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till death doth come, 

in darkness let me dwell...

***

‘Kepa!’  

‘Kepa! Kepa! Kepa!’

The merry chant is a hymnal of adoration, the sort of devout worship only a daughter could give her father, thinks Rhaegar in lament.

‘Kepa!’

Oh, what a terrible sorrow…what a maddening grief! Rhaegar suffers with every breath he takes while his precious children were but shadows and bones in the tomb, safely held in their mother’s arms in dragon-hoard.

Rhaenys. Aegon.

Visenya.

Three Heads of the Dragon, prophesied to usher in the light of dawn, though yoked to an untimely death, the penance of their father’s folly, the price of hubris paid thrice in blood.

“Rhaegar.” Lyanna stands at the door, grey eyes mute in reproach. “The small council awaits your presence. You’ve much to deliberate upon and little time to do so.”

His presence lends legitimacy, though Rhaegar mostly keeps his silence, as he is prone to do since that fateful day.

“Rhaegar,” says Lyanna again, frowning. “Come.”

***

“Mazigon,” says Elia, laughing. Her face is spread in the sunlight, and the periwinkle silk dress clings to her body, leaving naught for imagination.

They are alone in Dragonstone. Rhaegar runs after her.

Jorrāelagon is something he’s often thought of, and in that moment, when the salty breeze rings with her shrieks as his arms wrap around her, Rhaegar thinks he’s found it at last.

“Skoros kessa se riña gaomagon, sir ōregion ondoso se zaldrīzes dārilaros?”  

Elia kisses him, slowly. She is warm in his arms, the hearth’s fire. “Se riña vestras: ivestragī īlva zālagon, hēnkirī, ao se nyke, mirre se mirre.”

“Kivio nyke,” murmurs Rhaegar, beholden to her earnest gaze.   

“Nyke kivio,” replies Elia, steadfast.

There, on the shores of Dragonstone, draped in sunlight, they twine, consecrated by hymenal blood and seed, a dragon-husband and his princess wife.

In the salty breeze, a song rings.

Rhaegar hopes in it, but the hope is lost, for the song was a requiem, a funeral dirge—

***

“A vow made through time, in darkness and light…”

“Your Grace?” Husband?

Lyanna is sat on his left, and her grey eyes behold him in concern.

They have audience, some lord with grievance relating to property beseeching the King’s Justice.

Rhaegar meets her gaze and thinks it should have been another. He can still hear the echo of Elia’s words, the High Valyrian a faint lullaby of what once was, of what will never be.

A promise, sealed with a kiss,

Lyanna straightens, having resigned herself to his perpetual silence. “My Lord Mulberry, His Grace, the King acknowledges your plight—”

***

“Who will you wed her to?” asks Rhaella.

Her words are graceful, the cadence regal as befitting the Queen Mother.

Rhaegar can hear the fear in them though, a primal dread belying her serene façade. What mother wouldn’t worry for her only daughter when her fate is decided by a man?

Next to their mother, Daenerys sits unmoving, a statue of some ancient god.

If she were a god, then no mortal can condemn her to the pangs of labour…

Rhaegar thinks of—

‘Elia is the memory of our dearly beloved mother,’ Prince Doran Martell had once told Rhaegar on the eve of his wedding to Elia. ‘My Silver Prince, Dorne entrusts with you the most precious of all our jewels, the Princess of Sunspear, the blood of Nymeria, bound forevermore to Mors Martell in troth, and now to House Targaryen, as Myriah did before her.’

Her womb had borne Rhaenys and Aegon, and should have borne a third, Visenya.

Sweet, charming Elia whom he bled to death with every pregnancy, bringing forth heirs bound by blood to a cruel throne, to a House doomed for extinction.

Rhaegar gazes at Daenerys.

Daenerys gazes back at him with purple eyes, Kepa’s eyes. He thinks about giving her a choice to determine her future. He thinks Elia would have liked that. Will she choose obediently or will she rebel as Saera the Whore did?

The doors open and Lyanna strides in, her severe face softened by a smile, followed by their son Jon, who returned from his trip up North, to Winterfell and the Wall.

“Father, Grandmother,” says Jon, and to Daenerys, he offers a small smile.

Rhaegar notes the way her purple eyes light in affection, unbridled.

The choice is made, then.

Viserys would not be happy about it, but nothing could come out of it. His little brother was in Dorne, given to the Martells in recompense. His wife, the heir of Sunspear, Princess Arianne was expecting.

‘I shall cherish her dearly,’ Rhaegar had promised Prince Doran. ‘Gaomagon daor zūgagon. Aōha mandia kessa dōrī gīmigon ōdres.’

Elia—

Rhaegar thinks of her harrowing last moments, of the inconceivable horror he wrought on her.

Truly, the hour they wed was cursed, for her bridal chambers were her shroud.  

***

“Avy jorraēlan,” whispers Rhaegar, patting the swollen belly where his firstborn slept, “ñuha zaldrīzes dārilaros.”

Elia laughs, cheeks flushed.

The pregnancy had turned her body into a furnace, the Targaryen dragon sleeping inside her burning bright.

“Princess? The Maesters believe it is a boy I carry.”

Rhaegar shakes his head, smiling. “Issa riña, nyke gīmigon ziry. Nyke ūndegon zirȳla isse ñuha ēdrugon, gevie, kostōba, iā dāria naejot udrāzma tolī nyke.”

Elia’s smile fades, and her dark eyes shine with fear. “Rhaegar—”

“Her name will be Rhaenys, first of her name.”

“The realm will never allow it.”

Rhaegar frowns. “Who are they to disobey my will? I, the Crown Prince of Dragonstone, my father’s heir? No! I would see her crowned a Queen after me, to rule by birthright not by marriage.”

“No husband will kneel for his wife,” rebukes Elia. 

Rhaegar falls to his knees, staring up to his Princess wife, a hand protectively laid over her swollen belly, and her hand he kisses solemnly. “I will gladly worship you on my knees forevermore.”

Elia softens, the fear ebbs as she envisions it, daring to hope. “A Queen.”

“A Queen,” echoes Rhaegar.

***

There is music and people dancing in merriment. They do not know. The realm rejoices in King Rhaegar’s victory over the rebel armies. They do not know. They reenact the Battle of the Trident, crowing about bravery and valiance. They do not know. They tell of a triumphant return to Kings Landing, unaware of the tragedy awaiting—

They do not know.

Rhaegar stares down from the Iron Throne, to where they had laid up the bodies of his wife and children, expecting to crown another.

The swell of Elia’s belly had been unmistakable, a far more horrifying sight to him than the dark bruises and broken bones and teeth marks. The night he left, Rhaegar had spent in her arms, worshiping, his kisses a litany and hers had been in forgiveness.

Elia was kind and gentle, a woman of grace and beauty, a Princess born to be a Queen.

His beautiful son Aegon’s face shattered, silvery curls bloodied, what were once bright lilac eyes forced to darkness. Last Rhaegar held him, he had been squirming in delight, gazing wide in fascination. On his lips, his mother’s milk was yet warm.  

And Rhaenys—

‘Kepa!’ They said she had hidden under his bed, waiting for him. His zaldrītsos. ‘Kepa!’ She had cried for him, never once losing faith that he’d come rescue her. ‘Kepa!’ He thinks about her last breath, if then, she had known his betrayal, how foolish it all had been…

Rhaegar had screamed…screamed….screamed when he’d seen them.

The price of prophecy was paid thrice in blood.

***

“Kepa.”

Rhaegar sets the letter he was reading aside.

Jon sits before him. His son is all Stark. There is pity in his solemn grey eyes, tinged with the melancholy that Rhaegar bequeathed him, burdened by the grief of a world torn apart to bring him forth.

“I wish to take Daenerys with me to visit the North. We can stop by and visit places, let the realm behold their future King and Queen—”

Rhaegar could not care less, though he hears Lyanna in their son’s words.

“—Uncle Ned suggested we wed in the Godswood…” Jon waits for a reaction despite knowing better than to expect one. He worships the Old Gods of the icy North, as Lyanna taught him. It was not a topic of much contention, since it was mostly private. Before the populace and the court, he appeared a devout faithful of the Seven Who Are One as all Targaryens are.

Rhaegar used to believe in the Valyrian Gods, as did the Dowager Queen. He knows the only Gods Viserys believes in are the Dragon-rider Targaryens. He wonders if Daenerys believes in them too. 

“That’s all I wanted to say,” Jon finishes at last, standing up, resigned. “You know, the stories I heard of you growing up said you had a talent for singing—”

It is clear the boy wants to ask for a song, but he refrains at the last moment, and leaves hurriedly, as though he could not bear to stay in his presence. 

Rhaegar turns his attention back to the letter he was reading.

The last one Elia wrote to him. The ink on the terror-scented parchment is laden with despair. Life in court was unbearable those wretched days, though there’s hope. The words brighten when Elia writes of Rhaenys and the infant Aegon. 

Elia believed in him. Rhaegar traces her handwriting gently, lamenting her misplaced faith. 

***

Hen ñuhā elēnī…Perzyssy vestretis…Se gēlȳn irūdaks…Ānogrose…

The lullaby fades into the night, and Rhaegar stares at his little Dragon princess asleep in his arms, the lone silvery curl aglow in the candlelight. Though shuttered by her sleep-laden eyelids, he knows those eyes of hers are a mirror of his own.

Indigo, dark at nights like a starlit sky, bright in the daylight like the fourteen flames of Valyria.  

Rhaegar holds her to his chest in dragon-hoard, comforted by the burning heat radiating from her, by the rhythm of her chest rising and falling with every breath she took.

On the bed, Elia lays gazing at them beatifically.  

***

Viserys’ returns to Kings Landing in a fury.

Queen Mother Rhaella tries to mediate between her sons. “Viserys, listen to me—”

“How could you!” Viserys is in no mood to be reasoned with. His wrath is the Dragon’s wrath. His eyes are lilac, as little Aegon’s were once. “My sister is a Princess, and you’d give her to a bastard!”

“Viserys!” gasps Rhaella. “Jon is the Crown Prince.”

“A royal bastard is still a bastard. Any objections to that, Rhaegar? My Queen?”

Lyanna bristles in affront from next to Rhaegar, but she stays quiet, staring at her hand. He destroyed her spirit, Rhaegar realises. His yoke of shame has darkened her exuberance.

“My brother, the fucking mute!” howls Viserys, nostrils flared. “You should hear the smallfolk when they talk of you, Rhaegar—”

His vicious words are cut short by Rhaella slapping him.  

“It is Daenerys’ wish to wed Jon,” says Rhaella, wide-eyed, remorseful as she cups her son’s face in a silent plea for forgiveness.

Viserys’ dark lilac eyes gaze at Rhaegar with pure loathing. He had never forgiven his folly, and the time spent in Oberyn Martell’s company was unlikely to soften his acrimony.

***

“Brother!” shrieked Viserys when he spotted them. He ran towards Rhaegar, throwing himself into his arms. “I knew you’d win. I knew it.” His lilac eyes take in the Kingsguard and the pregnant Lyanna but he thinks nothing of it.

Rhaegar nods, numb. He cannot even muster a smile, not when greeted by Viserys’ bright grin, not when Muña walks to them, two hands cradling her swollen stomach, her violet eyes taking in the crown on his head with hopeful trepidation, then they fall on the carriage behind him, carrying the dead.

“Oh thank the Seven Heavens and Seven Hells for your victory!” With tears she wraps her arms around him. “Rhaegar?”

What victory was it, if he lost everything?

Her eyes gaze into his imploringly. A hand reaches to straighten the Crown on his head. “My darling, what is it? What has you so aggrieved? Your father?” Her eyes go the carriage again, then to Lyanna and the Kingsguard who do not meet her gaze.

Tentatively, Rhaella makes her way to the carriage, peering through the windows, frowning by what she sees. “I thought—Aerys! But who else is in here? Rhaegar?”

The rustle of armour tells him Arthur has moved towards Rhaella.

Rhaegar walks inside Dragonstone. Behind, his mother wails, though he continues through the dark halls until he gets to -- 

Inside the rooms he and Elia had shared, her smell lingers in the dusty shafts of light sneaking in from the curtains.

“Brother!” Viserys barrels by him, pulling out a small wooden box from under the bed, “Brother! I’ve made this for Rhaenys, because Muña says a bride must receive gifts from her bridegroom—”

A miniature Dragon toy. He guesses it’s meant to be the Black Dread.  

Rhaenys would have loved it...

Rhaegar weeps.

***

“Rhaegar.”

One word. A name. His.

There’s condemnation in it, strained by heartbreak. The grief of a love broken by betrayal.

Elia’s brown eyes are teary. Her lower lip is trembling.

Rhaegar cannot bear to look at her anymore.

If he did, then she would break his resolve. He had always been weak before her, his Princess wife. He closes his eyes and kisses her, tastes the salt on her tongue. She tries to get away from him, but she is weak before him too, her Dragon husband.

Elia gives in.

It is not forgiveness. Not yet, thinks Rhaegar as he settles between her legs. There will be time for him to plead for her forgiveness, and if he had to spend the rest of his life repenting for his transgression – Lyanna – then so be it.

At least she would be alive to condemn him for his sins.

The Maester had advised another pregnancy would send her to the Stranger’s arms.

“Avy jorrāelan, ñuha dārilaros ābrazȳrys,” he breathes in her scent, of the sun and the sea and the smoky breeze of Dragonstone. Her body is soft under him, marred by lightning stripes from the children she bore him.

The night is theirs in epithalamion.

When the morning light comes, he would be gone, leaving her and their children to the safety of Dragonstone, away from the war brewing in the horizon like a dark turbulent storm. They would be safe, and he would return to them, triumphant.

In his hasty departure, Rhaegar is deaf to the dirges echoing in his wake.

***

“I’m with a child,” murmurs Lyanna, a trembling hand resting over her stomach. Her eyes are teary, and they stare at the steaming cup of moon tea in front of her with trepidation.

Rhaegar turns to his right, where Arthur and Oswell stood diligently. The rage in Arthur’s eyes is a stark contrast to the shame in Oswell’s eyes.

“Please, let me have this babe.” The words are a sacrilege, a treason against the Crown.

Rhaegar cannot find it in himself to care. He could not fault Lyanna for seeking a man's touch when he refrains from their marital bed. She had been a steady presence by his side from the day the rebellion was won, and has not asked much of him since then, given his lack of attention to their marriage and their child. But the realm would not take kindly to their Queen's infidelity. The Faith and the High Septon have made their disapproval of Lyanna and her elopement with Rhaegar known far and wide. They'd stone her in the streets if they had the excuse. 

Oswell himself holds the cup to Lyanna’s lips with trembling hands. 

Rhaegar hopes they'll be more careful. 

***

Rhaegar watches Jon and Daenerys walk in the gardens. Their faces are flushed with joy. Their smiles as bright as the afternoon sun.

“Had Aegon lived, it would have been him Daenerys to wed—”

“Viserys—”

Aegon was always fated to wed Visenya, thinks Rhaegar. He had dreamed it.

Would Daenerys exist then?

“—and I to Rhaenys!”

Rhaegar turns sharply to where his brother was sat.

The hate in Viserys’ lilac eyes drowns in tears of grief. Rhaella wraps her arms around his shoulders in consolation.

A bride must receive gifts from her bridegroom. The seven namedays old Viserys had exclaimed, unaware of the tragedy looming, of the dead bodies in the carriage, of his bride’s untimely death because of her father’s folly.  

“Do you know what it is like, to look at my wife—” Viserys spits the word like its poison, “—and dream of another in her place?”

Rhaegar weeps.

***

“Kepa!” exclaims Rhaenys, throwing herself into his open arms. He picks her up and throws her in the air. She spreads her arms in delight, imagining herself a fierce dragon.

Rhaegar thinks it is the most beautiful sight he’d ever seen.

His daughter clings to his neck in dragon-hoard. She tells him about her day, of her grand adventures with Balerion the Black Kitten, of Viserys’ Dragon tales of yore, of her mother finally letting her hold the newborn Aegon.

In his arms, she is peace.

***

Rhaegar dreams of Rhaenys and Aegon and Visenya.

Three Heads of the Dragon.

His children stand before him tall, proud, alive.

Rhaenys is an icon of beauty, Valyrian, a lone stripe of silver braided intricately through her dark curls. Her indigo eyes stare at him with the triumph of a Queen. She rides Balerion, who it is said preferred his mounts to be dreaming maidens.

To her right stands Aegon, pale and silver-haired and lilac-eyed, handsome, and he holds Visenya’s hand. He rides Vhagar. His youngest takes after her mother in colouring, darker than Rhaenys, though her curls are silvery, and her eyes are a bright violet. She is Meraxes’ mount.

The price of madness, thricely paid in blood.

“Kepa,” they say.

It echoes.

***

“Her eyes are yours, the same shade of melancholy,” comments the King. He reaches with thin long fingers to examine the lone stripe of silver before peering into her face. “Valyrian.”

Rhaegar cradles Rhaenys to his chest in dragon-hoard. “Yes, Father.”

“Here I thought she smelled Dornish,” scoffs the King. He leans closer, sniffing her. “She smells of fire. Do you know what she is, Rhaegar?”

“My daughter, Father,” replies Rhaegar slowly.

King Aerys shakes his head, muttering under his breath.

***

Prince Oberyn Martell is sat before him.

They stare at one another silently. Though Elia is gone, her death does not sever House Targaryen from House Martell to the disappointment of the other Houses.

His good brother is the only one who does not begrudge Rhaegar his enduring silence.

Oberyn is pacified by Rhaegar’s torment. He finds comfort in it, enough to temper his bloodlust.

They sit with their grief in silence.

***

“I dream of Rhaenys,” says Viserys in a quiet voice, “of us wedding by blood and fire, on the shores of Dragonstone, standing before Balerion the Black Dread.”

Rhaegar stills.

“We had seven days together, before Ser Gerold Hightower rode in and said the King demanded the return of Princess Elia and her children to Kings Landing.” Viserys smiles bitterly then. “It’s pathetic, is it not? She was a childhood love, if anything. We’d play pretend, a dragon-husband and his dragon-wife but it was a game, and she was three namedays and I was six.”

***

The Hall is packed with families from all the realm, vying for his attention. As a Prince, he has a duty to wed for the realm, to produce heirs for the Crown. He is comforted by Arthur’s presence, who breaks the tension with well-placed jokes.

Tywin Lannister has his precocious daughter with him, and her eyes follow Rhaegar’s every move.

From his Iron Throne, the King only shows interest when the Martells’ arrival is announced. He descends down the steps, casting a hush upon the Hall’s occupants.

“Princess,” greets King Aerys with a faint smile, then he reaches a hand to tilt Elia face upwards. “You are the image of your Princess mother. Rhaegar! Come, meet your betrothed!”

And that was all it took to seal her fate.  

It is only years and years later that Rhaegar thinks about that day, and his father’s interest in Elia out of all the maidens gathered in the room.  

***

“I miss the sound of your voice, my son,” says Rhaella with teary violet eyes.

Rhaegar grasps her hands and presses a kiss to them.

***

“Valzȳrys.”

Elia. He feels her warm breath on his neck, the gentle press of her lips on his collarbone. It is but a dream, he knows. He does not open his eyes. The swollen belly is hot against his side, their dragon-child asleep in her womb—

“Kessa ao vāedagon nyke iā vāedar?”

“Skoros vāedar gaomas ñuha dārilaros jaelagon naejot r ȳ bagon?”

“Morgho.”

Rhaegar opens his eyes and is met with a horrific sight – of Elia’s broken body, her eyes gauged out and her swollen stomach torn open.

“Skoro syt emagon ao geptot nyke? Se aōha riñar? Ao kivio nyke.”

***

Aegon suckles from his mother’s breasts, content to fill in his hunger. His wide lilac eyes move from Elia to Rhaegar who watches over them.

Rhaenys is in his arms, peering with curiosity at her newborn brother. 

Elia wears the Stranger’s pallor, though she clings to life with a fierceness to rival a battle-hardened warrior. Her smile is faint, though it shines with the warmth of the summer sun.

“Ao gōntan sȳrī, Ābrazȳrys.”

“His name shall be Aegon,” speaks Elia hoarsely.

Rhaenys squirms in his hold and he sets her down. He watches her run out of the door, and Arthur dutifully follows.

“Aegon,” repeats Rhaegar, hearing the echo of fate. “What better name for a king?”

“Will you make a song for him?” asks Elia.

“He has a song. He is the prince that was promised, and his is the song of ice and fire.” A shadowy figure beyond the door, illumined by the morning light catches his attention, silver-haired and beautiful—“There must be one more. The Dragon has Three Heads.”

“There will be no other after him, Rhaegar. The Maester says I will not live past another childbirth,” speaks Elia, reaching for the bed cover and pulling it up to reveal the pool of crimson gushing from between her legs.

Rhaegar leans to kiss her. He will keep her safe, this Princess wife of his. He will not put her at risk in the birthing bed again.

A plan brews.

***

On the turbulent shores of Dragonstone, an echo of three voices ring, Three Heads of the Dragon.

Rhaenys. Aegon. Visenya.

“Yn lantyz bartossa, saelot vāedis,” says Aegon, holding hands with Visenya, facing Rhaenys.

“Hārossa letagon, aōt vāedan, drakari pykiros, tīkummo jemiros,” finishes Visenya.

“Hae mērot gierūli, se hāros bartossi,” Rhaenys reaches for her siblings’ hands, closing the triangle, “Perzyssy vestretis, se gēlȳn irūdaks ānogrose.”  

***

“You do not know what she is, do you?” says Aerys, staring at little Rhaenys safely held to Rhaegar’s chest in dragon-hoard. “Issa se odre istia addemmagon…”

“What price, Father? Why must I pay?”  

In a fit of momentary sanity, Aerys looks at Rhaegar with pity.

***

“Mazigon,” Elia says, laughing, as she leads him through the airy halls of Sunspear.

Rhaegar does not want to give Rhaenys to anyone, though Elia persuades him gently to hand her to Arianne, her niece who is old enough to be trusted.

From there, Oberyn manages to steal the infant with glee. He kisses little Rhaenys’ forehead and exhorts Elia to take her to the water gardens. They go, after Elia kisses him in delight, taking with them Doran’s children and Elia’s ladies in waiting, leaving Rhaegar alone with the eldest Martell.

“Elia is happy,” observes Doran. “You’re happy too.”

“She makes me happy,” says Rhaegar softly, staring in the direction they left.

***

The Northern party comes to Kings Landing the week prior to Jon and Daenerys’ wedding.

Lyanna does most of the talking with Eddard and his wife, Catelyn.

The children who came are Robb, Sansa, and Arya. The younger two were left behind for there must always be a Stark in Winterfell.

Jon enjoys their company.

Rhaegar watches his son smile easily, the melancholy all but fades from his grey eyes. They love him, too, as their blood – a Stark of Winterfell, not a Targaryen of the Blood.

Daenerys sits beside him, solemnly watching the Starks, watching Jon with them.

“He is so easy to love, a gentle spirit,” she tells Rhaegar. Why did you not love him? How could you not love him? “But he is not ours, is he? He belongs to the cold North, and the ever-loyal Starks of Winterfell. Viserys will never love him, not as a nephew, not as a brother…”

They watch as Robb Stark’s hand clings to Jon’s shoulder in familial protection. They note the way Arya Stark hangs to his every word in admiration.

The lone wolf dies, but the pack survives, Lyanna had said when Eddard Stark had stormed the Tower of Joy. She had all but given up on living, until her brother’s arrival. Something primal had awakened in her, and she had pulled through the childbirth.

In contrast, the Targaryens have only wrought Death upon one another.

***

Before the Iron Throne, Rhaenys stands in a pool of ruby red blood.

“Perzyssy vestretis, se gēlȳn irūdaks ānogrose,” her words echo in the grand room, a whimsical spectre of what might have been.  

Ānogrose…Ānogrose…Ānogrose…

She is not a child of three but a surpassingly lovely maiden, tall and proud.

The words echo into eternity, heard by Dreamer Daenys, by the meditative Aegon, by the aggrieved Helaena…by the desolate Rhaegar. 

What price?  

Rhaenys smiles, and it is Elia’s smile in those breathless moments just before sunrise. The Conqueror’s Crown on her head bleeds. “Iksan se odre hen ērinnon, Kepa.”

Kepa…Kepa…Kepa…

***

“You should forgive yourself. Sweet Elia would’ve forgiven you,” Oberyn tells him before he departs down South.

But Elia is dead, and the dead do not care for the living’s grief.

It brings him to tears when he thinks of Elia the last he’d seen of her. She had been sleeping soundly in their bed, her face radiant in the silvery darkness of the night.

Rhaegar had not wanted to leave, for that one breathless moment. He had been so tempted to stay, to ignore the weight of prophecy on his shoulders. So what if the Long Night descends on the Realm of Man? He had Rhaenys and Aegon to think of, their safety paramount to him.

But—

Lyanna is the ice in the song, and her union with him, the fire, would be their salvation…

***

“My King,” says Arthur, gentle, solemn.  

Rhaegar ignores him, staring at the ceiling of his old quarters. The room smells of sweet rot and blood, of death—

His marriage with Elia had been consummated on the very bed he was lying upon.

“Rhaegar.” Arthur tries again.

Whatever he was saying, Rhaegar cannot hear, all he can hear is the echo of Elia’s fearful shouts as the malleable head of their infant son, little Aegon, was crushed by a heartless monster.

The sheets under him are faded with her dried blood—

In his turbulent mind, Rhaegar is there, only he is not the one bursting through the doors and slaying Clegane. No! Elia is struggling under him, wide brown eyes tear-filled, and he is the one violating her, the infant Aegon’s blood yet warm on his person. Her face in his hands is twisted in anger and terror, the softness of her skin-stained crimson.

‘Skoro syt emagon ao gaomagon bisa naejot nyke?’ Elia weeps.

Rhaegar answers by digging in his fingers. Her screams echo when he crushes her skull.

“Please…Rhaegar…” Arthur sounds terrified.

***

“She is lovely,” says Queen Rhaella. “Even more beautiful than her mother, I say.”

Rhaegar agrees with a bashful smile. It is the eve of their wedding and Elia is dancing with her brother, Oberyn.

“As only blood of the Dragon can be…”

It was King Aerys who’d said it, Rhaegar is certain, the words treacherous in their inaudibility.

***

Years pass by like the grains of sands falling from his hands.

His memory of Elia, Rhaenys, and Aegon fades in elements, though the intensity of his grief does not abate.  

It remains silent as the shroud.

On the shores of Dragonstone, he spends more of his waking hours, watching the waves crash and roll, listening to windswept laughter from the halcyon past.

Jon rules in his stead, along his Princess wife, Daenerys. Their rule is steadfast.

There are whispers of odd happenings, tales of monstrosities from the North carried down South via letters.

Kepa!

The word echoes thrice.

Before him stands the Three Heads of the Dragon. Rhaenys is the closest to him, and behind her, Aegon and Visenya hold hands.

They stand tall and proud, unyielding before fate and the prophecy—

‘I am the price, Father,’ speaks Rhaenys.

The Conqueror’s Crown on her head bleeds, and a Valyrian dagger pierces her heart. There’s blood on Rhaegar’s hands, warm like the hearth’s fire.

His firstborn kneels before him, places her hands on his in consolation. ‘Let us sleep in Muña’s arms, Kepa. Let us dream of the sunlight and the salty winds as we soar the skies, gevī.’

***

“I want to go home, Rhaegar,” says Lyanna, teary-eyed. “Please. I cannot do this any longer—”

For years, she has suffered his silence. For years she had borne the weight of a crown never meant for her, speaking when he would not do so, ruling over a realm that saw her as a scheming whore though she was a girl of fifteen, besotted with freedom.

Her suffering was penance in parts, and in parts to secure the future of her only child, who does not wish to be yoked to the Iron Throne.  

***

“Your mad father raped my mother,” says Doran, cold.

Rhaegar understands, then.

“But my King, she is Dornish,” says Tywin Lannister, seething quietly. “How will you allow Rhaegar to wed her in the Valyrian tradition?”

***

Dragons are soaring the skies. In the light of the sun, Elia is sat on the sands, the infant girl in her arms suckling from her breast. Little Aegon is shrieking as he chases after Rhaenys, and Balerion the Black Kitten follows them diligently.

‘Mazigon,’ says Elia, smiling, when she sees him.

***

“I will spend the rest of my life in penance for my wrongs,” Rhaegar whispers to the sleeping Elia, “this, I solemnly promise, my Princess wife, soon to be Queen.”

He leaves her and their children to the safety of Dragonstone, and a terrible war brews on his heels.

***

Father.

Aerys is young, his purple eyes are bright and steadfast, and behind him, Summerhall burns, smoke shrouding the sunlight.

Rhaegar is taken by the little girl in his father’s arms.

“You never knew what she was,” Aerys says, pressing a kiss to Rhaenys’ forehead.

“My daughter. My firstborn.”

“The price, Rhaegar. Your daughter is the price of prophecy. Her death ushers in the light of dawn.” Aerys hands him Rhaenys who clings to his neck in adoration – Kepa!Kepa!Kepa! – and a Valyrian dagger. "It is said the first Rhaenys was the price for the Crown, and Aegon the Conqueror paid it, bitterly he did." 

Rhaegar is horrified. “No, Kepa! I cannot—”

***

“Will you sing to me?” asks Elia, a shadowy spectre, hallowed by sunlight.  

Rhaegar’s feverish hand seeks hers. He is not long for departing this miserable world.

Jon and Daenerys bring him his grandchildren, but Rhaegar’s indigo eyes are lost to memories and the past. He forgets his grief, in those last moments, smiling, the Prince of Dragonstone once more.  

Elia is wearing her periwinkle dress, and her hair is wild from the salty breeze of Dragonstone. She places his hand on her swollen belly, skin burning hot where his firstborn, his dragon-daughter, Rhaenys, slept.

“Hen ñuhā elēnī: Perzyssy vestretis…se gēlȳn irūdaks, ānogrose,” sings Rhaegar in his death throes, “…perzyro udrȳssi, ezīmptos laehossi, hārossa letagon aōt vāedan…hae mērot gierūli se hāros bartossi…prūmȳsa sōvīli—”

“—gevī, dāerī.” Daenerys finishes the lullaby. She gently lets go of the slack hand in her grasp. “Ēdrugon, Lēkia. Pendagon hen aōha dārilaros ābrazȳrys se aōha hāre zaldrīzes riñar. Konīr iksis daor ōdres skoriot iksā jāre. Mērī lyks.”

Outside, the bells toll thrice for the death of King Rhaegar, and thrice for the life of the King Jon.

***