the instigation of the Young King's oldest living son, Prince Aemond Targaryen, to overthrow his hated half-sister and place his oldest nephew, Prince Jaehaerys Targaryen, on the throne. Unlike his grandfather, who had three conspirators to help him orchestrate Rhaenyra's safe ascension as the First of Her Name, Jaehaerys had twenty-one conspirators to help him overthrow his half-aunt and crown him as the Second of His Name. The conspirators included both of the prince's uncles: Aemond, of course, and his younger brother, Daeron; Lord Hightower himself and his oldest son and heir, Willem; younger half-brother Reginald; three of his cousins: Gwayne, Myles, and his son Cyril; Maester Ulrich; Lord Ashford's grandson and heir; Lords Bulwer and Costayne; Lord Aldus Florent and his two oldest sons and firstborn grandson; Lord Lyonel Tyrell and his uncle and cousin, and both Aemond's mistress, Alys Rivers, and their son, Prince Lydus Targaryen. Jaehaerys's younger brother, Prince Maelor Targaryen, wanted nothing to do with this plot, and he called everyone in the solar a traitor.
Immobilized first by a blow to the stomach by his own Uncle Aemond, Maelor was then restrained and gagged by Lord Hightower's guards and was hauled off to an oubliette that was located in the deepest vaults beneath the Hightower that was used to house the worst prisoners. Located so deep underground meant that this dungeon had no windows, leaving the prisoner trapped in complete darkness. If Lord Hightower felt any shred of pity for the prisoner, a single candle would be lit in their tiny cell. The only "furnishings" this dark and cold stone oubliette had was a pile of straw to sleep on and a bucket for bodily wastes. Maelor was going to be imprisoned there for as long as the Greens saw fit, or until he agreed to bend the knee to his brother.
Jaehaerys hoped that he would be able to convince his brother join his cause at a later date. At his claimant king's behest, Lord Hightower ordered for a candle to be lit in Maelor's cell to make his imprisonment a little more "bearable". With Maelor gone, the Green Conspirators continued plotting. Their plotting continued well into the Hour of the Wolf. War was the worst-case scenario that was to be avoided at all costs, and the Greens hoped to try and force Queen Rhaenyra I Targaryen to abdicate the Iron Throne. But how would this come about?
It was Lord Tyrell who suggested that the Dragon Queen's four year old great-grandson, Prince Aemon Targaryen, who was second in line to inherit the Iron Throne, should be kidnapped, his ransom in return for his life being the Iron Throne itself. No doubt this was inspired from Lord Tyrell's infant daughter Daena being kept as a royal hostage. Kidnapping and ransoming Prince Aemon for the throne was one thing to help force Rhaenyra into abdicating, rallying support for Jaehaerys was another. Most of the Reach would definitely lend aid to the prince, but that wouldn't be enough to stave off any form of retaliation that the queen would without a doubt inflict upon those who would dare to try and kidnap one of her beloved great-grandchildren. Surely there were other noble houses who would support Jaehaerys, but they would need a very good incentive to make them switch their loyalty from Queen Rhaenyra to her half-nephew.
Aemond suggested that Blackfyre should be stolen. Not only is Blackfyre a fearsome weapon, it is also the physical representation of the Iron Throne's authority. The late Prince Aegon the Elder wielded Blackfyre before Rhaenyra was crowned queen, and his possession of that blade was one of the reasons why his supporters argued that his claim was more valid than his half-sister's. Blackfyre was currently being wielded by Aemon's father, Crown Prince Baelor Targaryen, at King's Landing on the other side of Westeros. Who would steal Blackfyre and kidnap the Prince of Dragonstone's only son for the Greens?
Jaehaerys knew that if this conspiracy was going to work, he was going to have to rope in his own relatives in King's Landing into helping him. At first light the following morning, a single raven was dispatched to King's Landing. It arrived at the Red Keep as the Green Targaryen's laid Prince Gaemon the Blind to rest. On his pyre, Gaemon looked like he was sleeping. He was not wearing his blindfold, and for those who had gathered to watch the cremation, it was the first and only time anyone outside of Gaemon's orbit to ever see his face uncovered.
He was a handsome boy. Ser Edmund Naeryon was the one who lit the prince's funeral pyre. Princess Jaehaera pulled and twisted Gaemon's blindfold in her hands as the red-orange flames consumed her son's body. Part of her wanted to throw herself into the flames to join Gaemon in heaven but resisted the urge to do so for the sake of her mother and two surviving children. Aegon and Aeva stood with their grandmother as they watched their brother burn.
Once Gaemon had been reduced to ash, and his cremains placed into an urn and interred in the royal crypt, his surviving relatives retreated to their quarters emotionally exhausted. Helaena was preparing to take a nap when a pale-faced Urban rushed in with a letter.
"This arrived at the rookery earlier. It is addressed to your from Jaehaerys, my lady. What he wrote is very concerning to say the least..."
"What does it say?" Helaena said as she took the letter from the maester. The older princess's tiredness was soon forgotten as she read her oldest son's letter and what he was asking her to do. Conflicted as she was after finishing the letter, Helaena knew that she was going to help Jaehaerys be crowned king in defiance of Queen Rhaenyra. Malice had nothing to do with Helaena's ultimate decision.
Yes, she was suspicious of her half-sister over her possible culpability in Gaemon's sudden death, but Helaena did feel some regret over betraying Rhaenyra. But she wanted to safeguard her family's future, and the princess would do everything in her power, even commit treason, to keep her children and grandchildren safe...
Two Nights Later
Thirty-First Night of the Tenth Moon
Ghost swiftly and quietly made their way through the deserted hall. Lambskin slippers helped to mute the sound of their footsteps. Ghost knew these halls like the back of their hand, but tonight they were nervous. They weren't traipsing about the Red Keep to spy for the crown, they were traipsing about to steal from the crown. Ghost was not alone either.
Accompanying the rogue Master of Whisperers was a pubescent boy from Flea Bottom named Lyn. Working as a butcher's apprentice earned Lyn honest coin, but his true skill was in pickpocketing, and in Flea Bottom, the boy was known as "Light-Fingered" Lyn. But tonight, Lyn had been promised 40 gold dragons, half of which he had been given up front before his assignment started, to be caught pickpocketing the guard who was standing watch at Prince Baelor's bedchamber door. He was to serve as a distraction for Ghost to sneak in and steal Blackfyre from the crown prince's room. Lyn's employer, Gaemon Palehair, was promised 400 gold dragons, given half up front like his apprentice's payment was, too, to kidnap Prince Aemon Targaryen.
The butcher and his apprentice had been solicited by Lady Falena Stokeworth, who had promised her lover's mother that she would find someone to help with the Green Conspiracy. The idea of being upgraded from a prince's mistress to the king's mistress was an extremely pleasing prospect for Falena, and she was more than eager to become a collaborator if it meant that her status was going to increase in the royal court. She knew Palehair quite well because was her favorite butcher. She also knew that despite her patronage, Palehair's butcher shop was floundering. The reason why Palehair's business was failing was not because he was selling poor quality meat or fleecing his customers by selling them horse meat while lying that it was beef, it was because he was baseborn.
Palehair was the son of a whore from the Street of Silk and a Lyseni oarsmen who was able to make it out of Flea Bottom through apprenticing for a butcher and inheriting the business after the man died childless, but destitution was soon to befall Palehair and his family. Feeling bad for Palehair, Falena also threw in the promise of hiring both Palehair and Lyn to work in the royal kitchens after Jaehaerys were to take the Iron Throne. Coincidentally, just like the pretender, Palehair was motivated by his desire to protect his family from an uncertain future, and thus, Palehair was more than willing to agree to kidnap the Dragon Queen's great-grandson. Gold was enough to earn Lyn's cooperation, as was the added promise that he would be spared from the fate of having one of his hands amputated as punishment for pickpocketing after he was caught in the event Jaehaerys was crowned king. And tonight, the butcher and his apprentice were simultaneously carrying out their assigned tasks.
Coming up to the corner where Baelor's room was, Ghost and Lyn stopped, and the former urged the boy forward. The guard was stationed at that corner with his coin purse hanging from his belt. Lyn moved stealthily forward. Crouching down unseen by the guard, Lyn reached out to the man's coin purse with his left hand. If he were to lose his hand, Lyn wanted it to be his left instead of his right, his dominant hand. Trying to pickpocket with his off-hand did the trick, and the guard felt his purse being moved, causing him to look down and spot Lyn.
"Pickpocket!" shouted the guard as he grabbed Lyn by the collar of his leather vest and hoisted him up to his feet. "How in the seven hells did you get here?!"
Lyn said nothing. Even if he wanted to, the boy was too scared to say anything. The guard's expression got angrier.
"Mute, eh? Let's see how long you keep your trap shut once my brothers in arms are done with you."
Ghost crept up to the corner and looked down the hall to see Lyn being all but dragged across the floor by the guard to face a painful "interrogation" at the hands of other royal guards. Once they were both gone, Ghost snuck into the unlocked bedchamber without making a sound. Blackfyre was hanging on a sword rack in its sheath beside an elaborate suit of armor, which had been a wedding gift for Baelor. Contemplating the sight of the magnificent sword for brief moment, Ghost reached out to grab the handguards and carefully lifted Blackfyre off of the rack. The sword was quite heavy, and Ghost had difficulty moving Blackfyre, but they were successful in their endeavor, nevertheless.
Clutching the blade with all their strength to their chest, Ghost fled the room. Careful to avoid any more guards, Ghost made it back to Princess Helaena's bedchamber. Knocking rapidly on the door, Helaena ushered Ghost in and shut and locked the door behind them. Ser Naeryon relieved Ghost of their burden as Prince Aegon and Princess Aeva looked on with wide eyes. Arms now free, Ghost reached up with gloved hands to remove their purple mask.
The clammy face of Princess Jaehaera Targaryen greeted Edmund after she removed her mask. Yes. Jaehaera was the true identity of Ghost, the second Master of Whisperers to serve on her half-aunt's small council. As a girl, Jaehaera realized that her quiet nature and purported simplemindedness made people converse more openly in front of her without bothering to be careful about what they said since they thought the princess could not understand them. But she did, and during restless nights in both girlhood and womanhood, Jaehaera sometimes snuck out of her room to wander around the Red Keep.
She memorized the movements of the castle guards, witnessed secret affairs being carried out between the servants and courtiers, and other clandestine behaviors that were being carried out. Mysaria noticed Jaehaera's sneaking around when she was doing her own spying in the Red Keep, and when the former wanted to step down from her position, Misery sought out Jaehaera and convinced her to be her successor. And so, Ghost was born. Being a mother of three young children, with the eldest being severely handicapped, Jaehaera could not always make it to small council meetings, and so she roped in her equally quiet and observant friend, Lady Myrine Darklyn, to sit in for her. Lady Thea Celtigar never took part in Jaehaera and Myrine's double life, but she was aware of it, and she guarded their secret.
Myrine was currently in a meeting at the Chamber of the Sphinxes disguised as Jaehaera's alter ego since the latter was still grieving the loss of her son. Neither Myrine or Thea were aware of the princess's treachery, and Jaehaera had no intention of involving them in it. When she was crowned as her twin brother's queen, Jaehaera would protect her childhood friends, and she would convince Jaehaerys to give Thea and Myrine's husbands and children places of honor at the royal court. But for now, she had to enact the next part of her plan. Sneaking out of King's Landing.
Discarding her robe, gloves, and mask, Jaehaera then collected her children from the bed as her mother opened a secret passageway in the bedchamber. Using this passage, Jaehaera and her children along with Ser Naeryon were to sneak out of the Red Keep and make their way through the alleyways and wynds of King's Landing towards the Dragonpit. There, they would wait for Palehair to arrive with the kidnapped Aemon, who be taken to Oldtown that night to be ransomed. Helaena, Maester Urban, Falena, and twins Maegon and Maegelle would stay behind in King's Landing and pray for the Green Conspiracy's success. Princess Helaena embraced and kissed her daughter and grandchildren, and made Edmund swear to her that he would protect her family in Oldtown, an oath that he swore without hesitation.
"Be safe, all of you," said Helaena as she sent her family off. Provided with torches, Jaehaera and Edmund led Aegon and Aeva down the passage, and the door was closed behind them. With her family gone, an overwhelmed Helaena sank down on the edge of her bed. It was all too much. Carrying out treasonous plots, learning that her only daughter was the true identity of the queen's spymaster, having to say good-bye to Jaehaera and two of her grandchildren, and worrying about getting caught. Scared, Helaena clasped her hands together and prayed for everything to go well.
Meanwhile
Rat droppings and mildew scented the stale air in the tunnel as Gaemon Palehair made his way with a torch in one hand and a map in another. Palehair knew these tunnels relatively well from his boyhood when he assisted a ratcatcher known only as "Cheese" by baiting traps and rooting out rat nests. Cheese was an unpleasant man, the only good thing about him being that he always paid Palehair the amount the latter agreed to pay– a halfpenny for every five rats that the boy was able to capture and kill, and a penny for every ten. Essie, Palehair's mother, was pleased that her son was earning money honestly as opposed to pickpocketing or loafing about in the brothel they lived at, the "House of Kisses". The place was nice for a brothel, and Palehair before he started working for Cheese, spent his days playing with the children of the other prostitutes there.
Palehair knew he had a father in Lys, but his name and face were unknown to him. That was how he got his surname of Palehair, for his pale silver hair was very similar those with Valyrian descent, like the citizens of Lys. Before the death of the Young King, Essie had told her son that his father was Prince Aegon the Elder, but after the Dragon Queen's coronation, Essie began telling Palehair that his father was actually a mere Lyseni oarsman to keep him safe from the queen's men should Rhaenyra ever caught wind about another of her younger half-brother's bastards. Father or no father, be he a prince or an oarsman, Palehair grew up with more than one parental figure. His mother's "close friend", Sylvenna Sand, was like a second mother to Palehair, and she helped somewhat to fill the hole that should've been occupied by a father in Palehair's life.
Essie and Sylvenna serviced men of respectable occupations like armorers, bakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, dyers, and those who worked at the Dragonpit, and with Cheese being a lowly ratcatcher, he never showed his face at the House of Kisses. An older boy at the House of Kisses had referred Palehair to Cheese when he was looking for young boys to help him find rats in places that were too small for him to venture into. Cheese had been dead for many years now, his life having been claimed by pox, which he had gotten from a prostitute in Flea Bottom. Cheese's friend, a disgraced Gold Cloak who was known only as "Blood", had been gone for some time, too. Blood was a cruel brute in addition to being a mean drunk, and he had been kicked out of the King's Landing City Watch for beating a prostitute to death when he was deep in his cups.
Those who cared enough to wander about Blood's fate speculated that he either traveled to Essos to become a sellsword, or he foolishly showed his face at the brothel where the hooker he killed lived, and the women there, or one of the dead woman's previous lovers, avenged her death by getting Blood drunk and then slitting his throat from ear to ear. Being huge in size, Blood's murderer(s) cut his body up and sold his flesh to a pot shop to be cooked into "the brown", a stew of ill-repute that is the mainstay of the diet of King's Landing's impoverished citizens. Whatever happened, Blood was certainly not missed, and neither was Cheese. Even with the passage of time, Palehair relied on what the long dead ratcatcher had taught him about the tunnels beneath the Red Keep. Graffiti left behind by other ratcatchers helped lead Palehair through the labyrinthine tunnels.
Some of the graffiti were the same ones that Palehair first saw when he was hunting rats with Cheese, and it was he who taught Palehair how the graffiti helped ratcatchers in the tunnels. The chalk markings showed which direction to go to keep from getting lost, or where to find the most rats while others were simply crude, raunchy drawings of sex acts or genitalia. Palehair's map was not needed for these tunnels, but he did need it for sneaking up behind the walls in Maegor's Holdfast. But there was a problem. The map, which had been given to Palehair by Ghost, was almost illegible. Ghost had drawn the map up themselves, but they were a terrible drawer, and most of the lines and arrows made little if any sense to Palehair.
But it was too late to turn back now. Palehair had already excepted half of the 400 gold dragons he had been promised to kidnap Prince Aemon Targaryen, and he really needed the money and the prospect of being employed in the royal kitchens. He and his wife had an eighteen month old daughter, and they had another child on the way on top of being on the verge of losing the butcher shop Palehair owned. Plagued with money troubles, Palehair was desperate, and this desperation, along with the love he had for his family, spurred him on into becoming a kidnapper. His apprentice, Lyn, was accompanying Ghost to perform his part in the treasonous plot as Palehair made his way through the tunnels to play his role.
Finding a flight of dusty stairs at the end of a tunnel he had traveled down, Palehair checked to make sure that his knife was still with him and that his hood was down before taking a deep breath and making his way up the stairs.
"Please be the right way. Please be the right way. Please be the right way," Palehair repeated to himself. His map appeared to indicate that this was the right way, but Palehair wasn't too sure. The stairway was narrow, and Palehair was happy that he was unbothered by small, closed-in spaces. When he heard voices coming from behind the walls, Palehair knew that he had reached the Red Keep. But he had climb higher to get to Aemon's room.
Higher and higher. At some point, Palehair came across a wall that had a strange contraption on it. His map indicated something similar with 'X' on it. There was one way to find out. Fiddling with the contraption, Palehair took a step back when a portion of the wall "moved" forward, the sound of stone grinding on stone resonating down the passage. Reaching out with a hesitant hand, Palehair gently pushed the wall forward, doing his best to not make too much noise while doing so.
Opening it just wide enough for him to squeeze through, Palehair entered a bedchamber. His heart swelled briefly with excitement at the possibility of entering the right room when he spied a woman lying in a bed. Tiptoeing for a closer look, Palehair saw that the woman had her arm wrapped around a young girl, possibly her daughter. From what Palehair knew of the royals, Aemon's sister was a baby, the girl on the bed here looked to be around four or five years old.
"Who are you?"
Palehair froze when he heard that voice. Slowly turning around, Palehair came face to face with a young boy standing in front of an open privy door. He was definitely not Aemon. This boy looked to be no older than ten, and he had brown hair and eyes. The two held each other's gaze for what felt like the longest time, unable to move or say anything.
"Get him."
Without warning, Palehair lunged at the boy, grabbed him, and all but slammed him into a wall. Before the boy could cry out, Palehair held the boy's mouth shut with his hand and pressed the tip of his unsheathed knife into the child's side.
"Shhhh...," Palehair hissed. He felt bad for scaring the boy, but he did not want to be caught either. Maybe he could scare him into compliancy?
"I don't want to hurt you," Palehair whispered, attempting to sound fatherly. "I just want to see your cousin, Prince Aemon. Do you know where his room is?"
"Oswyn?"
It was a woman's voice. Palehair faced the bed. From the lit candle on the bedside dresser, Palehair could see that the woman was sitting upright. She was a beautiful with golden-silver hair and pale lilac eyes and faint freckling on her cheeks. The woman threw the blanket off and got out of bed.
"What are you doing?!" Thea said fearfully, her eyes widening.
Desperate to contain the situation, Palehair got off of Oswyn and attacked Thea. Unlike Oswyn, Thea fought back. She was able to grab her assailant's arms, and the two struggled fiercely there by the bed. Thea turned to face the door and yelled out for help.
"Fuck!" cried out Palehair. Terrified and desperate to silence Thea, Palehair was able to free his right wrist from Thea's grasp, retracted his arm and swung it underhand, plunging the knife into Thea's stomach. The pain from the blow took Thea's breath away, and she found herself unable to scream. Her mouth was open, but nothing came out.
But Thea still would not let Palehair go, and he continued stabbing her. With his knife, Palehair stabbed all over Thea's stomach and upper torso. He stabbed Thea above her collarbone, her breasts, her sides, abdomen, and even her biceps. Blood poured forth from the wounds like water, and Thea even tasted it on her tongue and felt it dribbling out of her mouth. One or both of her lungs were punctured and began filling with blood, making it harder for Lady Celtigar to breathe.
"Just let go of me already, you stupid woman!" growled Palehair, his frustration and fear making him say things that he had never said before in his life. "Look at what you me do!"
Thea could not say anything, the blood flowing from her mouth drowned her words before they could swim out. She could feel her life slowly ebbing away, but she refused to fall. She had to protect her children from this fiend. Raising his knife up high one more time, Palehair plunged it down into Thea's chest again. This time, the blade pierced Thea's heart.
Thea became very still after that last blow was dealt. Oswyn saw how his foster mother's face slackened, and how her eyes darkened as life left her body. Thea's knees buckled, and she fell down to the floor. Palehair stepped back as he held the woman's dead body up with one hand. Oswyn remained pasted to the wall completely terrified, his wide eyes taking in the sight of his dead foster mother.
He had been left motherless yet again. Crying could be heard, and both Oswyn and Palehair looked up to see Little Rhaenyra sitting up in her bed. Her face was red and she cried out of fear over seeing her mother fall as this hooded stranger stood over her. Palehair pulled the knife out from Thea's chest without taking his eyes off of the young princess. A great force compelled Oswyn to move forward, and he jumped onto Palehair's back to try and keep him from harming his little sister.
"Get the hell off of me!" roared Palehair as he tried frenziedly to throw the boy, who was stronger than he looked, off of him. When Oswyn saw Palehair raise the knife with the tip pointed directly at him, he let go of the man's neck just as the blade came sailing towards him. Oswyn started screaming then, his voice high and shrill. Instead of attacking the boy, Palehair tried to escape through the way he came. He had squeezed himself halfway between the door and wall when a strong hand seized his arm and pulled him out back into the bedchamber.
Perhaps the patrolling guards were too far away to hear Thea's cries for help earlier, but this time, they were able to hear Oswyn and Palehair, and two guards came running and they came upon the horrific murder scene and seized the perpetrator before he could escape. With Palehair restrained, the other guard called for more guards and a maester to come. Bedlam erupted in the normally quiet hallway soon thereafter. One guard ran down to the small council chamber to alert the queen. He all but burst through the door after Ser Lucias Tarbeck of the Queensguard allowed him entry, causing everyone in the room to look at the guard. Panting and anxious, the guard quickly got to the chase as soon as caught his breath.
"An assassin has been captured in the Red Keep!"
The chamber erupted into a frenzy as the council members, queen, and her two youngest sons took in this frightening news.
"Where was this assassin caught?" asked Rhaenyra.
The guard paused for a moment, and he gazed over at Lord Bartimos Celtigar, the Master of Ships, and Prince Aegon the Younger. Swallowing hard, the guard revealed the spine-chilling answer.
"In the room of Prince Aegon's children, your highness."
Gasps of horror filled the chamber, and Rhaenyra, Aegon, and Bartimos turned pale.
"Are my children unharmed?!" demanded Aegon with a high voice full of worry. "What about my wife, Thea? She has been spending the night with Oswyn and Rhaenyra since the night Gaemon died!"
"Your children are unharmed, your grace. They are being tended to by the maesters as we speak, and the assassin has been taken to the dungeons to await questioning," the guard said as calmly as he could. "But I am sorry to say that your wife was attacked..."
Aegon did not say another word. Instead, he ran out of the room as fast as he could, with Bartimos following after him as swiftly as his old legs could carry him. Aegon took the steps two at a time, the sound of his rapid footsteps and heaving breathing filling his ears as the halls was zipped past him. His heart dropped when he saw all of the guards outside of his children's bedchamber door.
"Thea! Thea!" shouted Aegon as he drew closer to the room. Some of the guards parted to allow the frantic prince entry, but the biggest one tried to block Aegon.
"Your grace, please do not enter. You do not want to see this..."
"Get out of my way!" Aegon roared, and he shoved the guard aside only to pause in front of the open door. The prince's jaw dropped open, his eyes growing larger as he took in the sight that lay before him. He saw the blood first as it pooled around Thea's body, dripped from her mouth, and how it stained her white nightgown black and crimson, ironically the colors of House Targaryen's coat-of-arms. Aegon could see the glistening red wounds on his wife's body, and he could not believe that it was all real.
He tried to bury the truth under a mountain of denial, but it mined its way out as tears started to well up in the prince's eyes. Framing Thea's body between his trembling outstretched hands, Aegon slowly made his way towards her. He fell gracefully to his knees as the first wave of tears began to fall, and he tenderly gathered Thea up into his arms. Cradling Thea in his arms came naturally to Aegon, for the couple had done this so many times together throughout their marriage both out in the open and in the privacy of their bedchamber. Thea always reciprocated her husband's affections, but not this time, not ever again.
She would never embrace him or hold his hand, nor kiss him, nor say his name or their children's names, she would never be with her family again. Thea's dark, dead eyes simply stared unseeingly at the adjacent wall. Warmth was starting to leave her body, and Aegon hugged her closer to him in a vain attempt to keep her warm. It was all too much for the newly made widower, and something "snapped" inside of him. As a panting and red faced Bartimos reached the landing to the hallway, he heard his son-in-law let out an anguished roar that paralyzed everyone who heard it and made their blood run cold.
Prince Viserys Targaryen had followed after the Master of Ships with his brother-in-law, Ser Connor Darklyn, and both men paused to listen to the hair-raising and heartbreaking sound of a man deeply mourning the loss of his cherished wife. Aegon's loud lamentations could be heard throughout the Red Keep. The queen covered her mouth with one hand and burst into tears at the sound, for she knew right then and there that her favorite daughter-in-law was dead. Thea's father stared off into space as he listened to his son-in-law grieve, his mind trying process the fact that Bartimos had outlived all but one of his children, let alone the fact that his second wife had now been predeceased by all of her children. Gods, how would he tell Adela that their beloved only daughter and child together was gone?
Thoughts racing, emotions frayed, and vision blurring, Bartimos collapsed onto the floor. Viserys called out for help as some guards ran over to assist the fallen Lord of Claw Isle. But there was nothing that could be done for Bartimos, for he died where he fell courtesy of a powerful stroke brought on by the great emotional turmoil he was experiencing. As chaos and death reigned at the Red Keep, Princess Jaehaera Targaryen knew that something had gone wrong. Palehair had not arrived at the appointed time with Prince Aemon.
Not only that, but Jaehaera thought that she could hear something loud coming from the direction of the castle. A bad feeling blossomed inside of her, and Jaehaera decided that it was time to act.
"Come on, let's go. Palehair has been compromised. We must leave for Oldtown at once!"
"But we need Aemon to-" Edmund was cut off bluntly by the princess.
"We have no choice, Ser Naeryon. We have to go before we are found out. If the Dragonkeepers give us any trouble, use Blackfyre to keep them at bay."
Leaving the shadows of the Dragonpit, Jaehaera led both of her children by the hand up the stairs to the home of their dragons with Edmund following behind them carrying Blackfyre. Doing their best to evade the Dragonkeepers, Edmund opened the paddocks belonging to Morghul and Sunfyre. The unusual sound of paddock gates being opened at night alerted the Dragonkeepers, and the fleeing four soon heard voices and footsteps coming their way from seemingly every direction.
"Get to the dragons! Quickly!" shouted Jaehaera.
Jaehaera and Aeva mounted Morghul while Aegon and Edmund mounted Sunfyre. The Dragonkeepers began filling the room. The guards stood no chance against the dragons as they sauntered out of their enclosures, and Morghul's dragonfire lit up the Dragonpit by Jaehaera's order of dracarys to keep the guards at bay. The flames gave the dragons a wide enough berth for them to saunter out of the chamber and fly out of the Dragonpit into the twinkling night sky. As Morghul and Sunfyre flew away from the capital city, they left behind a growing fire that would soon be unleashed upon Westeros.
Twenty-one years ago, the history of the Seven Kingdoms was altered forever. Destiny itself, however, could not be changed. Years of reconciliation between the two succession factions in House Targaryen and even the meticulous planning of the Green Conspiracy could not prevent the war that was meant to be. Although it would not become official for another day or two, the Dance of the Dragons truly and finally began that fateful, blood-soaked night on the thirty-first day of the tenth moon in 150 AC. Seven have mercy...
And so, Westeros's bloodiest conflict has unofficially but finally arrived... Nothing will ever be the same again. Destiny will not be denied. I apologize if this chapter sounded a little rushed. The words just flowed from my fingers as I typed, and I want to be a woman of my word.
I hope to publish the next chapter, Chapter 42: Valar Dohaeris, sometime before New Year, but I am not sure. Thank you all for your patience. Again, I wish you all a Merry Christmas, and see you either next time or next year in 2022!