[RHAENYRA'S POV]
The godswood was a sanctuary of silence, but tonight, even the rustling leaves seemed to carry whispers of the dead. Rhaenyra sat beneath the heart tree, its carved face staring down at her with hollow eyes. The pale bark glistened in the moonlight, its crimson leaves trembling as if mourning alongside her.
Three years had passed since her mother's screams had echoed through the Red Keep, since the midwives had placed her stillborn brother,Baelon, in her arms. Three years, and yet the pain clung to her like a second skin, raw and unrelenting.
She would have known what to do, Rhaenyra thought, her fingers tracing the edge of the stone bench.
She would have held me when the world turned cold.
But her mother was gone, and in her place stood Alicent Hightower—once her closest friend, now her stepmother, her queen, andher betrayer.
The memory of Viserys's announcement still burned like dragonfire.
Six months.
Six months after Aemma's pyre had cooled, he had taken Alicent to bed, a girl of sixteen with no Valyrian blood, no dragon's fire, nothing but her father's ambition and a piety that reeked of hypocrisy.
The Velaryons had raged, their silver-haired pride insulted.
Even the realm whispered."A king who discards his Valyrian lineage for a Hightower girl?"
What does that make me?
Her gaze drifted to the city below, where the smallfolk huddled in the shadows, their faces gaunt and their clothes tattered.
She had tried to help them more than once. She'd petitioned her father to rebuild the orphanages Aemma had funded, to open the granaries during the winter famine. Otto Hightower had dismissed her with a flick of his hand.
"Charity is a lady's pastime, Princess," he'd said, his voice dripping with condescension.
"The crown has no gold to waste on sentiment."
Sentiment.
As if the cries of starving children were mere noise.
A cold breeze swept through the godswood, carrying with it the faint scent of smoke and decay. Rhaenyra pulled her cloak tighter, her thoughts turning to the realm beyond the city walls.
In the Vale, clansmen raided villages, the Eyrie ask for help numerous times, yet the crown turned a blind eye.
In the Riverlands, Bracken and Blackwood blood soaked the fields.
And in the Stepstones, Daemon fought a war her father send, yet refused to send help—a war the Small Council called "Daemon's war project."
Yet every raven that brought his letters, stained with salt and smoke, felt like a lifeline.
"They fear us because we are dragons,"he had written.
"Never let them clip your wings."
She missed him.
Not the rogue prince the court despised, but the uncle who had taught her to saddle Syrax, who had laughed as she spat fire-roasted crab at him on the beaches of Driftmark.
The only one who understood what it meant to love something more than the Iron Throne.
Her hand drifted to the empty space beside her, where Alicent used to sit during long hours of needlework, giggling over court those same lips dripped poison into Viserys's ear, painting Rhaenyra's defiance as madness, her grief as weakness.
"The princess is too wild,"Alicent would say, her voice sweet as summerwine.
"She needs a husband's guidance."
Jason Lannister's smug face flashed in her mind, his hands grabbing, his breath reeking of Arbor gold.
She had washed her skin raw after he'd cornered her in the library, his whispers slick as oil.
"You'll learn to enjoy it,"he'd said."All women do."
A shudder ran through her.
No.
Never.
The wind shifted, carrying the distant roar of Syrax from the dragonpit.
Rhaenyra closed her eyes, imagining the feel of the saddle beneath her, the sky stretching endless and free.
Daemon's last letter lay hidden in her chambers, its words etched into her soul:
"When the time is right, I will come for you."
Below her, the city slept—unaware that their princess stood at the edge of a precipice, her heart a storm of grief and fury.
She had mourned long enough.
She had bent enough.
Mother, she thought, pressing a hand to the cold stone bench.
Forgive me.
But it was not forgiveness she sought.
It wasfire.
[PRINCESS RHAENYRA'S CHAMBERS]
The Red Keep had always felt like a gilded cage to Rhaenyra, but now it was suffocating. The walls seemed to close in on her, the weight of her father's indifference pressing down like a stone. Viserys, once a loving father, had become a stranger—a hollow king who spent his days lost in grief and his nights drowning in wine.
She stood at the window of her chambers, her fingers tracing the cool glass as she gazed out at the city below.
King's Landing was a shadow of its former self.
The streets, once bustling with life, were now filled with beggars and thieves.
The markets were empty, the people hungry.
The realm was crumbling, and her father did nothing.
Otto Hightower's voice echoed in her mind, his words from the Small Council meeting still fresh.
"The crown cannot afford to waste resources on every petty conflict,"he had said, his tone dripping with condescension.
"The lords must learn to manage their own affairs."
Rhaenyra had clenched her fists under the table, her nails digging into her palms.
How could they not see?
The realm was fracturing, and the crown's inaction was only making it worse.
But her father had merely nodded, his eyes distant, and the matter was closed.
She turned away from the window, her heart heavy.
She had tried to be patient, to play the dutiful daughter and heir.
But how could she rule a kingdom that was already falling apart?
How could she sit by and watch as her father's weakness allowed Otto and his ilk to strip the realm bare?