Chapter Text
If you had asked Alicent about the weather on the day the world ended, she would have bet on lightning and thunderstorms, yet the day on which her personal world ended happened to be balmy with a chance of rain showers.
If you had asked Alicent how she would react to her world ending, she would not have expected herself to be fretting about the weather being all wrong.
Alicent laughed – it came out as more of a strangled hiccup, really, but who was keeping track – and rubbed a hand over her tired face.
“Just goes to show what a fool I am,” she muttered under her breath.
At least there were no tears. She couldn’t afford tears. More like it, she simply had no time for tears. Or for breaking down. Or for hiding in her bed and never leaving it again, or for any of the other unreasonable, yet deeply desirable things the weak Alicent she couldn’t afford to be wanted to seek refuge in.
She didn’t have time for weak Alicent, either.
“The children have been secured, Your Grace. They are guarded exclusively by Hightower men and preparations are underway, as you commanded,” Ser Criston said. His voice was painstakingly gentle, as if he expected her to either shatter or snap at the first sharp word. Although he didn’t stand any closer than was perfectly proper, there was something distinctly hovering about his body language and the way he regarded her.
Alicent took a deep breath and forced herself to turn away from the window looking out on the Red Keep’s courtyard.
Down below, they were frantically sweeping and scrubbing, preparing the courtyard to receive their queen.
In Alicent’s ears, the ringing of the bells announcing the king’s death still echoed.
It had been the sept closest to the Red Keep first, then every other sept’s bells had chimed in until all of King’s Landing was a cacophony of noise loud enough to drown out every sound but the screaming in her head.
Her hands curled into fists, and she looked down at them; pale, soft hands that had never known the hardship of physical labor but did know how to hold a dagger. Her hand drifted to the blade strapped to her thigh under her voluminous green velvet dress, then up to her hair, reassuring herself that the special hairpin was still in place.
She took another deep breath since the first had done nothing to steady her, and this time, she succeeded to force her shaking hand into stillness.
“Thank you, Ser Criston,” she said, and marveled at her own voice – the queen’s voice, Father know how she still managed that. Sheer force of habit, maybe.
There was a poignant silence which was downright loud in how Criston was struggling with himself. Once he lost that fight, he asked, “Are you sure it is wise to stay?”
Alicent finally raised her head to look at him, only to shoot him a dry look. “The circumstances are such that I’m sure of nothing, except that I’m not being wise.”
As she walked over to her writing desk, she exhaled in a hiss through her teeth; with her sworn shield alone, it was safe to let her real feelings show.
“No, Ser Criston, I’m not sure at all that it is wise.”
She ran her fingertips over the smooth surface of the lacquered dark wood. She had been allowed to keep the desk, at least, as it had come with her from Oldtown. It was the only piece in her queen’s chambers she would have grieved for. There was an ink stain from when little Aemond had “helped” her write her letters, tiny toothmarks from when Aegon insisted on mimicking his young dragon in chewing on everything, the paper dragonfly Helaena had crafted for her and insisted she use as a paperweight, though it was lighter than all the letters it might pin. So many memories, ingrained in wood.
She looked over her shoulder at Criston. He still stood there, ever patient with her while she sorted through her thoughts. It was what she appreciated most about him, her father never gave her the time to sort out her thoughts for herself before telling her what she ought to be thinking. “Every instinct is screaming at me to run. Make for Oldtown, take a ship to Essos, and keep running however far it takes. But…”
But why wasn’t she already halfway to Oldtown?
She could read that question in the eyes of every courtier and servant and guardsman loyal to her cause; they were aghast that she remained passive in the face of certain doom. Some, she figured, would blame it on her feminine weakness, would think she was a ship left rudderless with the Hand so recently dismissed, disgraced, and far away in Oldtown when disaster hit. She certainly had her moments of self-loathing when she thought so, too.
If Otto Hightower were here, he would have sprung into action as soon as the king died. He would have ordered King’s Landing to be locked down like a fortress, and by now, he probably would have already proclaimed Aegon king.
But then again, if Otto Hightower were here, they wouldn’t be in this mess. If he were here, if he were still Hand instead of Lyonel Strong, Alicent would have been first to learn of the king’s death, instead of being an afterthought once the raven to Rhaenyra had already been sent. If her father were still Hand, the first Alicent and her children learned of the king’s passing would not have been when she was finally told the reason for why they had been secured within the Red Keep.
“We missed our opening. If we run now, we will be caught, and it would be judged as the act of rebellion they are waiting for.”
Lyonel Strong was loyal to his vows to Rhaenyra, but he was no cruel man. As a result, Alicent had been able to negotiate for her children to be hidden in an out of the way part of the Keep, guarded by the Hightower retinue her father had left her. Lyonel Strong was a honorable man, but he was no fool. He knew as well as she did that right now, every ambitious man in King’s Landing would see arranging a tragic accident for Alicent’s sons as the fastest way to curry favor with Rhaenyra.
Lyonel Strong was no cruel man, but he was no fool. He would not let Aegon leave the Red Keep alive. A male heir, permitted to grow to manhood in exile, would forever throw a shadow onto Rhaenyra’s reign, and so would his sons and their sons. Seven Hells, if Rhaenyra succeeded to normalize female succession, even Helaena would become a rival claimant that couldn’t be suffered to live.
Her hands tightened on the edge of the desk, the indents of Aegon’s tiny teeth marks against the meat of her palm. “No. We won’t make it so easy for her. If she wants to murder my children, she will have to do it the hard way: By publicly executing them for the sole crime of being born their father’s sons.”
And while Rhaenyra savored her victory, and arranged for an ever so tragic accident that wouldn’t brand her a kinslayer, Alicent would be weaving her own webs.
“I know her,” she said, not without bitterness. Oh, there was ever so much bitterness between her and Rhaenyra these days; if you could forge a throne from spite alone there would be a sufficient number of uncomfortable chairs to seat all of them. “I know her better than anyone else. Rhaenyra grows complacent in victory. Once she is distracted, we will slip her net.”
Maybe to escape to Essos, or maybe to rally the banners and fight for Aegon’s claim with her and her father as his regents. They would have to see how the momentum developed, if it would be better to take a stand or to retreat and fight another day. It would depend on just how merciless Rhaenyra was in her pursuit, if they could afford to bide their time until Aegon and Sunfyre were grown.
Alicent’s lips twitched into a bitter smile. How funny, that she had once loved Rhaenyra for her stubborn, dogged persistence.
Her smile twisted and widened into something macabre, and she was glad that she had her back to Ser Criston, for she felt matching tears sting in her eyes.
Oh, how she had once loved Rhaenyra.
How this had been their dream, once: Just them against the world, ready to take on heaven and earth and every power in-between just as long as they were together.
They should have been our children, she still caught herself thinking sometimes when she saw that same reckless, defiant glint in Aegon’s eyes, or when Aemond’s frustration with himself bled into childish petulance just like young Rhaenyra’s tended to. It didn’t matter how impossible that desire was, every time she had held one of her tiny silver-haired bundles in her arms and saw something in them that they shared with Rhaenyra, that yearning had flared up again, and it never hurt any less.
But it was impossible, and the obvious reason why was the least of them.
While Alicent had dutifully warmed the king’s bed, instead of fighting for her, Rhaenyra had taken to enjoying herself with Daemon, with Criston, to being wild and free while she painted Alicent the wicked stepmother in her mind, the seductress who had come to destroy her family.
Rhaenyra had made her choice a thousand times over, and Alicent had made hers the day she first held Aegon in her arms, and knew that only one of them could live.
Alicent’s hand fluttered up once more to her elaborately braided hair, fingertips brushing over the silver dragon hairpin that was the centerpiece of the updo. A pin sharpened to a razor’s edge and coated in just the thinnest layer of a black sheen. The dragon’s maw was wide open in a roar. Look at that cute face, it looks just like Syrax! she could almost hear Rhaenyra say, all but quivering with excitement as she put the pin into Alicent’s hair. She could hear her giggle as she kissed Alicent’s neck and stage whispered, Don’t tell my girlfriend, but this is all part of my cunning plan to make her love Syrax, and then she will ride with me.
If Rhaenyra chose cruelty today, then she would have Alicent right next to her and make her watch as she took her children’s heads.
If Rhaenyra chose cruelty today, Alicent would repay her in kind.
The noise from the courtyard increased to a buzz of voices – to Alicent’s uncharitable ears, it sounded like the buzzing of a nest full of angry wasps.
For the third time since Ser Criston had entered the room, he got to see her take a fortifying breath and fail to be calmed by it.
Nevertheless, she lifted her chin and straightened her shoulders – every bit the queen she no longer was, strictly speaking.
“Let’s go, Ser Criston. I believe it is time to greet our new queen.”
You can’t have everything you want.
It was something people had kept telling Rhaenyra all her life, saying it to warn her, to chide her, or even to comfort her.
It had proven true often enough. She couldn’t have everything; she couldn’t even have what she wanted most in the world.
Maybe her first decree sitting on the Iron Throne should be to outlaw people saying that stupid sentence to her.
How she hated these words.
In fact, she hated them almost as much as she hated the way Alicent looked at her, her brown doe eyes hard and cold as ice while she all but dripped with disdain. Nobody could do it like Alicent, that had always been one of her skills. She didn’t need to look angry, didn’t even need to sneer, she could exude sheer contempt for your very existence by willpower alone. Once upon a time, when it hadn’t been aimed at her more often than not, Rhaenyra had found this skill incredibly arousing.
Rhaenyra tore her gaze away from the green beacon amidst a sea of black arrayed on the courtyard to welcome her, and flashed Lord Strong a smile that managed to be genuine and forced at once.
“Thank you, Lord Hand, your warm welcome is much appreciated,” she said. She let a heartbeat pass. “As was your timely message, though it… though it is one no daughter wishes to receive.” She couldn’t help the quiver in her voice, though she cursed herself for it.
She couldn’t afford weakness. The courtiers had to see a Targaryen monarch of fire and blood when they looked at her, not a young woman grieving her father.
But he wasn’t here to greet her.
Never had she returned to the Red Keep after an absence, and he hadn’t been here to greet her. He hadn’t always been able to meet her on the courtyard, but even if she ran to his office, or his chambers, or the Small Council’s chambers, she would not find him. She would never again find him.
I don’t want to see you ever again! she had yelled at him when she last saw him, both of them furious. King Viserys had been determined to see her married to prevent any further scandals, and Rhaenyra had felt betrayed that he would go back on his promise to let her choose her husband. Maybe she could have accepted it as the price to be paid for going too far in her rebellion, or simply for trusting Daemon too blindly, if marriage hadn’t already been such a fraught topic between them after Alicent. To take away even that useless mockery of a choice after denying her the only one she would ever want to choose, it had been more than she could bear. She had been cruel to him then. Once her anger faded, she had still chosen to remain on Dragonstone, figuring it was smarter to stay out of sight until her father had forgotten his plans to see her wed.
She had never wanted…
She had never…
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
Rhaenyra’s eyes burned. She blinked rapidly, and forced herself to look at the courtiers gathered to greet her.
They were all dressed in black, but otherwise, they went the full range from somber mourning clothes to festive court outfits celebrating the arrival of their new monarch. It was almost comical. She would have laughed, if she had felt like laughing.
There were friendly faces, curious ones, eager ones, and quite a few courtiers she knew to be Green looking at her with trepidation or barely concealed resentment, but wearing her colors all the same.
Nobody was truly mourning the king who had ruled them for decades, they had already moved on to sniffing out new opportunities.
By the Seven, Rhaenyra hated King’s Landing.
Her eyes inevitably rested on the green beacon amidst the black. Alicent wore her defiance in cloth, while her face was perfectly expressionless. Her maids had even done a good job covering up the swollen red of her eyes, but as a woman who had gone through the same makeup regimen just before passing the gates of the city, Rhaenyra knew to spot the signs.
Alicent looked pale and hollowed out, the green of her dress and the red of her hair – still bright under the black lace veil that was her only symbol of a widow in mourning – only made her look even more colorless in comparison, as if all the blood and the life had been leeched out of her. There was only this rigid, perfectly poised statue left.
She looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept in days.
Rhaenyra stopped in front of her, and took some satisfaction from seeing Alicent purse her lips in displeasure.
She gripped the lavish velvet skirts of her black dress and sank into a tiny curtsy. “Queen Dowager. You honor me with your presence.”
Alicent pursed her lips harder.
Rhaenyra had to do the same, just to keep herself from laughing.
For a moment, Alicent simply stood there, while every pair of eyes on the courtyard was riveted on the show they provided, everyone waiting with bated breath to see if her mouth would spit defiance to match her dress.
If looks could kill, Rhaenyra could have considered herself thoroughly stabbed.
Behind Alicent, Ser Criston shifted, hovering a little closer to Alicent as if she was the one needing shielding. Rhaenyra was only somewhat surprised to see Ser Criston still shadowing Alicent. She had been cruel to him, too. It wasn’t really his fault that he still believed in fairytale romances and true love conquering all, while Rhaenyra had long since been forced to learn her lesson. He probably hated her now, but she had been relieved to hear he had become Alicent’s sworn shield. Taking on a pet project was something the old Alicent would have done, the one who fretted over birds with broken wings and motherless kittens. It was a comfort to know that this girl still existed within the iron-clad, brittle Alicent the Queen.
Alicent slipped into motion. As smooth and graceful and all the while effortlessly disdainful as only a Reachwoman could, Alicent sank into a deep curtsy and bowed her head in a perfect, demure show of submission that arched her neck and exposed a hint of creamy skin above the stiff, high collar of her severe dress.
“Your Grace.” Her voice gave away nothing. “The Red Keep is yours.”
The crowd exhaled as one.
Rhaenyra couldn’t help but feel like too many of them were disappointed, annoyed even to have been denied the spectacle they had been waiting for.
Well. They would get their spectacle soon enough. A far bigger and better one than the catfight they would have loved to see, though she reckoned they would have little love for the spectacle to come.
This time, Rhaenyra couldn’t help the twitch of her lips. “Her Grace is too kind.”
Alicent’s face twitched with annoyance, though she had gotten better at hiding it over the years. She had never done well with feeling made fun of, she was very sensitive to that.
Rhaenyra could have spent an hour doing nothing but study the tiny tells on Alicent’s face, but they still had an audience, and she had expectations to meet.
She looked over her shoulder at the makeshift queen’s court that had accompanied her from Dragonstone. For all that everyone called them the Black faction, she didn’t have a court or any sort of structured following. It was supposed to be decades still before she took the throne; she hadn’t even started thinking about whom she would surround herself with when the day came, never mind building her shadow government. So she had just gathered the maester and steward of Dragonstone, the master-at-arms, and a handful of trusted vassals close at hand, and rushed them onto a boat to King’s Landing.
Fortunately, if all went as planned, the disorganized state of the Black faction wouldn’t be an issue much longer.
“My Lords,” she said, nodding to her following, then to the Hand, “gather the Small Council. We need to discuss my father’s funeral arrangements.”
“And your coronation,” Lord Strong added.
“Actually, I will need to speak to the Queen Dowager before coronation arrangements can be made,” Rhaenyra said, and savored the confusion that rippled through the crowd. Before the vultures could get all too excited she ruined the mood by insisting, “But my father’s funeral first. I won’t have him be an afterthought.”
She wanted to be with her children.
She should have been with her children.
They would be so scared. Helaena couldn’t handle sudden changes to her environment and routine, and Aemond had never gone an entire day without seeing his mom yet. The smaller ones being upset would, in turn, stress out Aegon, who didn’t do well under the pressure of having to take care of his younger siblings.
She should have been with them, and instead, she was pacing the middling guest chambers she had been moved into while nobody knew what to do with her, waiting for…
Waiting for what, exactly?
Alicent came to a sudden stop mid-stomp, and gave a noise that could only be called a growl.
She didn’t even know if Rhaenyra would call for her today.
She didn’t even know if Rhaenyra would call for her at all; there was every chance that remark about needing to talk to Alicent had been a mere joke to rankle the nosy courtiers. It was quite possible that Alicent would simply go ignored while the court moved on around her, without her. That would be a good thing. The sooner she and her children could fade into the background and be forgotten, the sooner they could slip away from the Red Keep.
Thus, she couldn’t go to her children until she was sure Rhaenyra wouldn’t seek her out. If one of them had to catch Rhaenyra’s attention and thus her ire, better it be Alicent. With the Mother’s grace, Alicent’s children would be as invisible to Rhaenyra as they had been to their father. Seven know, Viserys forgot he had four children instead of one whenever Alicent didn’t actively shove his face into it.
Rhaenyra had arrived at the Red Keep mid-afternoon, and it was close to midnight now.
The Small Council meeting must have ended hours ago, even if they went well beyond sorting out the funeral arrangements. There wasn’t much left to organize anyway; Rhaenyra had arrived on the third day after the king died, and all immediate matters had long since been taken care of by the Hand. Alicent had been strongly discouraged from attending, but today must have been day two of Viserys’s body lying in state at the sept for public mourning.
Chances were, Rhaenyra was having a wonderful time wining and dining with her loyalists and not wasting a single thought on Alicent’s existence.
“Wait, you can’t…!” she heard Criston yelp.
The door slammed open, doorknob hitting the wall with a resounding smash from the sheer force of it, and from the momentum of it, slamming shut again with nearly the same force.
Rhaenyra stood in her middling guest chambers, still wearing the black velvet mourning dress, looking frazzled and out of breath, her face flushed and her hair coming loose as if she had been running.
Her eyes looked around wildly until they settled on Alicent’s form with the same strange, wild intensity.
“You aren’t in your chambers!” Rhaenyra snapped.
Alicent, still frozen mid-stomp, sneakily withdrew her leg. “These are my chambers,” she informed her with all the dignity of a woman who had, in fact, not been caught mid-stomp.
Rhaenyra looked at her as if she had grown a second head. “This is where Mother would put the guests we don’t like but have to pretend we do.”
How droll. It had been Alicent who promoted that steward, too. She had, in fact, believed him one of hers though he had entered service under Queen Aemma.
Rhaenyra swallowed hard. She looked strangely stricken.
Alicent stayed stubbornly silent. She would not do Rhaenyra the favor of smoothing over the awkwardness.
“They kicked you out of your chambers,” Rhaenyra surmised, still looking stricken.
Why was she still going on about that? Was she really going to be cheap enough to endlessly rub in every little humiliation?
“Yes, well.” Alicent smoothed the front of her dress with her hands, fingers shredded but thankfully not shaking anymore. “They are the queen’s… the monarch’s spouse’s chambers.” Her lips quirked into a hint of a wry smile. “I’m not your spouse, am I?” Behind closed doors as they were, she could not, and did not even try to keep the spite out of her voice.
Rhaenyra’s fingers twisted at the rings she wore. “I went to your rooms but you weren’t there. And nobody could tell me where you had gone. I thought…” She sucked in a sharp breath and bit down on her bottom lip. “I thought you were gone.”
If only!
Alicent’s lips thinned. “I understand very well that I require Her Grace’s permission to leave the Red Keep.”
Rhaenyra blinked. “Do you?” she asked dumbly. “Since when?” She didn’t wait for an answer before asking, “Is this why you didn’t visit Father even once? I went to the sept after the Small Council meeting, and I was surprised not to find you holding vigil.”
That was a fair point. It was highly irregular for a widow not to be holding vigil at her husband’s coffin, let alone a queen dowager, or any widow as pious as Alicent.
It was also ridiculous that Rhaenyra would make her admit to the humiliation of her detainment in so many words. Had Rhaenyra always been so petty, and Alicent simply hadn’t seen it when it wasn’t aimed at her?
“A widow goes where the Seven command, but the Seven don’t give her wings to fly,” she snapped.
Rhaenyra’s face twisted. If Alicent wouldn’t have known better, she would have said that Rhaenyra had the gall to look hurt, but even she couldn’t be self-centered enough for that. She ducked her head and fiddled with her rings once more, only more fervently now.
Watching the nervous motions of her hands made Alicent want to tear into her own. She wanted to tear into Rhaenyra and claw the hurt off her face even more. What right did she have to look anxious, when she had gotten everything she ever wanted while Alicent was left with nothing?
“I’m going to fix this. I promise. I’ll fix it. You and the children can go to the sept as much as you want, and I’ll get you your chambers back, too.”
“Don’t bother. This will suffice.” Humiliating or not, it would work in her favor. It would be harder to keep her under close surveillance in a guest wing which was soon to be crowded, as the entire kingdom flocked to King’s Landing for the funeral and coronation. It would also make Rhaenyra look spiteful in front of the realm, kicking a grieving widow out of her home just because she could. Which, come to think, would explain why she wanted to fix it. “But,” she went on, voice softer, “I would very much like to hold my vigil.”
She wasn’t sure about taking the children, she would have to discuss it with Ser Criston and Captain Flowers of her house guard. They should be there, performing the rites alongside her as commanded by the Seven, but there were a hundred new ways for them to come to harm outside the relative safety of the Red Keep. The Seven That Are One were merciful, and loved children, they would not want them put into danger.
“I…” She looked down at her hands and finally gave in to the urge, permitting her right thumb nail to dig into the nail bed of her other thumb. She focused on the familiar pinprick of pain, letting it ground her better than any calming breath ever could. “I’m sorry. For your loss.” She gulped. “I know you loved him.”
Silence settled over them.
“I know you did not,” Rhaenyra said, and for all the words were damning, she sounded so gentle it made Alicent want to scream, “but I’m sorry for your loss all the same.”
There was no point in denying it, not when Rhaenyra knew better than anyone else that Alicent could never love any man as a wife should love her husband.
“He was kinder to me than I had any right to expect. I grieve.”
This much, at least, was true. Her grief was a complicated thing, as had been her feelings for the husband she never wanted, but who had, for all his flaws, indeed been kinder to her than many other husbands were to their wives. He had never hit her, not even to the extent the Faith and the law explicitly permitted, and while he didn’t care to find out whether she truly wanted to share his bed, he had never outright forced her, either. He had made her his queen, and given her more freedoms and power than most noble wives had, even if a lot of that stemmed from a mix of her father being the Hand and her husband sickly enough to need her to step up. He had been kinder than most husbands, and yet in some ways, it would have been easier if he had been a monster. A monster she could have hated and been done with it, unlike a man who was simply flawed as all men were.
She certainly grieved the safety and security that came with him being alive, the predictability of it. The time for her children to grow, for Sunfyre to grow large enough to carry his rider into battle, for Helaena to grow old enough to fly Dreamfyre at all, for Aemond to claim a dragon of his own. The Seven would not give them wings, but with enough time, her children would be able to fly away on dragon wings.
She wasn’t ready for them to have run out of time.
It wasn’t fair.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this.
She wasn’t so conceited as to expect a reward for her service, her sacrifice, but this just wasn’t fair. They had never even gotten a fighting chance.
All of a sudden, the tears wouldn’t stay back anymore, and Alicent raised a hand to angrily wipe them away. At least Rhaenyra should be pleased to believe she was shedding tears for her father.
“We have to talk. After the funeral. It has to be after the funeral.”
Alicent pulled herself out of her thoughts and studied Rhaenyra. She would have looked perfectly normal to most eyes, but to Alicent, she looked nervous. Shifty. She looked like she used to when she was up to something, usually some mischief she knew Alicent wouldn’t appreciate being pulled into and go along with all the same.
Alicent stifled a sigh. She didn’t want to get pulled into anything. She just wanted Rhaenyra to hurry up and forget they existed so they could run away.
“Just tell me what need you have of us, and it will be seen to.”
Hopefully, none. She would want to see the children at some point so they could publicly bend the knee to her, at the very least, but with some luck she would want that after the coronation. With some more luck, they would be on the way to Essos by then.
Rhaenyra opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again and gave a minute shake of her head. “Alright. I will tell you.”
Silence settled over them once more.
It was hard to believe they had once never run out of things to say to one another. Even when they were kissing they would whisper sweet nothings against the other’s lips, giggling and giddy with the sheer joy of being in love for the very first time. They had been naïve children, so they had fancied it a forever love, too.
That had been before the king needed a new wife. Before Rhaenyra became heiress, who needed a husband to give her heirs of her own if she intended to make her claim permanent.
“The court must be missing its queen.”
“It’s nighttime. The only one missing me is my bed.” Rhaenyra must have read the retort Alicent was not voicing on her face, for her eyes flashed and she added sharply, “my empty bed.”
“What a novelty that must be!”
Rhaenyra clenched her jaw. “Be mindful how you speak to your queen, Alicent.”
“Or what?” Maybe it was insanity, no, it absolutely was insanity to be goading Rhaenyra after she had gone to such lengths to be cautious. But oh, how the fury burned in her, and demanded to be unleashed. Mindful! Her! As if Alicent hadn’t spent her entire life being mindful while Rhaenyra bumbled through life without any regard for others. How dare she? “Will you have my head? Or would my tongue suffice?”
“I would…!” Rhaenyra cut herself off and inhaled, nostrils flaring. “No. I’m not doing this tonight, Alicent. I have spent all afternoon fighting spiteful old men, and then I spent the evening mourning at my father’s coffin. All I want to do now is to fall into bed and sleep, and forget that I’ll have to do it all over again tomorrow. If you want to wallow in self-righteous pity, you’re welcome to do so by yourself.”
“Self-righteous pity?!”
Exactly how treasonous would it be to slap the queen?
Rhaenyra gave her a tired look, as if that didn’t only serve to make Alicent’s blood burn even hotter with righteous fury. Righteous fury, thank you very much. “You heard me just fine, Alicent.” And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough, she simply turned her back on Alicent and walked towards the door. “Good night.”
An empty tea cup smashed into the door moments after it had fallen shut.
Alicent stared at the shards, feeling no better for it, only exactly as childish and small as Rhaenyra had intended her to feel.
The tears came them, and as she scrubbed at her face, she told herself they were solely tears of fury.