Chapter Text
The crown had scarcely touched Aegon's brow before the world went to hell.
Alicent stood in the Dragonpit's sunlight, her hands clasped so tightly before her that the bones shone white through her skin. The golden circlet descended toward her son's head, catching the torchlight, and she thought—not for the first time, not for the thousandth—of everything that had brought her here. Every night she had shared a sickbed with a dying king, breathing air thick with milk of the poppy and the slow rot of his flesh. Every prayer she had whispered to gods who sometimes felt deaf, begging them to preserve her children, to preserve her purpose, to preserve this. Every humiliation suffered at the hands of smug Velaryons and insolent Targaryen princesses who looked at her and saw only an up-jumped interloper.
It had all been leading here. To this. To her blood upon the Iron Throne, where it belonged.
The crown descended. The cheers rose.
And then the ground answered.
The stones erupted beneath them. Great slabs of marble, some weighing as much as a dozen men, were hurled skyward like children's toys, and from the depths came a roar that shook the city to its foundations, that rattled teeth in jaws and sent birds exploding from every tower in King's Landing. Alicent's blood turned to ice in her veins. She saw the red scales first, gleaming like fresh-spilled wine in the torchlight, and then the woman upon its back, hair white as snow, wild as a thing possessed, eyes burning with old grief and newer rage.
Rhaenys Targaryen. The Queen Who Never Was. And Meleys, the Red Queen, rising from the earth like some vengeance out of the old songs.
This is how it ends, Alicent thought. This is how we all burn.
She had no time to curse the gods. No time to clutch at her faith, to beg the Mother for mercy. The beast filled her vision, filled the world, filled every corner of her mind with the simple, terrible certainty of dragonfire. She saw her children—Aegon frozen mid-step, Helaena clutching at her own arms, Aemond reaching for a sword he did not have—and knew she could not reach them. Knew she could not save them. Knew nothing, in that moment, but the heat and the shadow and the end of all her striving.
Then Rhaenys turned.
The dragon wheeled, vast and terrible, and crashed through the ceiling in a shower of stone and sunlight. And then she was gone—flying east, toward Dragonstone, toward the woman who would answer this day with fire and blood.
Alicent did not remember the carriage ride.
She remembered Helaena's nails digging into her arm, her daughter's face pressed against the window, murmuring things that made no sense
The gates of the Red Keep loomed before them, and from them hung the dead. Those who had refused to bend the knee to the new king—old men, mostly, and a few minor lords who had backed the wrong horse—swung gently in the afternoon breeze. Their faces were purple-black, their necks at wrong angles, their hands curled into claws that would never grasp anything again. On the spikes above them, heads kept silent vigil with open, accusing eyes. A young woman—she could not have been more than twenty—stared down at Alicent's passing carriage with empty sockets where crows had been busy.
"Thousands of swords," her daughter whispered, pulling away from Alicent's touch. "Thousands of swords, and swords, and swords. Blood of his blood. It always cuts. But some it cuts deeper."
Alicent's blood, already cold, turned to ice. Irritation spiked as well. "Helaena, you are frightening me."
Her daughter's eyes focused slowly, painfully, like a woman surfacing from deep water. She looked at Alicent as if seeing her for the first time.
"He won't feel it at first," she said quietly. "That's the worst part. He won't feel it until it's too late."
She then fled into the keep, her gown trailing behind her like the train of some phantom queen. Alicent's hand hung in the air where Helaena had been.
Aegon made a face at her, petulant and boyish. He huffed, crossing his arms.
"You should have killed that hag when you had the chance."
"And risk her husband's ire?" Alicent snapped, then immediately regretted the sharpness. She saw his face fall, saw the hurt flicker across his features—he was still so sensitive, her boy, so easily wounded. She softened her voice, stepping closer. "You have done well, Aegon. You are king now. Let the rest to us."
She crossed the space between them and took his face in her hands. "You have done well, Aegon. You were crowned. You are king. Let the rest to us now."
He stared at her with those eyes—Viserys' eyes, yes, but something of her own in them too. "And what," he said, his voice rough, "pray tell, do you propose to do? It's war. Rhaenys said so."
"Rhaenys has no word in this," Alicent said, releasing him, stepping back into the role she had played so long. The counselor. The schemer. The mother who would move heaven and earth for her children, who had already moved heaven and earth, who would move the very lords from their seats if they stood between her sons and their birthright. "It is Rhaenyra's word that matters. We will offer her terms. A place of honor for her sons—for all her children. Dragonstone for her to keep, to rule as she pleases, to call her own until the end of her days. And hopefully..." She trailed off, shaking her head.
Aegon scoffed. "If not?"
"If not," she said, steadying herself, "you are crowned by the High Septon himself, in the sight of gods and men. You sit the Iron Throne. It is your right, by every law of gods and men, by every tradition that has kept this kingdom stable since Aegon the Conqueror first set foot on this shore. And she will have no chance, not when the lords of the realm rally behind you.”
He was not stupid, her son. Drunk, often. Cruel, sometimes—more than sometimes, if she was honest with herself, and she tried not to be. But not stupid. "If she refuses," he said slowly, "and you say she will refuse—her and that dog Daemon—"
The name was a blade in her gut. Daemon. The Rogue Prince. The man who wore the Stranger's face in her darkest dreams, who smiled with blood on his hands, who had taught Rhaenyra every poison she would ever wield, who had circled her family like a shark scenting blood for longer than she cared to remember. He had been a problem when Viserys lived. He would be a catastrophe now.
Alicent's face darkened. "Then you already know the answer to that, Your Grace."
The crown sat askew on Aegon's head, already forgotten as a thing to be minded.
"Your Grace," he repeated, the words rolling off his tongue like honeyed wine. "I like that. I like that very much."
He was grinning as he turned away, as walked away and called for a servant to bring him wine, one hand reaching up to adjust the golden circlet that had cost them so much.
She turned back to the matter at hand.
The proposals for Rhaenyra had been rewritten thrice now, each draft more generous than the last. Her father's hand moved across the parchment, scratching out words and adding new ones, crafting an offer so magnanimous that even the most stubborn lords would see the righteousness of their cause. Dragonstone to keep. Her sons honored. Her blood recognized. Everything but the throne itself.
It would not be enough. Alicent knew this with the same certainty she knew her own name. But the offer must be made, must be seen to be made, so that when Rhaenyra refused—when she chose her ambition over peace, her hatred over compromise—the realm would witness her folly.
Her father set down his quill. "Her father’s ashes," he said quietly. "We should send them to her. As an offering of grace. Let her bury him beside her mother, if that is her wish."
Alicent was silent for a long moment. Viserys. Her husband. The man who had taken her youth and given her children and left her with nothing but memories of a sickroom and the smell of milk of the poppy. She had thought, once, that she would lay him in the Great Sept with all the pomp the Faith could muster. She had thought to start a new tradition, to bind the Targaryens closer to the Seven, to make her mark upon the dynasty even in death.
Now she found she did not care.
Let Rhaenyra have his ashes. Alicent had spent enough of her life in service to Viserys Targaryen. She would spend no more.
"There are greater things to think on," she said, and turned to the lists of lords who must be made to bend the knee.
The Red Keep opened its doors to petitioners an hour past noon.
Alicent walked the familiar corridors with her father at her side, her mind already turning over names and alliances, calculating which houses would need firmer persuasion than others. The Vale would be trouble—they had always loved Rhaenyra's mother, and that love had never quite died. The North would wait and watch as they always did, the Starks too stubborn to commit until the outcome was certain. The Riverlands were a patchwork of petty lords and old grudges, anyone's game if the price was right.
She was still turning over possibilities when she rounded the corner and saw them.
Aegon stood at the base of the Iron Throne, his crown still askew, a goblet of wine in his hand. Around him clustered his companions, the Lannett twins whose names she could never keep straight, a handful of other young men who laughed too loud and bowed too low. They were giggling, whispering amongst themselves, pointing at the petitioners who had begun to file into the throne room.
Beyond them, the nobility of King's Landing filled the galleries. Lords and ladies who had come to witness justice, to present their cases, to kneel before their new king and seek his favor.
And her father stood rigid as a carved statue, his face carefully, terribly blank.
Alicent's stomach clenched. She hastened to him, heedless of the eyes that followed her progress.
"What is it? What's happened?"
Her father did not look at her. His eyes were fixed on Aegon, and his voice when it came was barely more than a whisper, hissing through lips pressed tight as a wound.
"His Grace wishes to judge today."
Alicent bit her lip so hard she tasted copper. "Aegon has never done that. He has no experience, no training—Father, you cannot let him—"
"I tried to tell him." Otto's voice did not change, did not rise, but there was something in it that Alicent had rarely heard directed at her. Exasperation. Blame. "I suggested that perhaps his mother might advise him to sit this aside. To let those with experience handle the petitions, lest he embarrass himself before the court on his first full day as king.”
She left her father standing there and walked toward her son.
Aegon sat on the steps midway to the throne, one elbow propped on a stair, his goblet dangling from his fingers. His companions clustered around him like flies on meat. The crown caught the light as he turned, and when he saw her approaching, his face split into a grin.
"Mother!"
She reached him and took his arm, pulling him close, ignoring the bows of his companions as if they were so much furniture. They smelled of wine and sweat and the particular rankness of young men who had been celebrating too long.
"Aegon," she said quietly, for his ears alone. "How about you sit this one aside."
His face fell. The grin vanished.
"I'm the king," he said.
"That you are." She kept her voice soft, reasonable, the voice she had used all his life to guide him toward sense. "But you have no experience with this, Aegon. You have never judged a petition, never spoken law from the throne. Let me or your grandfather handle this, and you can pass the sentence when the judgment is made. No one will think less of you—"
His friends were listening. She saw it in the way they tilted their heads, the glances they exchanged, the smirks that flickered across their faces before they could hide them. And Aegon saw it too.
Something flashed across his face. His jaw tightened. When he smiled again, it was painful to behold—a rictus of a smile, all teeth and no warmth, with anger burning behind his eyes.
"I'm the king," he said again, louder now, for the room to hear. "The Iron Throne is mine. And what kind of king lets his mother do his work for him?" He leaned close to her, his breath hot and wet against her ear. "You're too used to Father, I think. Don't worry, Mother. There's no use for you now."
Aegon turned from her and began to climb.
The Iron Throne rose above him, a monstrosity of twisted metal and cruel edges, a thousand swords forged in the Conqueror's dragonfire and left sharp enough to draw blood from any who sat it carelessly. Aegon climbed the steps with the swagger of youth and wine, and halfway up he stopped.
"Wine!" he called, snapping his fingers.
A page scrambled forward, a boy of ten or twelve with terror in his eyes, clutching a flagon. He climbed after the king, poured generously into the goblet Aegon held out, and then stood frozen as Aegon took the flagon from his hands as well.
"Go on, then," Aegon said, waving him away. "I'll manage."
The page fled.
Aegon continued climbing, the flagon tucked under one arm, his goblet in his hand, his crown catching the light. At the top he stopped, surveyed his kingdom, and set the flagon down where his leg would rest. He took a long drink from his goblet, smacked his lips, and then—with a flourish that made his friends whoop and the lords in the galleries exchange glances—he sat.
And immediately hissed.
His face contorted. His elbow came up as he twisted, staring at the place where the throne had clearly cut him, some hidden blade finding flesh through all his fine dark clothes. He shifted, adjusted, found a position that seemed to pain him less, and settled at last with the flagon beside him and his goblet in his hand.
"Right," he said, squinting down at the petitioners. "What do they usually say on these occasions?"
Alicent could not have said which of the Lannett twins it was—they were as indistinguishable as reflections in still water, with their curling blond hair and their quick, empty smiles. But one of them cupped his hands around his mouth and called up to the Iron Throne, half-joking, half-unsure, as if he were hailing a friend across a tavern rather than addressing his king.
"Be welcome, Your Grace!"
Aegon nodded from his perch, took another long drink from his goblet—wine dribbling down his chin, staining the gold trim of his dark velvet doublet—and waved a hand expansively. "Be welcome, then. All of you. Let's get on with it."
Alicent's face fell further than she would have believed possible. “Fool,” she whispered under her breath. She took her position. She sat. She watched.
And—surprisingly, impossibly, against all expectation—it went well.
Or as well as such things could go, with a drunken king with no experience whatsoever. Aegon, for all his faults, had always wanted to be loved. It was perhaps the truest thing about him
He gave them gold.
All of them. More gold than their claims were worth, more gold than the crown could comfortably spare, more gold than any king in his right mind would offer to strangers who might be lying. He gave until the master of coin, hovering at the edge of the proceedings with a face like thunder, looked ready to collapse.
"Thank you, Your Grace," the merchant said, bowing so low his forehead nearly touched the floor. He was laughing—actually laughing, with disbelief and delight. "You are generous, Your Grace. You are very generous. And most noble."
"Aegon the Generous!" one of Aegon's companions toasted, raising his cup.
"Aegon the Magnanimous!" the twin shouted—whichever twin, it did not matter—and raised his cup in turn.
Aegon beamed. He raised his own goblet high, wine sloshing over the rim to spatter on his clothes, on the throne, on the steps below. "Aegon the Magnanimous!" he repeated, rolling the words on his tongue like honey. "I like that. I like that very much."
He drank, and wine spilled from the corners of his mouth, running down his chin to darken the velvet of his doublet. He did not notice, or did not care. He raised his cup again, grinning like a boy at his own nameday feast.
"Aegon the Realm's Delight!" he proclaimed.
She closed her eyes in dismay at the title. Fool, Alicent thought. You utter fool. That title belongs to her. And now they will call you a grasping, drunken fool instead for daring to claim what was never yours to take. They will laugh at you. They will laugh at me. At everything I have built.
The peasants laughed. The nobles laughed even louder, Alicent heard it in the galleries, saw it in the way they leaned together to whisper behind their hands, in the smirks they tried and failed to hide, looking at her.
The smallfolk who had gathered at the back of the hall—servants and hangers-on and those with no place in the line but every interest in the new king—laughed with them. Her father’s jaw clenched so tight Alicent could see the muscles jumping beneath his skin. His hands, clasped behind his back, were white-knuckled with rage.
She looked down and saw blood welling up from a dozen tiny wounds, saw the raw flesh beneath, saw that she had been tearing at herself without even noticing.
She stared at her hands for a long moment. Then she looked up.
The flagon sat where Aegon had left it, beside his leg on the seat of the Iron Throne. He had been using it to refill his goblet throughout the proceedings, drinking more and more as the afternoon wore on, his words growing slurred and his gestures more expansive. Now, as he raised his cup for another toast, his leg shifted.
The flagon tipped.
It tumbled down the steps of the Iron Throne, clanging against the twisted blades that formed the stairs, bouncing and spinning and spilling its remaining contents across the steel. Aegon lunged for it—a drunk man's instinct, to reach for something falling—and lost his balance entirely.
He fell.
It happened slowly, or seemed to. Alicent saw it in pieces, in fragments, in details that would haunt her forever: the way his crown flew from his head and spun through the air, glinting in the light from the high windows. The way his arms flailed, reaching for purchase on a throne that offered none. The way his body twisted as it struck the blades—not once, but again and again, tumbling down those cruel steps that were never meant to be stairs, that were forged from the swords of Aegon's conquered enemies, that had tasted the blood of every king who had ever sat upon them.
The swords cut deep.
They sliced through his shoulder as he fell—a long, tearing gash that laid open the velvet and the flesh beneath in one cruel stroke. Through his back as he tumbled, the blades catching him again and again, each one a mouth that bit and held and tore itself free only to bite again. Through his arm as he tried uselessly to shield himself, the steel parting skin and muscle as easily as a knife parts ripe fruit.
Alicent saw the dark velvet part. Saw the flesh beneath open like a mouth—like a hundred mouths, each one screaming in its own red voice. Saw the blood.
So much blood.
Impossibly red. Impossibly bright. It sprayed across the twisted steel of the throne, painting the ancient blades in fresh crimson, adding her son's life to the countless kings who had bled upon that seat before him. It splashed against the steps, against the stones below, against the hands of the first guards to reach him.
Everyone screamed.
The sound rose around her like a wave, like the roar of the dragon pit when Meleys had burst from below, like the cries of the crowd when Rhaenys had fled. But Alicent's scream was louder—or so it seemed to her, though she could not hear it, could not hear anything over the pounding of blood in her ears and the terrible, focused clarity of a mother watching her child die.
She ran.
Her dark-green skirt tangled about her legs, almost sent her sprawling, but she did not slow. Did not stop. Did not think. There was only the throne and the blood and her son crumpled at its base, and she would reach him or she would die trying.
Ser Criston was there before her. Of course he was. The white cloak was already stained red as he knelt beside Aegon, his hands reaching for the king, for the boy he had trained and protected and failed to save from this.
"Your Grace," he said, his voice rough with something that might have been fear. "Your Grace, stay still—"
Aegon was half-standing, half-kept upright by the very sword that had pierced him. One of the blades—a great jagged thing, old as the Conqueror himself—had caught him in the chest and held him there, impaled like a butterfly pinned to a board. His weight pulled against it, and more blood welled from the wound with every breath. The dark velvet of his doublet had turned black with it, wet and shining in the light from the high windows.
The Kingsguard surrounded them. White cloaks and steel, forming a wall between the king and the court, between the blood and the staring eyes. But Alicent could still see through the gaps.
"We can move him," Ser Criston said, his voice tight with urgency, "or else he will die. We need a maester. Now."
Alicent heard herself scream. It was not a word, not a prayer, not anything so coherent as a plea to gods who had never listened. It was simply sound—raw and rasping and torn from the deepest part of her. She was weeping, she realized dimly. Weeping and screaming and unable to stop either.
"Call a maester!" Her father's voice cut through the chaos, a roar that sent the nearest page running. Otto Hightower's hand closed around her arm, pulling her back, pulling her away from Aegon even as she fought against his grip. His fingers dug into her flesh hard enough to bruise.
"Alicent, let them work. You cannot help him by being in the way—"
She shook him off. Or he let her go. She did not know. Did not care. She was at Aegon's side now, falling to her knees in the spreading pool of his blood, and his face—his face was so pale, so suddenly, terribly pale, all the flush of wine drained away to leave something waxen and small and young.
"Mother," he whimpered. The word was wet, thick with blood. "My chest—it hurts—Mother—"
"I'm here." She did not recognize her own voice. "I'm here, Aegon, I'm here, stay with me—"
The maester came after what felt like hours and was probably only minutes.
He was an old man, gray-faced and stooped, his chain clinking as he ran—actually ran, which Alicent had never seen a maester do. He took one look at Aegon, at the blade through his chest, and his face went the color of old parchment.
"Gods be good," he whispered.
"Save him!" Alicent shrieked. "Save him or I will have your head, I will have your head, do you hear me—"
The maester found his footing. He was trembling, sweating, his hands shaking as he knelt beside the king.
He inspected the blade that still pierced Aegon's side, the one that held him half-upright, and reached into his bag for a roll of clean cloth.
"Pull him out," he said. His voice was steadier than his hands. "On my count. Pull him free and lay him flat."
Ser Criston and Ser Thorne exchanged a look. They each took a side, grasping Aegon under the arms, their white cloaks brushing against the blood-soaked stones.
"One. Two. Three."
They pulled.
The sound Aegon made was not human. It was the sound of meat tearing, of flesh giving way, of a body violently separated from that which had pierced it. More blood poured from the wound—a flood of it, impossibly much, more than a body could hold and live. It splashed against the stones, against their boots, against Alicent's gown where she knelt.
And then he was free. Free and falling, caught by the white cloaks before he could hit the ground, lowered gently to the blood-slick stones at the foot of the throne that had tried to kill him.
Ser Criston tore his own cloak, and pressed the fabric against Aegon's chest. The white turned red in an instant, redder still, and still the blood came. The maester rummaged through his bag. His hands were shaking worse now, fumbling with needles and thread and small glass vials of things that might help or might not. Sweat beaded on his forehead, ran down into his eyes. He was panicking.
Aegon coughed. Blood bubbled from his lips, ran down his chin, mixed with the wine that still stained his doublet. His eyes found Alicent's, soft and gray and filled with a confusion that broke something in her that would never be mended.
"Mother," he whispered. Or tried to whisper. It came out as a gurgle, as bubbles, as nothing at all.
Maegor.
The word came from somewhere. Then everywhere.
It whispered through the throne room like smoke, like poison, like a curse spoken under breath that somehow carried to every corner. Alicent heard it as they lifted Aegon onto a stretcher, as they carried him through the staring crowd toward the chambers where he might live or might die.
Maegor.
A serving girl muttered it to a guardsman. A lord whispered it to his lady behind a raised hand. A page boy, no more than ten, repeated it to another page with wide, frightened eyes. The word spread like ripples in a pond, like fire through dry grass. It passed from lip to ear, from shadow to shadow, from one frightened soul to the next, until the very walls of the throne room seemed to pulse with it.
Maegor. Maegor. Maegor.
Despair spiked through her. Despair curdled, turned, became something else.
Anger rose in its place. Hot and bright and burning, like dragonfire, like the flames that had forged the very throne that had tried to take her son. It burned through the despair, through the fear, through the last ragged edges of her self-control. Her eyes snapped toward the sound, toward the source, toward the page boy with his wide eyes and his loose tongue and his whispered curse.
Maegor. Maegor. Maegor.
"Seize him!"
She was pointing—maniacally, wildly, her red-stained hand stabbing toward the boy who had spoken, toward the other boy who had listened, toward every servant and lord and lady within reach. Her finger trembled with the force of her rage, with the effort of not screaming, with the need to make someone pay for the word that was even now spreading through the throne room like poison through a wound.
The guards hesitated. They exchanged uncertain looks, their eyes darting from her to the blood on the floor to the twisted metal throne and back again. For a heartbeat, nothing happened. The whole world held its breath.
"Seize him!" Alicent shrieked again. "Seize them all! Anyone who speaks that name—that's your king! That's your king they're speaking of, you cannot let them—"
"Shut the gates."
Her father’s voice was quieter than hers, but it carried further. It always had. He stood at the edge of the blood-spattered floor, his face grim and pale, his eyes wide in a way Alicent had rarely seen. The Hand of the King, the architect of everything, looked like a man watching his life's work collapse in flames.
"Shut every gate," he repeated. "every hole a rat could squeeze through. No one leaves this keep. No one.."
The guards hesitated only a moment before they ran to obey.
Otto turned to her. He crossed the blood-slick floor in three quick strides, his hand closing around her arm with that same iron grip from before—but gentler now, almost solicitous. His voice dropped to a whisper, meant for her ears alone, and there was something in it she had never heard before.
Fear. Genuine fear.
"This will be the end of our cause," he said, "if anyone hears. If that word reaches the city—if it reaches the lords—if it reaches her on Dragonstone..." He trailed off, but he did not need to finish.
If the realm believed the Iron Throne had rejected him—if they believed the Conqueror's seat had judged him unworthy and found him wanting—then everything they had built was ash. Every lord who had bent the knee would question. Every doubter would find proof. Every enemy would point to this moment and say, See? The gods have spoken. The throne has spoken. Aegon is no true king.
Rhaenyra's claim—Rhaenyra's claim, which they had fought so hard to bury, which they had schemed and sacrificed and damned themselves to supplant–would be strengthened not by argument but by divine sign, by the throne's own judgment. No one would see the truth of it. No one would care that he was drunk. No one would care that it was an accident, a stumble, a foolish boy's foolish mistake.
"But he wasn't—" The words tumbled from her mouth before she could stop them, babbling historically, her voice had risen to a near-shriek. "He can't be, he was just drunk, too drunk to sit still and giddy with joy, that's all, that's all—it could have happened to Rhaenyra! She who ignores duty and walks over everything else in her path! She who thinks herself above the laws of gods and men! If she had climbed those steps, if she had tried to sit that throne, it would have cut her too. It would have bled her. The throne cuts everyone. Everyone.”
"That idiot—" Otto began, and then his mouth twisted, and the words that came next were not the ones she expected. "Your doing. For not raising him right."
Alicent froze.
"I thought—" He laughed then, a short, brittle sound with no humor in it. "I thought him tormenting the maids and watching the child pits was the root of the problem. I thought we could manage that, contain it, work around it. Boys will be boys, I told myself. He'll grow out of it, I told myself. But no." He looked at her then, and his eyes were cold, colder than she had ever seen them. "He's a drunk and a fool. And you made him thus."
"Take the dowager queen to see her daughter. Now. Before you do more damage than you've already done."
The knock came at the door like a death sentence.
Alicent had been sitting in the dark. The candles had burned down hours ago, their wax pooling on the floor like frozen tears, and she had not called for more.
Her hands were clean now. She had scrubbed them. She had scrubbed them until the skin was raw and red, until the water in the basin turned pink and then clear, until there was no trace left of her son's blood. But she could still feel it. She would always feel it. The dried flakes pulling at her skin, the sticky warmth between her fingers, the way it had looked black in the torchlight—
The knock came again. Harder this time.
She crossed the room. The floor was cold against her bare feet—when had she lost her shoes? She could not remember. She could not remember much of anything after the throne room.
The door opened.
A maid stood without. Her face the color of curdled milk, her forehead beaded with sweat despite the chill of the corridor. She was shaking.
She gripped the doorframe. Her knuckles went white.
"What is it?"
"The king—" The girl’s voice cracked. She swallowed. Started again. "The king is dead, Your Grace. His wound festered during the night. The maesters could not—they tried everything, but the fever took him, and he died in the hour of the wolf. The small council is called."