Chapter Text
“Your half-brother,” Daemon hissed, marching into his family’s quarters and throwing down a piece of parchment before his wives, “has held a tourney celebrating Lucerys’ death.” Alyssa glanced up from her reading, crystal blue-lilac eyes staring at her mothers and father. “I assure you, I shall have one of his sons’ heads for this treason.” He was all but foaming at the mouth, venom dripping from every word. In the years since he had married the princesses, their children had become his as well.
Elaena took a shaky breath as she regarded the parchment, and then shook her head, looking up at her husband. “We will not attack his sons.” The Prince Consort scoffed, and even Rhaenyra glanced at her sister-wife in disbelief. Elaena turned to her, taking her hands. “Helaena is our sister. She is good, and gentle and kind, and she is nothing like us. Or like her mother and brothers. To take his son, will be to take hers as well.” She looked between her husband and wife, sighing. “We will not attack Helaena, and we shall send ravens to invite her to safe haven here, on Dragonstone.”
The Queen nodded, squeezing her sister-wife’s hands, but Daemon slammed his hands down on the table, glaring at the two of them. “How many more of us— of our family— will have to die before you begin to accept that this is open war?”
“Five in total.” Alyssa whispered to herself in terror, visions of her siblings— little Baelon, wrenched from their mother’s arms, her darling older brothers, all but Aenar, being snapped up and taken from her. She blinked, and the visions stopped, revealing her parents’ eyes, all fixated on her with horror. The young girl shook her head, then sighed before speaking again. “One man has commited a greivance against us, and yet you wish to punish five— the twins, little Maelor, Aunt Helaena and Uncle Aegon. Forgive me, kepa , but I am sure I do not understand.”
Aenar took her quickly by the arm, squeezing so tight the skin went white. “Do not speak of the Usurper in such a familiar way, little sister,” he hissed, and she blanched at his anger. “He is no longer our family, if he ever was, and for you to think of him in such a way—”
“ Aenar! ” Rhaenyra stood, and he let Alyssa go. “You will not speak to your sister in such a way.” Her words were a command, Queenly and harsh. “She is right. Both of you are, Elaena and Alyssa. Helaena and her sons and daughter are innocents and our kin.” She ran a hand gently over Alyssa’s ashen hair, kissing her forehead. “I will not have us become like them: Kinslayers. I will tell the maesters to send our smartest raven directly to Helaena, and invite her here for sanctuary.”
Elaena was still watching her daughter, and stood slowly to approach her slowly, taking her chin gently in her hand. “What did you see, darling girl?” The room quieted, even Aegon and Viserys understanding that something severe was afoot.
“I am unsure what you mean, Mama.” The little girl, who had turned eleven in the weeks since her elder brother’s death, looked up at the Consort. “I see nothing but what is in front of me.”
“Alyssa,” she whispered, thumbing gently against her daughter’s skin. “Be honest with me. What did you see ?”
A tear traced down the girl’s face, and she took a shaky breath, avoiding her parents’ eyes with a tight jaw. “ Awful , awful things, Mama,” she cried, and Elaena took her into her arms, petting her hair softly as she herself began to cry, looking back at Rhaenyra and Daemon as their eyes, too, began to glow with tears.
“A dream does not always come true.” Baela sat by her sister, a soft hand against her back. “Alyssa is a child, perhaps it is simply symbolic, and she has misinterpreted it.”
Aenar turned to Baela, shaking his head slowly as he looked down at his youngest sister with terror. “Daenys the Dreamer foresaw the fall of Valyria, and—” He stilled, his breath rattling his chest. “And our aunt, Helaena, foresaw what happened upon Driftmark. Months before it happened.”
Daemon glared at his stepson— truly, closer to being his own child— and took his arm. “What do you speak of?”
“I was in the drawing room with Helaena and her mother. Helaena was, as always, showing me different creatures and baubles; she was holding some sort of worm-like creature.” Aenar wet his lips, and shook his father’s hold, beginning to pace. “Aemond was brought to Alicent, because he had wandered into the Dragonpit after… well, after we were awful to him. She told him that one day, he would have a dragon, and Helaena told me that he would have to close an eye .” He swallowed, biting his cheek. “It is no symbol, what Dragondreamers see, Baela. It is fact, truer than what is in front of our very eyes.”
Rhaenyra shook her head. “ Do not say that, Aenar.” She sighed, and reached out to grip Elaena’s shoulder as she trembled. “I cannot lose another child. Not one of you can I spare.” She looked over their children as little Aegon and Viserys came to her side, as if she could figure out which of them she might lose. “Stay here, all of you. Aenar, Aemma, watch them.”