Chapter Text
POV Rhaenyra
The quill raced furiously across the page, tracing precise and calculated words, fragile guarantees against the visions her dreams had forced upon her.
Three days had passed since she awoke drenched in sweat, tears streaming down her face, the taste of ashes lingering on her tongue, and fire burning through her veins. The gods had shown her a terrible future: betrayal, usurpation, murder, war, the cries of dying dragons, and, at last, her own death, ordered by the very boy who now snored in the royal nursery, only a few corridors away.
She did not want to believe it. None of it could be true. And yet every blow felt far too real; every death wounded her as though her body already knew the fallen. The betrayals cut deeply, like blades piercing her heart. And at the center of it all stood her father, the silent axis upon which the tragedy destined to befall her family would turn.
Her head throbbed with memories; her eyes burned from tears shed; her fingers trembled as they recorded the revelations of those dreams. Upon waking, she had dismissed the servants, ordered the guards not to disturb her, and locked herself in her chambers to plan the terms of her salvation, while the gods’ final warning still echoed in her mind:
He will summon you to his solar in three nights, when we send him the warning dream. He is weak. He will not know how to interpret what he sees and will choose to put you aside rather than order the deaths of those conspiring against the blood of the dragon. Prepare to change what was shown, Black Queen. Show them the strength of your blood. Demand what is yours by right. Be a dragon.
“My Princess!” Annora’s voice thundered in her ears.
Rhaenyra Targaryen did not release the quill nor lift her gaze from the parchment before her.
“His Grace requests that you join him for supper!”
…He will summon you to his solar in three nights…
“The King summons me to his solar?” she asked, her voice sluggish from days of disuse.
“Yes, my Princess!”
She straightened her back, which cracked in protest after countless motionless hours. She dipped the quill into the inkwell with a wet sound and exhaled slowly through her nose as she examined the contract she had worked on relentlessly. It was finished. At last.
…He is weak. He will not know how to interpret what he saw…
Resigned, she stepped away from the desk and turned to the woman who had served her since she left the royal nursery at six years of age. Rhaenyra knew Annora came from the Vale, one of many young women who had accompanied her mother upon marrying Prince Viserys Targaryen. Brown hair and blue eyes, so typical of the mountain folk, betrayed her origins.
Seeing her brought back the memory of her mother, torn apart by order of the man who claimed to love her, all in the name of a son who had never been meant to live.
…Prepare yourself to change what you saw, Black Queen…
“Summon the maids. Prepare a hot bath for me,” she ordered, drawing strength from the memory of the moment she had watched her mother be cut open at her father’s command. “And bring me Queen Aemma’s jewels.”
Annora bowed deeply and withdrew.
The next hour passed in a blur, hot water, perfumes, soft fabrics. The princess pretended not to notice the uneasy expressions of Annora and the other maids when she asked that her hair be left loose, as her mother once wore it, or when she ordered the blue Arryn gown that emphasized her resemblance to the late Queen.
The haunted looks of courtiers, guards, and servants lining the corridors as she was escorted to the King’s solar confirmed what she already knew: she was perfect, perfect to bargain with her father’s guilt.
…Show them the strength of your blood. Demand what is yours by right…
Ser Harold and Ser Lorent guarded the door that night. Both paled upon seeing her, a living evocation of the past. They bowed in silence and allowed her entry, as though they understood that the night demanded solemnity.
“My daughter, Rhaenyra!” the King’s voice sounded from across the chamber.
“Your Grace,” she replied, eyes respectfully lowered.
When she raised them, it was to absorb the shock and pallor overtaking her father’s aged features.
…Be a dragon.
Her silence weighed heavily over the supper, broken only by the King’s trembling voice as he spoke of the dishes he had ordered for the evening, his favorites, naturally, and by the clinking of cutlery as she tasted meats, pies, and wine without sensing their flavor. He never looked at her for long, always averting his gaze, as though afraid of her image or the memories she stirred. When her father paused his rambling to pour a fourth jug of wine, she chose to strike first.
“So this is how it will be, Father?” she asked.
Viserys froze, confused, the jug suspended midair on its way to the golden cup.
“My disinheritance in favor of your long-awaited son will be sealed with bread, meat, and wine?”
“H-how do you…?” he stammered, his body stiffening as though held fast by something dark.
“I have waited for this day since the moment my half-brother slid from between your new wife’s legs.”
She shrugged as she watched her father set the jug and cup down with a dull, trembling thud.
“Rhaenyra, my dear…” The King’s face, once flushed with wine, took on a sickly green hue as he struggled to speak.
“I believed you would honor my mother’s memory.” This time, she did not need to feign sorrow; the wound was still open. “When you told me of Aegon’s prophecy before Balerion’s skull and made the lords of the Realm kneel before me at the Iron Throne… I believed you truly thought I was enough.”
“My daughter, you are enough! Daughter of my beloved Aemma!” He reached across the table, gripping her hand desperately. “I wished for you to be Queen, Rhaenyra, I swear it. But the Realm will never accept you, just as they never accepted Rhaenys. I saw it happen… I dreamed it!”
“You promised me your support. You swore by my mother!”
“Please… I loved her… believe me…” he wept, tears flowing freely.
“You did not love her!” she cried, wrenching her hand away. “Had you loved her, you would not have discarded her only daughter like a piece on a cyvasse board, without inheritance, without protection, humiliated before all!”
“I saw what is to come, Rhaenyra!” he rose in panic. “The gods showed me the Realm at war, dragons fighting… I am trying to protect you!”
“Protect me?” she echoed incredulously, rising as well. “Protect me from your ambitious Hand, who covets the Throne for his grandson? From the Realm’s scorn when they learn I was replaced by a boy barely out of swaddling? Or from yourself, who claims to love my mother but killed her for your long-awaited son?”
The King recoiled as though struck. Horror twisted his face as Rhaenyra advanced, driving him back.
“Yes, I know how she died,” her voice faltered. “The maids told me. They told me how the Grand Maester forced you to choose… how you held her while they cut her open from chest to womb… how she begged for her life as her blood soaked the sheets.”
“Stop… please…” the King sobbed, retreating until his back struck the wall. “I loved her…”
“And that very same night,” she continued, “while I mourned the woman you killed, you entertained sweet, pious Alicent, my only companion, placing a crown upon her head before the year of mourning had even ended.”
“Alicent is innocent… nothing happened…” he babbled. “I grieved Aemma…”
“I will never forgive what you made my mother endure, nor the humiliation I must bear because of you!” Rhaenyra shouted, tears of fury finally falling. “I will not accept this disinheritance handed on a silver platter to your new Hightower family, even if I must burn this fortress with Syrax’s fire!”
They stood facing one another, breathless, the King shocked and frail, the daughter proud and broken.
“You would threaten your own family?” he asked, stunned.
“My family died with my mother,” she said, pointing at him. “And you stained whatever love I once held for you. I do not wish to be a kinslayer as you were, but I will be, if I must. I have the blood of the dragon and the fire to make lesser men tremble in their insignificant castles.”
Before her father’s silence and fear, Rhaenyra drew a deep breath.
“For the peace of the Realm forged by my ancestors, I am willing to renounce my claim to the Iron Throne,” she declared firmly. “In exchange for proper compensation.”
“What are you saying…?” the King murmured.
“I want Dragonstone, the seat of our ancestors.” She drew a parchment from her skirts and handed it to him. “I will make the Obsidian Throne my realm.”
“You would exile yourself?”
“Not exile. My freedom.”
He read the document quickly.
“If I accept, you will leave in peace?” he asked hesitantly. “And forgive me?”
“Do you accept the terms?” she countered.
“Yes… anything…” he swallowed. “You have my word.”
“Your word is worthless, Your Grace!” she struck back coldly. “I want this written, proclaimed, and recorded in the annals of history, so all may know that the blood of Aemma Arryn was not replaced, but granted a new kingdom: Dragonstone, independent and belonging to my line forever!”
The King lowered his eyes to the parchment.
“I will also take the jewels of my mother, of Alyssa, Daella, Alysanne, and Queens Visenya and Rhaenys,” she continued. “All Valyrian relics, living and otherwise, shall fall under my dominion, as shall full control of my House, my dowry, and my mother’s. Under these terms, I will accept being disinherited in favor of your son, Aegon.”
The silence that followed was intense, electric and liberating.
Viserys hesitated, seeing in her the image that haunted him: silver hair, violet eyes, the face of the woman he himself had condemned. And that was enough.
“Bring me the royal seal!”
With her inheritance secured in writing across ten scrolls addressed to the Great Houses of the Realm, the Citadel, the Crown’s treasuries, and Dragonstone itself, Rhaenyra began the preparations for her departure.
With the assistance of Lord Caswell, the castellan, she oversaw, catalogued, and ordered the packing of jewels, portraits, gowns, furniture, and cradles; books and tomes; fine fabrics; dragon eggs, some still warm to the touch, others set aside to cool, tapestries and mementos. In addition to these came chests overflowing with gold: her mother’s dowry, increased by another million gold dragons that the King had insisted on adding as part of his own gift, a sum sufficient to fill her coffers; Valyrian relics to adorn her new seat; all of it bestowed by the King’s guilt, along with ten ships of the Crown and his personal vessel, the Realm’s Delight.
Rhaenyra would leave nothing behind that might be claimed or discarded. The contract had been clear on that matter, and the King did not protest, he could deny her nothing while Syrax flew freely above the fortress and he saw, in his daughter, the image of her mother.
One afternoon, she gathered her household staff in the solar, as dresses were wrapped and lengths of fabric carefully stored in chests.
“My ladies, I wish to inform you of my definitive departure for Dragonstone, my ancestral home,” she announced, asking them to pause their work for a moment. “I will not ask you to follow me, for it would not be right to take you from your homes and families. Your wages will be paid according to your service. To those who wish to remain with me, know that you will be under my protection, as you always have been.”
“I will follow you, my Princess!” Annora declared at once. “I served your mother even before your birth, and I will serve you until the end of my days!”
“So will I!” One by one, the maids joined the chorus, drawing a smile from her.
“Then I swear that you will always have a place at my table and by my hearth,” she vowed.
She then summoned Harwin Strong and Luther Largent, men of her uncle’s trust and prominent figures among the Gold Cloaks.
“Princess!” Both knelt.
“Ser Harwin, I know you serve with the City Watch, but I would be honored if you accepted to serve as my Sworn Shield at Dragonstone,” she said. “My uncle has spoken to me of your loyalty and diligence, and I would value your counsel in organizing the security of my House.”
“It would be an honor, my Princess.”
“Ser Luther, second in command of my uncle’s men,” she turned to the other. “I wish to send aid to the Stepstones: men, weapons, and supplies. I want you to gather those willing to leave the City Watch to fight at his side and, at the end of the war, to serve at Dragonstone.”
“Princess…”
“Furthermore, I wish you to command these men, with the clear promise of a post in my Dragon Guard once the war is over.”
“The King and the Council reduce daily the coin allotted to the Watch, an amount once set by Prince Daemon,” he observed. “If the Princess is willing to pay the men, allow them to bring their families, and invest in this Dragon Guard, there will be no shortage of volunteers.”
“Then consider it done, ser.”
With the support of both men, Rhaenyra turned to Criston Cole, her Sworn Shield. She offered to release him from her service, requesting that he care for her stepmother and the child she carried. He did not take the decision well, but under the stern gaze of Ser Harrold, he bowed and gave thanks. Rhaenyra smiled cautiously: she would not tolerate a traitor in her House. In exchange, the King appointed Ser Steffon Darklyn to protect her in her new home.
Activity within the solar grew intense. If the courtiers found it strange, they said nothing, too occupied awaiting the banquet that would mark the beginning of the celebrations for Prince Aegon’s second nameday, two days hence.
On the eve of the festivities, Rhaenyra sent a raven to Maester Gerardys and watched from the balcony as the ships, already laden with her belongings, maids, guards, and their families, left the harbor bound for Dragonstone.
That night, the King visited her for one last conversation. He looked upon the emptied chamber and shuddered; the cold seemed to grow sharper.
“The prophecy passes from King to heir through generations,” he said after a long silence, extending the Conqueror’s dagger to her. “I wish for you to be the keeper of this secret.”
Rhaenyra took the blade, the Valyrian steel light in her hand.
“I will keep the Gods’ warning among my own. I swear it.”
“Thank you, my dear girl…” He hesitated, then wrapped her in an embrace. “Do not stray from me.”
“I did not do this, father,” she replied, feeling something break in her chest. “Your choices brought us here.”
“I know…” he murmured. “I only wish that you live long and be happy.”
She placed one last kiss upon his cheek before stepping away.
The following morning, she was summoned to the Throne Room, where the Realm had gathered to celebrate the second nameday of the King’s son.
Alicent was present, pregnant with her second child, with the baby Aegon in her arms. The Hand of the King stood at her side, pleased before the nobles assembled to honor his grandson.
Rhaenyra took her place below the Iron Throne and waited as the King spoke.
It was humiliating to stand before the same men and women who had knelt to her two years earlier, while her father named Aegon heir in her stead. Still, she endured with grace the whispers, the muffled laughter, and the presumption etched upon Otto Hightower’s face.
The humiliation ended only when the King proclaimed her Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen of Dragonstone, affirming her dominion, and that of her lineage, over the islands, in perpetuity.
Only then did she smile, leaving her father’s hall behind as the nobles murmured, the King collapsed upon the throne, the color drained from Alicent’s face, and Otto Hightower writhed in shock and barely concealed fury.
Excerpt from The Dawn of a New Empire, by the Sage Gunther, member of the Order of Historians of the Great University of New Valyria, a work dedicated to the critical analysis of the reign of Empress Rhaenyra I Targaryen, called the Great.
The acquisition of the dominion of Dragonstone by the first Empress of New Valyria, formerly the acknowledged heir to the Iron Throne, remains, to this day, the subject of intense speculation among chroniclers and scholars. Contemporary sources diverge widely: some claimed that the then Princess of the Heir had resorted to arcane arts to compel King Viserys I Targaryen to grant her the seat; others insinuated that the concession had been secured under veiled threat, embodied by her mount, the so-called Golden Lady, Syrax, at the time the only dragon residing in King’s Landing. There is, finally, a more sober current of thought, formed chiefly by those who knew the young Princess personally, which maintains that she employed the same intellectual, diplomatic, and strategic acumen that would later prove essential to the construction of a prosperous realm beyond the Narrow Sea.
A document preserved by the direct descendants of the Empress, whose authenticity is widely accepted by modern historiography, allows us to apprehend a substantial portion of the terms stipulated in the agreement concluded between father and daughter, known in contemporary historical literature as the Schism of House Targaryen.
By force of this contract, the following rights and prerogatives were recognized and secured in perpetuity:
- Full possession of Dragonstone, together with its vassals and dependent territories, in favor of the lineage of Rhaenyra Targaryen;
- The transfer of the Crown jewels previously belonging to Queens Aemma Arryn, Alysanne Targaryen, Visenya Targaryen, and Rhaenys Targaryen, as well as to Princesses Alyssa and Daella Targaryen;
- Exclusive control over the dragons and eggs kept at Dragonstone;
- Possession of the Valyrian relics, animate and inanimate, then housed in King’s Landing, including—but not limited to—portraits, tapestries, books and tomes, ceremonial furnishings, dynastic cradles, and petrified eggs;
- The absolute separation of House Targaryen of Dragonstone from House Targaryen of King’s Landing, encompassing all institutional spheres, such as marital alliances, political pacts, commercial agreements, territorial administration, tax collection, and jurisdiction over subjects;
- The full restitution of Queen Aemma Arryn’s dowry, valued at approximately two million gold dragons, to her only child, Rhaenyra Targaryen;
- The transfer of Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen’s personal dowry to the coffers of Dragonstone, to be administered sovereignly by her and by her House;
- The cession of ten ships of the Royal Fleet to the dominion of Dragonstone.
Notwithstanding the profusion of interpretations advanced at the time, when the contract was dispatched to the Great Houses of the Realm, from the glacial vastness of the North to the deserts of Dorne, as well as to the Citadel and the Crown’s treasuries, the ultimate reasons that led the King to accede to the Princess’s demands and to permit her departure, bearing with her a significant portion of the Valyrian relics once safeguarded in the royal vaults, remain obscure.
It is, however, the consensus among scholars that the monarch never freed himself from the sorrow caused by the absence of his firstborn daughter, a sentiment amply documented in the voluminous correspondence he produced throughout the years that followed her desertion or, as some revisionists contend, the Empress’s emancipation.