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i.
Visenya knew what they all said. The name of her sword, Dark Sister, was the most feminine thing about her. She didn’t dress like a woman, preferring ringmail to gowns of silk and gems. She didn’t even act like a woman; she spoke her mind freely, spoiled, perhaps, by their parents too much; Visenya was the first-born, after all. Targaryen women weren’t like the shy bleating little sheep of Westeros, at least, so Visenya had never been expected to be tame. But as Rhaenys liked to remind Visenya, to be a woman wasn’t about being submissive or meek; it was about making men think that you were. That was how you get control, Rhaenys said: not with swords and blunt anger, but with the right sway of the hips or the right caress of the hand.
“You aren’t ugly, Senya,” Rhaenys told Visenya. “You could be beautiful.”
“If I brushed my hair and drew paint on my face?”
“No, if you didn’t scowl so much.”
Rhaenys was certainly good at giving coy, charming smiles, and she was more than probably right. Just put Rhaenys in the same room as a man and she would have him wrapped around her little finger within minutes, whereas anytime Visenya tried to have a proper conversation, she was met with nothing but resistance. Which was why Visenya wasn’t surprised the day Aegon approached her in his calm, diplomatic manner that always made him appear older than the boy he was.
“You want both me and Rhaenys to wed you?”
Aegon nodded.
Visenya threw back her head and laughed. Rhaenys would be disapproving of that laugh. It was not the sort of laugh that was even at all “becoming.”
“Why not just Rhaenys, brother? I promise you I won’t wreak revenge.”
“I need both of you.”
Aegon had that look in his eyes, the look Visenya recognized to precede many of his grandiose plans. Visenya preferred the physical part of taking action, but what her brother loved was the planning part, staging stratagems on paper and devising solutions. He was good at it, just like Rhaenys was good at the social parts.
A woman would have been jealous, wounded, at the thought that her betrothed was interested in marrying another woman. She would have felt threatened at the thought of a younger, more beautiful woman stealing her husband’s affections, and fretted over the future of being cast aside and ignored.
But Visenya was only ever a woman in body. She had a man’s mind.
Either that, or she was just her own kind of woman.
“Tell me what you’re thinking,” Visenya said.
-
Elia knew what they all said. She was weak and old, her beauty faded, not enough to keep her man. When he scorned her in front of everyone she did nothing to retaliate, because she was passive, powerless, maybe even afraid. That was what they said, and that was what it looked like.
“I’m sorry,” Rhaegar said to her that night in bed. “I’ll make them stop.”
“How do you make people stop talking? The smallfolk stop singing?”
Rhaegar turned over to her, frowning his melancholy frown. Elia traced her finger over his brow, smoothing it.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said. “Do you think I care what they say? I know the truth, and you know the truth.”
“Yes, but your honor…”
“My honor,” repeated Elia, smiling. “You and Oberyn both. I’m flattered you think so highly of my honor.”
“Elia,” said Rhaegar.
“Shh,” said Elia, subduing Rhaegar with a kiss. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, drawing her close to him. Moments later she could feel him harden, and then they were starting again.
Afterwards, catching her breath, Elia reminded him once more. “Lyanna is a sweet girl, and she might be what you need. She’s fire within ice, and you’re ice within fire.”
“You believe me, then? About the prophecy?”
“You sound surprised.”
“I’ve told Mother and Arthur. They called me mad.”
Elia laughed softly, shifting around to face him. Rhaegar smiled in return, playing idly with strands of Elia’s long hair.
“If you’re mad, then I’m mad as well,” Elia told him. “I’m in this with you.”
Of course Elia wondered, even as she said this, if she would regret it one day. Elia wasn’t stupid. She had no blind faith that things would turn out like Rhaegar wanted them to. Things rarely go the way you imagined. Elia had never thought, for example, that she would marry the crown prince, that she would grow to love him. Rhaegar never told Elia he loved her—that simply wasn’t him—but Elia didn’t mind. A man could promise and swear so much with his words, but in the end it was what he did that said more. From what Rhaegar did, Elia could see. Love or no love, he valued her, and that was something.
The Dornish way of loving was different, you see. Love to the Dornish wasn’t about clinging someone to you and you alone for life. Love to the Dornish was about spreading your love as far as it could go, taking pleasure everywhere and anywhere.
Maybe the realm would pay the price, the realm would bleed, just as Elia herself would bleed, along with her brothers and kin. But here was what they didn’t say about Elia: she lived for the moment. She didn’t try to see very far and very wide. She just saw enough to roll the dice, to place her foot in the unknown, because what was life without a gamble now and then?
ii.
Rhaenys knew what they all said. She had Aegon’s heart and what was under his breeches. It was true that Aegon came to her bed more than he did Visenya’s. Even after the pregnancy and childbirth, which left Rhaenys looser around her middle and with highly unattractive marks on her stomach—while Visenya got to remain as slim-waisted as ever—Aegon called on Rhaenys nearly every night.
But that was at night. In the day, it was a different story.
For Rhaenys, she was content to enjoy her newfound royal life, loving the weight of the crown on her head and the demured respect of subjects kneeling before her feet, fifteen handmaidens to attend to her from wake to sleep. Her siblings, however…
“Don’t go,” she would purr to Aegon, massaging him on his shoulders. He had such tense shoulders. “It’s still early.”
“Council is waiting,” he would say, and would rise to leave without so much as a kiss.
Rhaenys had no luck going to her sister for consolation.
“He has to tend to the realm,” Visenya said. “Ruling isn’t easy, Rhae.”
“Is he still angry at me about Dorne?”
Visenya laughed. As usual, she never cared that her laugh was loud and most irritating to the ear. “Oh, Rhaenys, you do have strange ideas. Aegon loves you. Anyone can see that.”
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“Ask him yourself, then. You can enlighten me on his answer when I come back or we can ask him together, if you want.” Visenya laughed again. “Aegon would never dare lie to both of us.”
“Where are you going this time?”
“The north. I won’t be long.”
Again, it was hardly a satisfactory answer, but Visenya was already moving away. She did spare the time to kiss Rhaenys before leaving, though.
Rhaenys watched her sister ride Vhagar into the sky, off to do another task for Aegon, a task Aegon trusted Visenya to do but wouldn’t bother to even mention to Rhaenys. Oh, but Rhaenys knew she was being unfair. Really, it wasn’t like Rhaenys would want to do the task even if Aegon offered it to her on a silver platter. She loved riding Meraxes, but not to go for a sit-down with some boring old lord.
Even so… whenever Rhaenys saw Visenya standing in Aegon’s solar by his side, their heads bowed in discussion, Rhaenys couldn’t help but pout. She might have Aegon’s heart and what was under his breeches, but the truth was she had little else.
-
Lyanna knew what they all said. Harlot, whore, bitch, running off with a married man, a married prince, no less. She herself had a betrothed who would be heartbroken. Not to mention, in running away she was betraying not just Robert but also her father and brothers.
At night, she prayed for their forgiveness. Rhaegar said when things simmered down, she could go home and explain.
In the beginning, she had believed him.
She read Princess Elia’s letter one more time, her mind numb from shock. “You lied to me.”
“I—”
“You said if I came with you, I would be free. I wouldn’t have to marry anyone I didn’t want to. I could be a knight. You let Ser Arthur train me.”
“Yes,” said Rhaegar.
“You said nothing about bringing me here so I can bear you a child!”
“It’s the prophecy—”
Lyanna crumpled the letter and threw it at Rhaegar. When Lyanna was angry, she could be a true savage. Her father had always despaired of this, but Brandon had encouraged it. At the thought of Brandon, Lyanna felt tears well up. But she would not cry, not in front of him. “I’m leaving.”
Rhaegar looked away. “Lyanna, you can’t.”
She shoved past him, heading to the door, but Rhaegar said quietly, “If you leave here now, you will be killed. My father is waging war. He would not let you live.”
“War? There is a war, and you didn’t think to tell me?”
Rhaegar said nothing.
Lyanna scrunched up her skirts and ran. She was the fastest runner of her family, could outrun even Brandon, and once she got on a horse no one could outrace her. If she could get to the stable—
She never made it to the stable.
They left her sobbing in the room, pathetic as a child. They had not hit her. She wished they would hit her, hurt her, abuse her. That would make this horror more real.
Lyanna stopped praying. She had been stupid and selfish and done a terrible wrong. Why would the gods listen?
She stopped asking questions, too, because questions earned her no answers, only guilty silences that told her more than she wanted to know. She stopped fighting Rhaegar, because there was no point in putting bruises on him. He would always come back, always try to placate her with talk of his prophecy. She could see in his eyes that he believed every word of it, that he truly was not doing this to be cruel. He might even care for her. (And wasn’t she to blame as much as he was? Yes, she went with him not knowing everything, but she went with him willingly, and yes, there was a part of her that had been pleased, had even wanted it, wanted him. Oh, she had thought it romantic. How stupid she had been.)
In her most despondent days Lyanna even considered ending it all. Certainly that was what Rhaegar feared, and the real reason he had some of the realm’s best knights guard her night and day. But Lyanna, eyeing the window (one jump and it would be over), pulled back. She was a she-wolf, and she-wolves survived.
She was not a killer, either. Lyanna knew she would keep the babe, even if she did not want it (her, according to Rhaegar) and the thought of being a mother sickened Lyanna. Still, out of all the people to blame for her situation, she could least fault this tiny life inside her.
Before Rhaegar left, she did make one demand. “After I give you this child, I’m going back to Winterfell. I’m not going to be your second queen.”
He looked pained, but he nodded.
Lyanna sat in the tower, watching Rhaegar leave from the window. The baby kicked from inside her belly. What would people say of Lyanna now, should she survive? A disgraced daughter of the Starks who started a war that cost countless lives. Lyanna tried not to think of it. She closed her eyes and dreamed of going home.
iii.
Aegon knew what they all said. He wed one sister out of duty and tradition, and another sister out of love or lust, depending on the version. And he was the only man who could because he was the king.
“You are a lucky man,” said Orys often, with a sly smile.
Aegon supposed he was lucky. His sisters were both beautiful and they both loved him. Not that they weren't without the occasional squabble. When his two sisters stood against him, Aegon was helpless, and they knew it. But when they were angry at each other... That was the worst.
"Tell Senya she is wrong," Rhaenys would say, coiling an arm around him.
"Aegon, you know I'm right," Visenya would say, pinning him with her steely eyes.
Aegon would look to Orys or one of his advisors but they could only shrug. Some looked amused. Oh, it probably amused them to no end to see the king caught between his two wives.
For the most part, though, the three of them made a good team. Years and years passed, and with all they had been through, they attained a certain kind of equilibrium, slipping into their accustomed roles. If Aegon was the ruler, then Visenya was the muscle. Rhaenys was eager to handle entertainment and feasts, and Aegon and Visenya were both more than glad to leave her to them.
But sometimes Aegon could see it, what they thought he couldn’t see: the slight twist of Visenya’s lips when Aegon returned to her bed after a week of absence, the etched frown of Rhaenys when Aegon summoned Visenya to talk matters of the realm. He hurt both of them, he knew, despite trying his best not to.
Yet when he awoke from a bout of fever one winter, it was not the Grand Maester sitting at his bedside, it was Visenya and Rhaenys, one at each side.
“You gave us a fright,” said Rhaenys petulantly.
“You gave Rhae wrinkles, and you know how she hates them,” said Visenya.
Aegon ignored their continued bickerings, taking the time to instead just look at them. Visenya, with her sharp cheekbones and defiant chin; Rhaenys with her soft eyes and delicate lips. I need both of you. He had told Visenya that, back before all of this, and at that time the reasons were fully pragmatic. Now, he was starting to understand the weight of those words.
He did need them both. He needed Visenya for her patience and insight; he needed Rhaenys for her warmth and comfort. One was the sun, one was the moon; however to describe it, they were opposites but you couldn’t have one without the other.
Aegon smiled to himself. He was lucky, indeed.
-
Rhaegar could guess what they would say. A fool, fool, fool to the very end. He ruined a young girl, and he was now about to doom his wife and children. He was a coward, he was a failure.
He parried another of Robert’s blows, but he could feel himself waning. Robert Baratheon. His cousin, in fact. This man was not like Rhaegar. His every move was full of fervor and determination. It wasn’t just because of his size or his blatant strength. It was because of what drove him. Love drove him, love for Lyanna Stark, and hate, hate for Rhaegar.
Love and hate, really, were one and the same.
Rhaegar, unlike Robert, had never known love or hate of that intensity. Since a child, he had excelled at all his subjects but taken only mild interest to them. As for friends, his mother had tried, endlessly, bringing him one playmate after the other, but none of them left much of an impression. Rhaegar had preferred reading by himself to playing with other children, anyway. His mother never seemed to believe him when he told her this.
“You’re not lonely, Rhaegar?” his mother asked him many times. “Are you certain?”
“Yes, Mother,” he told her, but she always looked doubtful.
Rhaegar would often hear servants call him “sad,” the “sad little prince.” They didn’t say it unkindly; rather, it made them gentle and unnecessarily kind. Rhaegar was aware that there was something about him, marking him apart from other children, and he didn’t just mean his status as the crown prince. He didn’t feel particularly sad, but looking at a laughing face, at a beaming smile, Rhaegar felt... Disconnected, that was perhaps the word. He didn’t know what it was like to laugh or beam like that, and he didn’t know how.
“A little traveling might do him good,” his mother said once, not to Rhaegar but to his father. His father was in a rare mood of assenting, and so that year he was ten, he and Mother went traveling.
“Where would you like to go, Rhaegar?” his mother asked.
“Summerhall,” he replied, and from her surprise he knew she had not been actually expecting an answer.
Rhaegar had heard the maester speak of the history of the ruins before, but it wasn’t until he read the full details of Summerhall—such as its burning coinciding with the date of his birth—that he wanted to visit there.
He saw Summerhall that wintry day, and ever since then, the visions never stopped coming. He kept them to himself, not wanting to worry his mother more than she already worried. He had read of Daenys the Dreamer, after all. She saved their people in the end, but only because her father believed her. Rhaegar’s father was selective in what he wanted to believe.
Rhaegar knew that if he loved at all, it was not a person of the living flesh. It was the words inscribed on paper, words of a promise. Arthur had asked him, towards the end— “Do you really think they are true? Or do you want them to be true?”
Did I want them to be true, so I can be a hero, a savior?
Lyanna’s face swam in front of him, her tear-streaked face. Rhaegar had not even told her of the fates of her father and brother. He didn’t know if that was a service or a disservice. Rhaegar had only to remember her face when she’d rightfully accused him of lying to know that what Lyanna wanted was truth, but she was so young. Truth could hurt.
Like I haven’t hurt her enough?
Elia had said, “You blame yourself too much, Rhaegar. Take a look around you. Who is good? Who is evil? No one. We’re all a little of both.”
Elia was like that, full of philosophical tidbits, a woman like none other. Rhaegar could not describe what he felt for her. Gratitude, perhaps. Trust. Could he call that love? Rhaegar didn’t know. If he loved Elia like Robert loved Lyanna, he would never have left her, her and their children… He would never have looked twice at a prophecy, knowing what it entailed.
I’ve hurt you too, Elia.
As Robert brought down his hammer a second time, and Rhaegar felt his legs give out, he knew then that this was over. His folly had brought him to nothing. With him dead, nothing good would await Elia or Lyanna, or little Rhaenys, Aegon, and his unborn Visenya.
The prophecies had failed him.
Robert raised his arm and brought down the hammer one last time. In that last frozen moment of Rhaegar’s life, he saw one more vision, flickering before his eyes. Snow, blinding snow, washing the world white. And through it came three dragons, flames at their mouths. On the biggest one rode a young woman, silver-haired and purple-eyed. She turned, looking right at him.
“Daenerys,” whispered Rhaegar, and then he knew no more.