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Morwynna is roused from solid sleep by the commotion in the hall. Grimly, she swings her legs out of bed, pads through the dark room to the door, and sticks her head out. There are people everywhere in the poorly lit corridor, from maids and guardsmen to the hangers-on court that had accompanied the King’s family to Driftmark. A maid says her, bobs a curtsey and squeaks, “Lady Baratheon! There’s been a –” The woman trails off. Morwynna sighs, nods grimly, and waves the woman on her way.
Seven hells. She closes the door and takes an unlit candle to the guttering fire at the hearth before setting the small light down with a muttered curse. Putting Velayrons and Hightowers under the same roof for even one night and expecting peace seems to be an impossibility these days.
She dresses hastily in the dim light, blows out the candle, and goes out to meet the dragons.
In the Seasnake’s receiving hall, the Driftwood Throne a shadow in the background, a battleground is being laid. Morwynna sees her nephew first, Aemond, being tended to by a maester, before registering the small gaggle of Hightower kin around him, and then the king, in a black robe over his nightclothes, and in a towering rage.
She makes a decision. She goes to the two small boys who have no one beside them, of whom she shares no blood, knowing the price she will pay with Alicent later. Jacaerys and Lucerys look very young, as do the twin girls standing near them. Morwynna sets a hand on Jace’s shoulder and another on Luke’s, and both boys turn their heads and greet her with an identical expression of relief. They don’t know her very well, just as Aunt Morwynna. The ever-descriptive title of aunt is the easiest way to explain her presence at the periphery of the tangled web of the family Targaryen, but the boys are likely old enough to know the truth. Still, they know her as kin, and kind, which Morwynna supposes is enough, at a time like this.
Alicent has just enough time to cast a poisonous glance at her before beginning to harangue her eldest son, slapping him in the face. Morwynna winces for Aegon, even though she knows what he is; a bully, a drunk. He is still her nephew.
Thankfully, the Sea Snake and Princess Rhaenys appear, and then Rhaenyra does as well, shadowed by Daemon. Curious. Morwynna narrows her eyes at her good-brother, who merely cocks an eyebrow in return. Trust Daemon to be up to mischief, even on the day of his wife’s interment. Morwynna melts away into the background as the princess goes to her sons, and listens to the ensuing squabble as all the children try to answer at once.
Viserys shouts them all down.
“He called us bastards,” Morwynna hears Jace whisper to his mother. She winces in anticipation of the disaster about to come.
Viserys steps towards his maimed child. “Aemond,” he says, and the boy turns to look at his father. “I will have the truth of what happened.” The king’s hair is thinning, he relies far more on his cane now even than six moons ago, and he is dressed in his nightrobe. Still, there is the iron of the Throne in his voice when he adds, “Now.”
“What else is there to hear?” Alicent says, quickly, much too quickly. So it was Aemon’s fault, Morwynna surmises, or Alicent would not be so heartily on the defensive. “Your son has been maimed. Her son is responsible.”
“It was a regrettable accident,” the Princess begins, but Alicent cuts her off.
“Accident? The prince Lucerys brought a blade to the ambush. He meant to kill my son.”
Gods save them all from the ferocity of mothers, Morwynna thinks. Especially those who know they have borne children who are not going to grow up to be good men – both Aegon and Aemond come to mind.
“It was my sons who were attacked and forced to defend themselves,” the Princess says, and Morwynna reconsiders. Gods save them from mothers like Alicent – and from mother dragons, who have too many secrets to be safe. “Vile insults were levied against them.”
“What insults?” the King asks, looking more concerned over insults to Rhaenyra’s children than the actual maiming of own of his own. There are times when unfortunate, involuntary pity stabs at Morwynna’s heart, for all of these people, who so blindly make one another’s lives miserable.
“The legitimacy of my sons’ birth was put loudly to question,” Rhaenyra proclaims, and the sympathy dies. They have only themselves to blame, Morwynna considers, and yet they stand about howling and wailing that they have been cheated.
“What?” Viserys is perplexed. The poor man is too honest for his own good.
“He called us bastards,” Jace pipes up. Out of the corner of her eye Morwynna catches Alicent close her eyes for a moment in despair, and Aemond smirk a little. The little turd.
“My sons are in line to inherit the Iron Throne, Your Grace. This is the highest of treasons.” Viserys looks between Rhaenyra and Aemond as though he wishes to be anywhere else. “Prince Aemond must be sharply questioned so we might learn where he heard such slanders.”
“Over an insult?” Alicent says, softly, as though she can’t believe her own ears. “My son has lost an eye.” Her disbelief almost seems real, Morwynna thinks, but then, she has been fooled by her twin before.
“You tell me, boy,” Viserys says, leaning down as best he can to look his son in the eye. “Where did you hear this lie?”
“The insult was training yard bluster,” Alicent says, again too quick, again too sharp. You’re not helping yourself, Morwynna thinks, but she stays back against the wall in the shadows. This isn’t her business, not unless the King asks her opinion. “The lot of boys. It was nothing.”
“Aemond,” the King says, also quick, like a dog with a bone. “I asked you a question.”
“Where is Ser Laenor, I wonder? The boys’ father? Perhaps he might have something to say in the matter.” Alicent is grasping at straws now, but Viserys’ interest is piqued.
“Yes. Where is Ser Laenor?” Rhaenyra looks uncomfortable. Morwynna would wager at least five silver stags that Laenor is with his knight companion. And Rhaenyra… Morwynna follows her gaze from the Princess to Daemon, leaning against the wall as though all of this is far beneath him, except his hovering presence is something – almost – like protective.
“I do not know, Your Grace,” Rhaenyra tells her father. “I… could not find sleep. I had gone out to walk.” Ha, Morwynna thinks. Walk. That’s a way to describe it.
“Entertaining his young squires, I would venture,” Alicent says, her voice poisonous. Viserys however will not be distracted again.
“Aemond, look at me.” The boy looks unwillingly up into his father’s face with the only eye left to him, sullen again. “Your king demands an answer. Who spoke these lies to you?”
It takes a long time for the boy to answer, during which Viserys follows his son’s gaze to the boy’s mother and then back to Aemond. But finally, the boy utters three words. “It was Aegon.”
“Me?” says the hapless adolescent. Either Viserys is running out of patience or he was inclined to be gentler with Aemond given the boy’s maiming. His voice, when he speaks to his oldest son, is vicious.
“And you, boy?” he growls, limping over to his son. Aegon stares straight ahead, hands tucked behind his back. Morwynna would almost feel sorry for him, if he wasn’t such an unpleasant child. “Where did you hear such calumnies?” Aegon remains silent, and it seems Viserys is at the end of his patience. “Aegon! Tell me the truth of it!” he shouts, and the room is as tense as a bowstring, awaiting the blow.
“We know, Father,” the boy says, his voice steady. “Everyone knows. Just look at them.” Morwynna looks, as does Viserys and everyone else in the audience chamber. Their silver-haired mother, and the two dark heads of the boys, Luke tucked under Rhaenyra’s arm and Jace at her side. For a moment, Morwynna is afraid for them. But she never should have doubted the love that Viserys bears for the only living child of Aemma Arryn.
“This interminable infighting must cease!” Viserys snaps. “All of you! We are family! Now make your apologies and show good will to one another. Your father, your grand sire, your king demands it!” He begins to limp away, but he doesn’t get far.
“That is insufficient.” Viserys turns. Morwynna’s sister had spoken to her husband’s back, but now she has his full attention. “Aemond has been damaged permanently, my King. Good will cannot make him whole.”
“I know, Alicent,” Viserys says heavily, “but I cannot restore his eye.”
“No, because it’s been taken.” Alicent looks on the verge of tears. Morwynna thinks this time they might be real. Who wouldn’t cry, at the knowledge that your own children are far less valued than that of a dead woman?
“What would you have me do?” Viserys asks. Morwynna hides yet another wince. He really shouldn’t have asked her that.
“There is a debt to be paid,” Alicent says, and turns to stare daggers at Rhaenyra. “I shall have one of her son’s eyes in return.”
Murmurs. Mutters. Even a few remarks of outright condemnation. It appears that Morwynna is not alone in thinking Alicent goes too far.
“My dear wife,” Viserys says, but Alicent cuts him off.
“He is your son, Viserys. Your blood.” The King looks wearier every moment.
“Do not… allow your temper to guide your judgment.” But Morwynna knows that look on Alicent’s face, the stubborn jut of her chin when she’s set on something.
“If the King will not seek justice, the Queen will. Ser Criston.” The knight looks over at the king, but not quickly enough; Alicent is ordering, “Bring me the eye of Lucerys Velaryon.”
“Oh, shit,” Morwynna mutters.
“Alicent!” Viserys says, both alarmed and very annoyed.
“He can choose which eye to keep, a privilege he did not grant my son!” Morwynna’s twin raves. There is a wild look in her eyes, compounded by the unkempt waves of her chestnut hair.
“You will do no such thing,” Rhaenyra says firmly.
“Stay your hand,” the King orders Cole.
“No, you are sworn to me!” Alicent barks. Cole looks distinctly uncomfortable.
“As your protector, my Queen.” Viserys hobbles back to his wife.
“Alicent, this matter is finished.” He pauses. “Do you understand?” Alicent’s eyes are wide, but she doesn’t nod or agree. Nevertheless, Viserys seems to think he has convinced her, because he turns away to address the room at large. “And let it be known: anyone whose tongue dares to question the birth of Princess Rhaenyra’s sons should have it removed.” The iron is back in his voice again. Nothing quite so much brings out the king in Viserys as protecting someone.
“Thank you, Father,” Rhaenyra says quietly, and then there’s the violence.
Much later, Morwynna stands in the rooms given to the king for the duration of his stay. The sun is almost up, the cool sea air blowing through the open balcony doors.
Viserys sits at the small dining table nearby. “What a mess,” he grunts. Morwynna hums in acknowledgement, staring out at the sea. The waves look gentle and small from this distance, but she knows well enough they are less so, up close.
“You know as well as I that Aemond started the ruckus, your Grace,” she says, before turning her back on the sea and walking towards the king. Viserys gestures for her to take a chair as he pours himself a glass of wine, raising it to her in a silent question. “Not for me, thank you, your Grace,” she replies. “I’ve had quite enough excitement for one night.”
“There is no way to separate Vhagar and Aemond now,” Viserys says, in answer to her first comment. “I cannot fault Baela and Rhaena for their wrath at their mother’s dragon being purloined from under their noses. But neither can I give her back to them.” Morwynna nods, and leans back in her chair. “As for my grandsons…”
“An injury as grave as the one Aemond has incurred cannot go unacknowledged.” Viserys nods, but Morwynna doubts he knows what solution she is inching towards. “Lucerys has taken Aemond’s eye. Whether by accident or design, the deed is done. From now on, Lucerys will have to be to Aemond’s eye for him.”
Viserys does not speak for several minutes, mulling over her words. “Explain.” Morwynna is only too happy to do so.
“Have Lucerys come to court for six moons of the year. For the remaining six, Aemond shall go to Dragonstone. They will learn to fight together, to be the strength to the other’s weaknesses. That is the only way any fairness or honour can come from kin spilling each other’s blood.”
Again, Viserys is quiet. “Their mothers will not be pleased with such an arrangement,” he says at last. “Least of all my lady wife.” Morwynna steeples her fingers together.
“She has enough on her hands with Aegon,” she retorts. “The boy needs a firm hand, Viserys, and you’re not well enough to do it. Alicent is too lax with Aegon. My lord father has no interest. In the event of some catastrophe befalling Rhaenyra and her children, Aegon will inherit the Iron Throne. He must be taught some notion of statecraft, and to be of use in some way to his House. Daeron is at Oldtown. Aemond at least works hard in the training yard. Aegon does nothing but ignore his lessons, get drunk and chase skirts.” Viserys sighs.
“Such a commendatory indictment of my son you give me, Wynna,” he teases gently, but his expression is unhappy. “What would you suggest?” Morwynna puts a hand on Viserys’ withered one. As always, her love for Aemma spills over to the man her dead friend had loved most in all the world. Morwynna will always try to lighten the king’s load. It is simply a part of her, as vexatious as she sometimes finds it.
“Someone impartial to the infighting between Southron houses,” she says, and waits for Viserys to catch up, as she so often must these days.
“The North?” Viserys shakes his head. “If you think for half a heartbeat that Alicent will allow Aegon to be sent to the other end of the Seven Kingdoms, then I have misplaced my faith in you all these years.”
“I will see to my sister,” Morwynna promises. “Rest now, your Grace. I will tell your family to gather here in the hour after breakfast. You’ll need your beauty sleep.”
Once again, Morwynna relegates herself to the background as Viserys addresses the two disparate sides of his family. He outlines the plan for Aegon and Lucerys first, and Morwynna braces herself for the shouting.
There’s lots of it. Morwynna listens to the rabble and summarises each person’s point to herself. Rhaenyra, furious her son would be away from her for six moons of the year; ironically, Alicent is screeching about the same thing. Aemond looks horrified, Jacaerys thoughtful, and Lucerys, the little shit, sums the whole situation up with a revolted, “I’d rather lose my eye.”
“Don’t give them any more ideas, my lad,” Morwynna cuts in quickly, throwing her almost-nephew a quelling glance. Viserys bangs his fist on the table for silence.
“This is not up for debate,” he thunders. “I will have no further resentment festering amongst my own kin. Lucerys took Aemond’s eye. He will come to King’s Landing when the court returns to the capital.”
“What about Vhagar?” little Rhaena says into the silence. “Aemond stole her. It isn’t right.” Viserys looks sorrowful but certain.
“I am sorry, my dear niece,” he tells her. “But Vhagar has bonded with Aemond now. There can be no undoing it, not without either of their deaths.”
Rhaena bursts into tears. Her fiery twin looks like she’d like to kill Aemond herself. Morwynna quietly to the little girl’s side as the arguments begin again.
“Here,” she says, and hands over a handkerchief. The girl takes it, sobbing into the fine linen like her heart is broken.
It takes nearly an hour to settle the two warring mothers of Targaryen and Hightower blood. Viserys dismisses his daughter and grandchildren with a soft smile, before his gaze hardens as he looks at his two sons, standing to attention like they think they’re about to get the daylights reamed out of them. Nearby, Morwynna’s father is skulking, and Alicent sits at the table beside her husband, spine ramrod straight, as though ready to snatch up Viserys’ dagger and start slashing once more.
“Aegon.” The boy, who had been staring idly out the window, jerks as his father says his name. “I have wronged you.” Of everything Viserys could have said, it seems his family wasn’t expecting this; identical expressions of shock grace the face of everyone of Hightower blood in the room, save of course for Helaena, who is humming softly to herself as she embroiders, sitting on the king’s own bed like she owns it. Morwynna likes her best of all her sister’s children, the sweet, quiet, half-mad girl, always lost in her dreams and fancies.
“I have not seen you safely to manhood as I should have,” Viserys is saying. Morwynna might have missed some of it while she contemplated her niece. No matter now. “I needs must put things right.”
“Husband,” Alicent says nervously, but Viserys holds up a hand.
“Peace, wife. I do not intend to punish the boy.” He looks at his oldest son, who only barely restrains himself from squirming under the king’s gimlet eye. “Aegon, I am sending you to foster in the North. You are perhaps too old for a conventional fostering, but no matter. The Starks will see to it that you learn something of honour, even if they have to beat it into you in the training yard.” Horror is dawning on the boy’s face. In contrast, Aemond looks almost gleeful, under the bandage hiding the maimed half of his face. “There is no Dornish Red or Arbor Gold in the North, my son. No Street of Silk. You will learn discipline.”
Aegon mumbles something. “Speak up,” Viserys snaps. Aegon, expression mulish, looks up from his boots.
“What if I can’t?” It’s surprisingly vulnerable, and a painful fist grips Morwynna’s heart. Viserys looks grim.
“You have a year to turn your situation around, my son. The same as I have granted Lucerys and Aemond. If you return without having corrected your ways, then measures will need to be taken to ensure you remain far from the Throne. I am sorry, my boy,” Viserys says, more tender towards Aegon than Morwynna has ever seen him. “Not all of us are meant for power.”
“You can’t.” Alicent’s voice is low and horrified, rising to her feet. “You can’t. You can’t send both my sons away, not on the same day. I won’t allow it –”
“My wife.” The tenderness has faded. Viserys simply cannot love another woman the way he loved Aemma, Morwynna thinks. More fool Alicent for thinking it would ever be possible. Morwynna might have warned her, if she’d thought Alicent would have ever listened. “You have lost the right to dictate the raising of our children. You lost that last night, the moment you raised steel to the flesh of mine own blood.” The colour is draining out of Alicent’s cheeks, and she looks desperately to their father as expecting Otto to come to her aid. But the Hand of the King is silent. Again, Morwynna could have warned her long ago that their father will ever seek his own agenda. “Content yourself with the care of our daughter. For now, the rearing of our sons is no longer your concern.”
Alicent’s furious expression slides past Viserys and over to Morwynna. “This is your doing,” she hisses. Morwynna sighs and braces herself for the storm. “Even now you seek to undermine me.”
“You can manage that well enough yourself, it seems,” Morwynna retorts, before looking at her oldest nephew. “Out, Aegon, and take your sister with you. We needs must have a word with your brother.” Aegon skulks out, looking both resentful and grateful for the reprieve; Helaena is utterly unbothered, trailing behind him like a lamb.
“You have no right –” Alicent starts; Viserys raises a weary hand and she subsides into a fulminating silence.
“I asked Lady Baratheon to speak to the children and find out the truth of what occurred,” Viserys says tiredly. “Now sit down. You too, Otto.”
“And you as well, Aemond,” Morwynna adds. She waits until all three of her kin are seated before leaning back in her chair, folding her hands over her belly. As though sensing her touch the child kicks stubbornly against the inside of her belly; Morwynna winces and shifts a little, trying to get comfortable. “I have spoken at length with Daemon’s girls and your nephews,” she begins. “Enough to have pieced together a rough timeline of events. They confronted you when you returned from flying Vhagar, yes?”
Aemond is canny, but not enough to best Morwynna; still, he makes the attempt. “Yes. And they attacked me! All four of them –”
“Was that before or after you called the Lady Rhaena a pig?” Alicent’s mouth opens slightly in surprised; Morwynna can feel the disapproval radiating from both her father and Aemond’s.
The boy is perhaps now cottoning on that this will not be as easy as he had thought. “I didn’t say that!” Morwynna arches her eyebrows; Aemond, rather unwillingly, admits, “I said maybe Jace and Luke could find her a pig to ride, and that it would suit her.” There is a faint flush on the boy’s cheeks.
“And do you think that appropriate to say to a noble lady who has only yesterday seen her mother buried?” Morwynna asks, in the same level tone she has used all along. Aemond’s flush deepens.
“No, but –”
“Lady Rhaena tried to hit you,” Morwynna continues. “You pushed her into the dirt. Correct?” Aemond is brick red now.
“She attacked me –”
“Rhaena is a young lady, boy,” Viserys rumbles, his tone grim. Aemond’s one eye switches from Morwynna to his father, panic slowly fading to calculation.
“And I am a prince,” he says, a good attempt at bravado, except for the very faint whine in his voice.
“It matters not,” Morwynna’s father says. There is no grimness in his voice, only the usual evenness. “Whether prince or king, a man should never strike a woman.”
“They were trying to kill me!” Aemond shouts. His brief attempt at composure has gone.
“Lady Rhaena had no weapon,” Morwynna says. “She is younger than you, and with no training in the arts of war. Are you saying you could not have overpowered a girl of ten any other way?” Aemond says nothing, fuming silently to himself. “Let us continue. Lady Baela then struck you. You reacted by punching her in the face –” Alicent makes a low sound of unhappiness, but Morwynna charges on: “And you said…” Aemond is silent. “Lady Rhaena was very clear when she described it to me: ‘Come at me again and I’ll feed you to my dragon.’”
Viserys’s withered face is a study in disappointment. “All four of your… assailants were able to confirm this,” he says. “Lady Baratheon questioned them independently, before they had the opportunity to put their heads together and concoct the same story. I have no doubt you said this, my son. You are no true dragon-rider.” Aemond had been looking down; his head flies up, outraged.
“Vhagar’s mine!” he near-shrieks; Morwynna winces again, putting her fingertips to her temple in an attempt to massage out the sudden bloom of pain there. “You can’t take her away!”
“A dragon is not a toy, Aemond,” Viserys replies. “Nor is it something you are owed simply by dint of your birth. By your words, you show you do not understand the responsibilities of a dragon-rider.” Aemond smiles. It is an ugly thing.
“Like you do,” he sneers, dropping all pretence of filial respect. “How long did you spend on Balerion’s back? Twenty minutes?” Viserys just looks at him.
“I had the honour of seeing my dragon into the life beyond,” he replies, as terrifyingly serious as Morwynna has ever seen him, every inch a Targaryen king. “Pray you never have to know how it feels to lose half your soul in a moment, and then have to live with that loss for every day after. I cannot sunder you from Vhagar, but I will see to your lessons myself. Until I am certain you can be an honourable rider, you will not mount Vhagar again.” Aemond stares at his father. There are tears in his lone eye.
“Aemond,” Morwynna says quietly. The boy looks at her. One of the tears trails down his cheek. “I will detail the rest in brief. You put your hand around Prince Lucerys’ neck and threatened him with vile words. You raised a rock to strike him with. Prince Jacaerys drew his belt-knife when you insulted their birth. A scuffle took place. Prince Jacaerys kicked sand into your eyes, and Prince Lucerys seized the knife and swiped. He could not see through the sand where he was aiming.”
“His intent matters not,” Alicent says quietly. She is crying as well, but Morwynna has no pity left to spare for her. “Only the act itself matters.”
“By that metric, Aemond attempted to kill Princess Rhaenyra’s sons and assaulted the ladies Rhaena and Baela.” Alicent flushes dark red. The tears seem to dry up at once. “Should he be punished duly? It’s treason, isn’t it, to attempt to murder the heir to the throne? And I believe it’s called nepoticide, when an uncle tries to kill his nephew, or am I mistaken?”
“You’ve made your point,” Morwynna’s father says softly. Aemond is visibly panicking again, eye darting all over the room; Morwynna sighs, and softens her own voice.
“Whether any of us think it fair or right or even true,” she says gently. “Princess Rhaenyra claims her sons are legitimate. Your father thinks one thing about this,” she says, and darts a look at Viserys, who only looks very tired. “Others may think another. But the virtue of your birth that makes you a dragon-rider also puts your father – and Rhaenyra, by extension – above all others in the realm. You cannot disdain Rhaenyra’s right to her position but defend your own, not unless you want to become faithless to your postion, and a hypocrite besides.” Aemond is listening very closely to her now. “You have behaved dishonourably, Aemond, in striking your female cousins and beating boys younger and less experienced than you. But more pertinent is that you lied, or allowed a lie to be perpetuated, to portray yourself the innocent party. You are no craven, nephew. Do not act like one.”
“I believe you have been punished enough, my son,” Viserys says lowly. “Now come here to me.” Sullenly Aemond goes to his father’s side; Viserys raises his damaged hand and rests in gently on his son’s cheek, on the maimed side. “It is not that I love my oldest daughter better than you, my boy,” he says; Aemond is fighting to keep his composure, but the rare tenderness from his father has his lips twitching with the threat of sobs. “But you have your mother, and your grandsire, and your Hightower kin as well. Rhaenyra has only me, and my actions killed her own mother. Guilt, Aemond, is not the same as love, although they may look alike, at times.”
Aemond sniffs. Snot is starting to run from his nose. “So you don’t hate me?” he asks; Viserys wrinkles his brow in confusion, before it smooths slowly into understanding.
“I would never, my son,” he says, and then grunts when Aemond’s small body hurtles into him. Viserys winces over the boy’s shoulder – he is more wound than unmarred flesh, of late – but puts his good arm strongly around Aemond nevertheless, pressing a kiss into the head of silver hair now sobbing into the shoulder of his tunic.
“I’m sorry,” the boy burbles; Morwynna looks over at Alicent, raising her eyebrows. Alicent takes the hint, getting to her feet and going to her son’s side.
“Come, my darling,” she says, gently prising him off of his father. “It’s time for you to rest.”
“But it’s daytime,” Aemond protests. Still, he allows himself to be towed away, although Morwynna is surprised when he pauses beside her chair and gives her his hand. Morwynna takes it, pressing a fond kiss to her nephew’s knuckles. “If you didn’t care, you wouldn’t bother,” he says slowly, a memory of much earlier a time, when she spanked him for releasing Helaena’s beetles into the wild (Alicent has been on bedrest after Daeron’s birth, which had been the worst for her, and Morwynna tasked with keeping the older three in line).
“Precisely,” Morwynna replies. Aemond nods, and goes with his mother.
“Rhaenyra’s children are legitimate,” Viserys says as soon as they’re gone, nearly spitting fire. Morwynna sighs.
“We agreed many years ago that I would be allowed my opinions and you yours,” she says dryly. “And if they differed, we would simply have to let it lie. But I will say it is more than passing strange that Lord Lyonel and his son burn to death in their own castle, less than a sennight after they returned home –”
“Accidents happen,” her father says dismissively. Morwynna shrugs. In her belly, the child kicks harder. “We must make plans. Aemond should apologise to his cousins, and no doubt Princess Rhaenyra will want the opportunity to escort Lucerys to Kings’ Landing herself.” Morwynna nods.
“I’m afraid you’ll have to do that without me,” she says, shifting gingerly in her chair. Viserys looks over at her and concern comes into his face at once.
“I thought the babe wasn’t due until at least the next full moon,” he says. Morwynna’s father’s expression sharpens, like a bloodhound scenting the air before a hunt. Another child of Hightower blood to feed into her father’s war machine, Morwynna thinks bleakly.
“They come when they wish to, your Grace; with five children I would think you would know that by now,” Morwynna replies. “Would you be so kind to send a raven to Storm’s End, Father?” she asks. “Poor Borren won’t be able arrive in time for the child’s birth, of course, but I suppose I should still give him some notice, since he went to all the trouble of fathering the thing.”
“Of course, daughter,” Otto says, the most biddable Morwynna has ever seen him. It is always that way when she is heavily pregnant or labouring; her father’s thirst for heirs is never-ending, even those of his strange daughter and her Baratheon second-son husband. “Will you be able to walk, or should I ask the servants to fetch a bier?” Morwynna grits her teeth, manages to maneuver herself upright.
“I was born on my feet,” she replies, and it almost feels true.