Chapter Text
“Where is duty? Where is sacrifice? It’s trampled under your pretty foot again.”
“Release the blade, Alicent.” Ser Otto said, knowing whatever his daughter would do next would ruin everything they had done to put Aegon onto the Iron Throne.
Deaf to everyone, Alicent kept the knife aloft. “And now you take my son’s eyes, and to even that, you feel entitled."
“Exhausting, wasn’t it?” Rhaenyra asked, her voice full of emotion as she struggled to hold Alicent’s arm away from her face. It felt as if the room had gone dead quiet besides the two of them. The crowd had formed a circle around the two of them. “Hiding beneath the cloak of your own righteousness?” Rhaenyra leaned in a little closer before whispering.
"But now they see you as you truly are.”
Alicent screamed and struck down.
Everyone screamed in horror as Rhaenyra tumbled backward, bleeding profusely. Laenor, who appeared in the exact moment, leapt forward and together with Daemon pulled the Queen away from Rhaenyra, the Driftmark Heir even took the advantage of the chaos and smashed his elbow into Criston Cole’s smug face when the Kingsguard tried to protect the Queen.
The children were screaming as Rhaenys ushered them out of the room, the boys struggling to reach for their mother. Laenor grabbed Rhaenyra’s left sleeve and ripped it, checking at the deep wound on her arm. Alicent had struck across the arm, narrowly missing her hand or the princess would have lost the thumb and finger in the struggle.
Using the cloth, Laenor used it as a makeshift bandage as the maester attending Aemond rushed toward them to help stem the blood loss the princess was suffering.
“Do not mourn me, mother.” Aemond suddenly said, staring at the pool of blood in dark satisfaction. “I may have lost an eye but I gained a dragon.”
Viserys snapped.
For years, he had watched his family tear itself apart piece by piece—old grievances becoming new insults, disagreements hardening into bitter rivalries, and those rivalries threatening to fracture the very house he had sworn to protect. But seeing it happen even at Laena Velaryon’s funeral had been the final blow.
A royal funeral should have been a time for mourning, for putting aside old grudges and standing together as one family. Instead, the rift within House Targaryen had been laid bare for everyone to see.
He could no longer pretend that the divisions were harmless. They were becoming impossible to conceal, and every gathering seemed to bring another wound, another accusation, another reason for his family to turn against itself.
Enough.
Something had to be done.
Before their hatred destroyed more than their relationships. Before it spread to their children and became the legacy passed from one generation to the next. Before the realm began to see weakness where there should have been unity.
Viserys would not allow centuries of Targaryen power, blood, and tradition to crumble because his family could not set aside its differences.
He would not let it be destroyed from within.
“Enough!” He roared. His chest heaved angrily as he sat down heavily on the chair behind him. “This has gone too far! This disagreement, this feud has ruined this family and I will not have it!”
“This rift will be mended tonight, before it rends this family asunder!” Viserys thundered, his voice echoing through the hall.
The king rose from his seat, his expression hardening as he looked from Alicent to Rhaenyra and then to the rest of his family.
“By the authority vested in me as King, I hereby betroth my grandson, the son of my firstborn daughter, Prince Jacaerys Velaryon-Targaryen, to my daughter, Princess Helaena Targaryen.”
Silence fell.
For one stunned moment, no one seemed capable of comprehending what he had just declared.
Then Alicent shrieked, “You cannot do that!”
Viserys turned sharply toward her.
“I cannot?” His voice was dark with anger. “You dare to deny me, My Queen? Have you forgotten I am your King,” he snapped. “I can do whatever I want. Ser Darklyn!” the king called. One of the Kingsguard immediately stepped forward.
“Fetch me a Valyrian priest. Now.”
The knight hesitated only for a heartbeat. “Your Grace?”
“They will be wed tonight.”
Everyone stared at him in disbelief. “Tonight?”
“Tonight,” Viserys repeated, leaving no room for argument.
“Father, I must protest!” Rhaenyra stepped forward, horror evident on her face. “You cannot do this, not to my firstborn son!”
Viserys met his daughter's gaze, his expression stern.
“There has been discord within this family for far too long,” he said. “You and Alicent have allowed resentment to fester until it threatens to consume us all. Your children look upon one another as rivals when they should be kin.”
“But Jacaerys is already promised to Lady Baela Velaryon!” Rhaenyra protested desperately. It was a tentative plan between Laena and herself that never went beyond paper but right now, Baela was a more palatable choice to be Jacaerys’s bride than Helaena. “You cannot simply just break his betrothal!”
“I am King,” Viserys reminded her. “The betrothal can be dissolved. I will find my niece another husband, why Aegon or Aemond would make a fine candidate, maybe she can make a man out of them.”
“Over my dead body!” Daemon snarled.
His face was cold with fury, and without another word, he seized his twin daughters by the hands and pulled them toward the doors.
There was no point in remaining.
His dream of persuading Rhaenyra to forsake her marital vows like she did with Ser Harwin (and his eventual plans to have Ser Laenor killed so he can marry her and becoming one step closer to the Iron Throne) had become moot the moment Viserys opened his stupid mouth and made his proclamation.
Damn him!
Behind him, Viserys and Rhaenyra ignored him as they left, the rest of the Royal family and whomever was still in the audience hall stood frozen.
“He is my son, my heir, not some tool you can use for your so-called peace, Father!”
“And she is my daughter!” Viserys shot back, his voice rising. “Helaena is no less a child of mine than Jacaerys is yours. Why should their marriage be considered some cruelty when it could finally bind this family together?”
Rhaenyra shook her head.
“You would tie my son to the very family that has spent years undermining him?”
“I would tie my family together,” Viserys said firmly. “There is a difference.”
Rhaenyra opened her mouth to argue again, but Viserys continued before she could speak.
“House Targaryen cannot have one branch in King's Landing and another upon Dragonstone, each nursing grievances against the other. We cannot continue like this. Not when the realm watches every quarrel, every slight, every whispered accusation.”
His gaze moved between his daughter and his wife.
“You are my family. Both of you. And I will not sit upon this throne while the House of the Dragon tears itself apart beneath me.”
“Father, please.” Rhaenyra pled.
“Enough.” Viserys raised his hand as he sank back into his seat, breathing heavily, but his decision remained firm.
“Tonight, Jacaerys and Helaena shall be wed. Let their union be the first step toward healing what we have allowed to become broken.” He smiled, satisfied with his decision.
Rhaenyra was stricken, she had failed to protect her son from the Hightowers and their greedy grasp for power and control, to be wedded off when he was still a child.
Alicent was furious, she had failed to protect her innocent daughter from the Targaryen and their lust for power and blood, to be a hostage for her enemies.
Helaena, meanwhile, looked like she was waking up from a deep sleep, her violet eyes bright with life.
Why wouldn’t she? The horrifying future that had been haunting her dreams ever since she was a small toddler had simply disappeared.
One man, simply because he had grown weary of watching his wife and daughter tear each other apart, had made one impulsive decision.
A decision that was made in anger.
A decision that was made without knowing what the future held.
And yet, somehow, that single reckless decree had changed everything.
Viserys Targaryen had meant only to mend the rift within his family.
He had not realized that, with one impulsive decision, he might have just saved an entire realm.