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The world had gone quiet. Not silent - there were still horses screaming, men shouting, armor clattering. But wrong, as if the air itself had split. Ser Duncan was on his knees in the caking mud of the lists, cradling Baelor Breakspear like something fragile and holy. The prince’s deformed helm lay beside them as blood soaked into the trampled ground.
Egg stood only a few paces away, his breath coming in sharp, small pulls. He stared at his uncle’s face, waiting for him to move. He did not move. Someone shouted for a maester, someone else was weeping.
Across the field, Maekar tore his helm from his head. It fell from his hands and struck the churned ground with a hollow clang. His silvery hair clung damply to his brow; blood, not all of it his own, streaked his cheek and jaw. His chest rose and fell beneath dented armor, and his breath came ragged from parted lips.
He saw the circle forming. Saw Ser Duncan kneeling. Saw the cloak already spreading beneath Baelor’s head. For a moment, he did not understand. Then he did - painfully.
“No.”
The word tore from him before he knew he had spoken. He crossed the torn earth in long strides, shoving men aside. Someone tried to steady him; he flung them off. “Move.”
Ser Duncan looked up as Maekar reached them. There was blood on his hands, on his surcoat, on Baelor’s hair. Maekar fell to his knees so hard the impact jarred through his wounded ribs, reaching for his brother. He pulled his gloves off his hands violently, tossing them into the mud. Then he gathered Baelor’s head into his hands, lifting it from Duncan’s arms and cradling it as if he might wake him by sheer will.
“Baelor.” Maekar’s voice broke on the name.
No answer.
He cupped Baelor’s face in both hands, turning it toward him. The skin was already cooling. The eyes that had once held such thought, such patience, stared sightless at the pale sky.
“Baelor,” he said again, sharper now. “Get up.” His voice cracked. "Get the fuck up!" The maester pushed forward, trembling, but Maekar shoved him back. He pressed his forehead to Baelor’s, heedless of blood.
“You always did this,” he muttered hoarsely. “You always stepped between.”
His shoulders began to shake. Not with rage, with something far worse. He let out a sound then - raw, torn from deep in his chest. Not princely, not measured; it was the sound of a man who had just understood what he had done. Egg flinched - he had never heard his father make such a sound. Many men turned away. Some of them wept openly.
Egg stepped forward without thinking - he simply moved.
“Father,” he said, his voice small in the ruin of the lists.
Maekar did not hear him at first. He clutched Baelor tighter, fingers curling in his brother’s blood-matted hair as though he could drag him back from whatever darkness had taken him.
“I did not mean …” His breath hitched. “I did not mean this.”
Egg came closer still, close enough to touch. “Father.”
Maekar’s head snapped up. His eyes were wild - blue gone almost black with grief. For a heartbeat, Egg thought he might be struck. Instead, Maekar reached for him. His hands seized Egg’s shoulders, dragging him forward, pulling him against blood-streaked armor.
“You should not have been there,” he choked.
“I had to,” Egg whispered, tears cutting pale lines through the dust on his cheeks.
Maekar stared at him - at the bald head and the thin shoulders, and something inside him cracked further. He pulled Egg into him then, crushing him against his chest, heedless of blood and dirt and dented steel. Egg gasped at the force, but wrapped his arms around his father’s waist.
Maekar buried his face against his son’s shaved scalp.
“I have killed my brother,” he said into him. “Gods forgive me. I have killed him.”
“You didn’t,” Egg said fiercely. “You didn’t mean to.”
“It does not matter,” Maekar rasped.
Egg tightened his grip. “It wasn’t you,” he said, though his voice shook. “It was the madness. It was Aerion. It was …”
Maekar’s hands trembled at the back of his son’s head. For a moment, just a moment, he allowed himself to lean into the small body holding him up. Then slowly, painfully, he drew breath. He loosened his grip on Egg and turned back to Baelor’s still form. Across the field, the murmurs were growing. Lords whispering, knights removing their helms, the foundations of the realm already shifting beneath their feet. Men moved in a stunned, directionless way, as though unsure whether the trial had ended or the world had.
Maekar still knelt. His gauntlets lay discarded somewhere behind him. His bare hands were red; blood had dried in the lines of his palms. His chest rose and fell too fast beneath dented armor. Egg stood beside him. Maekar’s shoulders shook once, then again. Not violently, just enough for Egg to realise his father's unbearable grief. Egg swallowed. He had seen his father angry, seen him stern, seen him cold and cutting and unyielding. He had never seen him cry.
“Father,” Egg said quietly. Maekar did not answer. He reached out towards Baelor again, as though he might undo what had been done. His fingers hovered above the fabric of Baelor’s cloak, then fell uselessly to his thigh.
Egg stepped closer. “It wasn’t your fault.”
Maekar let out a broken sound, and his head bowed.
“I killed him.” The words were quiet.
Egg could not bear it; he dropped to his knees beside his father. The movement startled Maekar enough that he looked at him then - truly looked.
Egg reached out. His hand found his father’s, those scarred, blood-streaked fingers, and held on. Maekar went still. For a heartbeat, it seemed he might pull away, but he did not.
Egg’s grip tightened. “You didn’t mean to,” he said, his voice shaking now despite his effort.
Maekar’s jaw clenched. “I should have been better,” he whispered. “He was always better.”
Egg shook his head fiercely. “You’re my father.” The words hung there, simple and fierce.
Maekar’s breath faltered. He turned fully toward Egg then, as though seeing him not as a prince, not as a son of the realm - but as his child. Slowly, as if it cost him something terrible, he reached up and cupped the back of Egg’s shaved head. His thumb brushed over the bristle. “You should not have seen me like this,” he said.
“I wanted to stand with you,” Egg answered.
The honesty of it undid him. Maekar pulled him forward then, once more, not in anger or desperation, but in raw need. He gathered Egg against him, one arm wrapping around his small back, the other cradling his head. Armor pressed into bone, blood smeared onto skin, Egg pressed his face into his father’s shoulder and felt the tremor that ran through him.
“I am so tired,” Maekar murmured - so softly Egg almost missed it. It was not a thing Prince Maekar Targaryen would say. Egg’s hands fisted in the torn cloak at his father’s side. For a long moment, they stayed like that - kneeling in the wreckage of the lists, the cloak-covered body of Baelor Breakspear only steps away, the realm watching from a careful distance.
Maekar bowed his head over his son’s and closed his eyes. “I have failed,” he said. “I have failed him. And you.”
“No,” Egg said, fierce again. "You didn't fail me."
Maekar’s breath faltered at that. For a heartbeat, his grip on Egg tightened - desperate, almost. Then the tremor returned to his shoulders. Egg felt it. He pulled back just enough to look at his father; Maekar Targaryen had ever been the strongest person he knew. But now, his heart had been torn right out of his chest. Blood had soaked through the fabric beneath his dented armor, darkening the cloth at his side. His breathing was shallow and uneven. He swayed, just slightly, and might not even have known it.
“Father,” Egg said again, softer now.
Maekar did not answer. His gaze had drifted back to Baelor’s shrouded form, as if he could not bear to look away and yet could not bear to look. Egg swallowed, then did something he had never done before: he took his father’s hand, not as a son seeking comfort, but as someone giving it. The hand was heavy in his own - scarred, blood-slicked, trembling faintly.
“You’re hurt,” Egg said.
“It is nothing.”
It was not nothing. “You’re bleeding.”
Maekar did not respond, so Egg tightened his grip. “Come,” he said. The word was small, but firm. Maekar blinked, as though surfacing from deep water. His eyes focused slowly on his son.
“You need a maester,” Egg continued. “Uncle Baelor would have said so.” The name landed.
Maekar’s jaw tightened, but Egg did not let go. “Please,” he said - his voice was steady. For a long moment, Maekar remained kneeling in the churned mud, the cloak-covered body of his brother at his side. Then, slowly, he shifted. The movement cost him; he hissed softly as his ribs protested. Egg rose first and pulled - not with strength, but with insistence.
Maekar let himself be pulled. He rose unsteadily, towering even in his pain. The world seemed to tilt for a moment. Egg stepped closer without thinking, bracing himself against his father’s side.
“You should not be holding me up,” Maekar murmured.
“I’m not,” Egg said quickly. “I’m just … helping.” He slipped his arm around his father’s waist, careful of the blood, and began to guide him across the ruined lists.
The maester, pale and trembling, hurried forward. “Your Grace!”
“See to him,” Egg said before his father could refuse. “He’s bleeding,” he continued, quieter now, but unwavering. “And he won’t sit if you ask him. So don’t ask.” For a heartbeat, something flickered in Maekar’s eyes - surprise, perhaps. Or pride. Then the prince exhaled slowly. “Do what you must,” he said. The maester moved at once, hands shaking as he began to unfasten dented plates and blood-stiff straps. Maekar remained standing only because Egg stood in front of him, one small hand still wrapped around his father’s fingers.
The clothes beneath were soaked through. When the maester touched his ribs, Maekar flinched - just once. Egg’s grip tightened again. In that small circle of torn earth and blood, it was only the two of them. Maekar’s hand lifted, slowly and carefully, and rested on the back of Egg’s shaved head.
“You should not have had to be the strong one,” he said quietly.
Egg swallowed. “I’m not,” he answered. But he did not let go. He watched silently as a single tear slid down his father’s scarred cheek and disappeared into his silvery beard. The maester’s hands moved carefully at Maekar’s ribs, binding clean linen over torn flesh. Maekar stood unmoving, eyes fixed somewhere beyond the ruined lists, as though if he looked hard enough he might still see the morning before.
“I would give anything,” he whispered, “to spare you this morning.”
The maester left to fetch clean linen.
Egg’s throat tightened painfully. “If Mother were here,” he began - and his voice almost failed him. Maekar looked at him, and Egg forced himself to go on.
“If Mother were here … she’d take care of you.” The words hung between them.
Egg’s fingers curled firmly into his father’s hand. “And now I will.”
Maekar stared at him as though struck. For a heartbeat, something inside him broke clean open, and his hand trembled where it held Egg’s.
“You are a boy,” he said - but the protest held no force.
“I know,” Egg answered.
“You should never have to say such a thing,” Maekar murmured.
“But I mean it,” Egg whispered into his armor. Maekar’s breath left him in something that was almost a sob - though he swallowed it before it could fully form. For a long moment, he allowed himself to be held by his son. Then, very gently, he rested his forehead against Egg’s. “You shame me with your courage,” he said softly.
Egg shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m your son.”
Maekar closed his eyes at that. His hand slid from Egg’s cheek to his shoulder, then down to his small wrist, as if to assure himself the boy was solid and warm and alive.
“Yes,” he said at last, voice low and breaking. “You are.”
Then Baelor was borne past them, shrouded and still. The maester returned.
“Aegon,” Maekar said. “Your knight will have need of you. Go to him.”
Across the lists, Ser Duncan still knelt alone in the churned mud, great hands empty now, head bowed as though the weight of the realm had been set upon his shoulders. Maekar’s thumb brushed once more over Egg’s wrist. Egg hesitated, for just a heartbeat. Then he nodded. “Yes, Father.”
Maekar released him. It was a small thing - the loosening of fingers. But it felt like another letting go.
Egg took a step back. Maekar stood taller, though blood still stained his hands.
“Stand with him,” Maekar said quietly. “Stand as you stood with me.”
“I will.” Egg turned. He walked toward the hedge knight, shoulders squared though they trembled. Halfway across the ruined lists, he stopped and looked back.
Maekar had not moved. For a fleeting second, father and son met each other’s eyes, and in that look was everything unspoken. Then Egg turned away, and Maekar did not call him back.