- 25 AC -
The moon had appeared over King's Landing when Maegor was summoned to the throne room.
The grand room had been emptied. No petitioners crowded beneath the massive, spiky Iron Throne, no courtiers whispered along the walls, and no musicians played beneath the galleries. Hundreds of melted blades rose in irregular patterns behind the King, as he sat on the monstrous chair.
Aegon was alone in the throne room. He had dismissed the Small Council; his councillors and even his sister Visenya were forbidden to attend. Only Ser Corlys Velaryon and three Kingsguard remained at the foot of the throne when Maegor entered.
The Prince had bathed and worn new clothes. The smell of blood was gone from his face and hands, and he had exchanged his battered armour for a black and dark red tunic that settled over his ripped physique. Dark Sister rested at his hip, perfectly clean.
That angered Aegon more than his clean and nonchalant appearance might have. It meant Maegor had already put the day behind him. Everything he had done meant nothing to him. He wore the weapon he used to kill several nobles as if it were nothing.
"Kneel," Aegon said.
Maegor looked up at his father without answering. Aegon frowned at his son's willful nature and shook his head. For once, he liked that he could see his son's defiance and unbreakable will to kneel to anyone. Maegor, for all his faults, was at least true to himself.
"Leave us," he told the Kingsguard.
Ser Corlys hesitated. His sense of duty and the day's events made him hesitate longer than he normally would have. Maegor was dangerous.
"Your Grace--"
"Leave," Aegon repeated.
The white cloaks bowed and then withdrew, and the great doors closed behind them. Father and son were now alone.
Neither of them said anything for a few moments. Aegon allowed the silence to stretch and become uncomfortable. Usually that made people nervous or talkative because they didn't like the awkward pause, but Maegor couldn't have cared less for the mind games his father came up with.
"Do you understand what you have done?" Aegon asked.
"I won the melee and with it our wager."
"You murdered four men of noble blood, injured others, defied a command spoken by your King and struck down two of my Kingsguard."
"They are alive, are they not?"
"Only because the Gods were merciful."
"The Gods had nothing to do with it," Maegor said. "They are alive because I was merciful."
Aegon rose too quickly. One of the throne's sharp edges cut into his palm, drawing a thin line of blood. But he didn't care about that, far too riled up already, not even two minutes into their talk.
"You call what you did mercy?"
"Compared to what I could have done, it was a blessing, yes."
The answer was so cold, so ruthless and certain that Aegon descended the black steps before he realised he had moved. Whether it was consciously or unconsciously, he couldn't talk to Maegor from that high up.
"Why?" he asked. "Why those men?"
Maegor said nothing. Aegon stopped in front of him and looked his son in the eyes.
"Come now, you haven't gotten shy all of a sudden, have you? Do you wish to tell me that those men were chosen at random? Do not insult my intelligence, child."
"..."
"Was it anger? Revenge perhaps?" Aegon asked. "Did you lose yourself when the fighting began? Did Dark Sister's edge fill your head with senseless thirst for blood? Was this your rebellious phase, the answer to the marriage you didn't want?"
"..."
"Come on! Give me one reason to believe there was anything in that field except a savage boy who enjoyed killing men who could not stop him, while also getting your petty revenge."
"Lose myself? You do not know me. I did not lose myself."
For a brief moment, relief touched Aegon until Maegor continued.
"I chose every one of them."
The relief died.
"Manfred Hightower entered because I made certain he heard me call him weak and pathetic. He thought no one would dare kill the Lord of Oldtown in front of the King and the High Septon. That belief made him easy to manipulate."
Aegon stared at him.
"You baited him?"
"Yes."
"Why? For two years I have worked to bind Oldtown, the Faith and the Crown through your marriage. To make them truly loyal and not solely out of fear. You undid it in the short time it took to cut him down."
"No. Manfred's son now rules the Hightower, though he was not prepared to do so. Martyn is angry and proud, but he is not stupid. He knows his House cannot fight ours, not alone at least. Ceryse remains my betrothed, and without his father's certainty, the new Lord Hightower needs the royal marriage more than the old one did."
"You killed her father. She will carry that resentment with her throughout the rest of her life. They would be within their right to ask for this betrothal to be broken."
"And if they do that, I lose a wife I never wanted in the first place."
There it was—the revenge Aegon had expected to find beneath all the supposed calculation.
"So this WAS because of the betrothal. You acted like a petulant child and defied me because you didn't like the cunt you got to marry? Visit the brothels, fuck throughout the whorehouses of Westeros, if you will!"
Maegor didn't say it out loud. He wasn't going to admit it to his father or explain what his plan had been. He couldn't understand the multifaceted plot he had set in motion after being informed of his betrothal.
Right now, as the Hightowers had guessed, it looked like Maegor had baited Lord Manfred Hightower to attend, so that he could kill him and get back at them for the betrothal.
But was that truly what it was? And what about the others?
Before the tourney, Maegor visited House Blackwood. The Brackens had learned of his visit to Raventree Hall and believed, in their limited wisdom, that the Prince had favoured their bitter old rivals. Hoster had entered the melee after hearing the report from his spy that Lord Blackwood would take part as well, searching for a Blackwood to injure or kill beneath the protection of sport.
And yet, what he found instead was Maegor, who had devised this little trick with Lord Blackwood. They had captured the spy, whom Maegor had quickly identified, and forced them to write a false report to Lord Bracken. Why Lord Blackwood would agree to such a thing only two people knew for now.
Now Hoster was dead, and House Blackwood had watched a dragon prince do what years of feuding had failed to accomplish. In the eyes of many a Riverlord, the Tullys were not the right House to be Wardens of the Riverlands.
"House Bracken will remember this."
"Yes. One house will hate me for it, and another will love me. Nothing has changed in the Riverlands except which of them believes the Crown stands closer."
"Quellon Greyjoy?"
"The Ironborn are hated on every western coast. Everyone watched me drown a believer of the Drowned God in his own blood. They'll actually like that, I reckon, back on the Iron Islands. The Lords on the mainland will lose no sleep over him."
Aegon nodded slowly.
"The Bolton?"
"Ask the Starks how loudly they mourn him."
Aegon's anger remained, but something different also began to grow beneath it. He tried to remember the expressions in the royal and noble boxes hours earlier.
The Blackwoods had been silent, but not horrified. One could interpret this as them already knowing about it, or simply being content with the fate of the Bracken. The men of House Mallister and others of the Westerlands and Riverlands had watched Greyjoy's death with grim satisfaction. Lord Stark's men had made no move when the Bolton fell. They showed no emotion, but they were Northerners after all.
Aegon understood. He stopped himself from showing anything on his face and challenged his son once more.
"When I burned Harrenhal, Harren the Black was a king in rebellion against me. I offered him the chance to yield. When I met the Reach and the Rock upon the Field of Fire, they came with thousands of men to destroy us. I killed in war to forge a realm."
"And the men who burned beneath Balerion's fire cared about that distinction? Were their last thoughts: 'At least I didn't die during a tourney.'?"
"The difference is everything! I made war so my family and my sons could inherit peace. It is about legacy, Maegor. You made a battlefield of that peace for your revenge and plotting."
"The Andals have invaded Westeros long ago. They poison this realm and will continue to poison it further. If we allow them and their hypocritical Septons to rule, our family won't see the end of the century without disaster."
"So you can see the future now, is it?"
Aegon looked at his second son and, for the first time, understood that Maegor's cruelty was not the most dangerous thing about him.
Cruel men could be baited, angry men could be soothed, and reckless men could be watched. But Maegor had such grand ambition, and until that point, Aegon hadn't realised just how big that ambition truly was.
Aegon hadn't fully realised what Maegor's true plan was in that moment. He thought that Maegor had waited for two years, chosen his targets and killed them beneath the rules of the tourney. He had ensured that every corpse pleased an enemy of the dead man. But what Aegon didn't understand and what annoyed him about Maegor's 'supposed' plan was that Maegor hadn't really achieved anything.
House Hightower was still one of, if not the most powerful, Houses among the high noble Houses. And now, they had a feud with Maegor, who wasn't even the Crown Prince.
"My Kingsguard carried my direct command," Aegon said. "When you struck them, it was the same as you striking at me."
"Where has your pride gone, Father? Fuck symbolism! If you wanted something done, then you should have come down yourself."
The words hung in the air like a blade tossed between them. For a long, suffocating moment, Aegon did not move and continued to stare at Maegor.
His mind raced back twenty-five years, back to the shores of Blackwater Bay, back to the smoking ruins of Harrenhal and the burning blood-soaked grasses of the Field of Fire. He remembered the unyielding ambition and conviction that had driven him to put a continent to the torch and subdue it to his rule.
He remembered looking at kings and lords not as men to be bartered with or appeased with septons' oils, but as obstacles to be crushed through the power of their dragons.
He looked down at his own hand, the hand that had gripped the Iron Throne; it bore old cuts and wounds that had healed but kept appearing, the hand that had unified the realm with fire and blood.
And then he looked at Maegor, his son.
The boy... no, the man standing before him, was a mirror of what Aegon had been when he first set foot on Westerosi soil. Uncompromising, unyielding, willful and proud. A dragon driven by pure pride and values of power.
Thinking about it, Maegor was more extreme than Aegon had been. Even more sure of himself, as even the Conqueror had doubted himself and their endeavour at first. Maegor was stronger than Aegon, especially considering he was still barely a man grown at 10 and 3.
A slow, heavy breath escaped Aegon's mouth. The lingering anger that had filled his chest began to cool, replaced by a strange, unsettling mixture of heavy responsibility and a buried, long-dormant spark of pride.
"You think me soft," Aegon said quietly.
His voice had lost its sharp, commanding edge, replaced by the weary gravel of a man who had spent too many years already listening to petitioners and honeyed words of sycophants and High Septons.
"You think that because I choose where the dragon strikes instead of burning every field from here to the Wall, I have forgotten the fire."
Maegor didn't blink.
"But you don't strike at all. You gave the Faith an inch, which has turned into the entire arm; you let fat, weak and pathetic sheep wearing crystal crowns dictate whom I wed. That is not peace, Father. That is slow surrender."
"Peace is harder to maintain than it is to win, Maegor. When you burn a castle, the stone turns to ash, and the problem is solved momentarily. But when you rule millions of men who hate your gods, who cling to their old ways, you cannot simply burn them all to cinders. If you do, there is nothing left to rule.
That castle you burnt to ash is now useless and can't be turned into a productive piece on the board. We must be true to our heritage, yes... but a dragon must also know when to fly above the clouds and when to descend and walk among the people he rules."
Maegor didn't answer, as he didn't agree at all. Asking a dragon not to fly, because the weak hurt their necks looking up, was stupid. He understood them, even though he didn't sell himself or his principles.
Aegon sighed, his gaze dropping for a fraction of a second before rising back to meet his son's.
"I understand what you did today and why you did it. It was also magnificent, and it terrifies me."
Maegor knew that his father didn't understand why he did what he did. If he did understand, they wouldn't be having this conversation.
"It bothers me, because you possess a fire that this fragile peace cannot contain. You look at Aenys, and you see a weakling. You look at the realm, and you see sheep to be ruled with fire and blood. But remember this, Maegor, Aenys is your brother, and he is my firstborn. The Crown will pass to him. That is the foundation I have built."
"A foundation built on sand. Aenys cannot hold a sword the way I do; he cannot look a lord in the eye and make him tremble; he has almost no fire and will want to please those around him for the sake of peace. If he sits the Iron Throne, the realm will tear our House apart the moment you are gone and take advantage of us."
"Then it will be your duty to stand at his right hand," Aegon said. "To be the shield that protects him, the heavy hand that strikes down his enemies so he does not have to soil his own. You want power? You want to shape this world in the image of Old Valyria? I give you the realm to defend, Maegor. But you will do it as part of the family, not its ruler."
Maegor stared at his father for a long, lingering beat. He thought about what sort of Conqueror he once was and what a man suffocated by the very Crown he wore he had become. How could a piece of metal so small wear down a man who used to be that strong?
"Our wager?" Maegor asked.
Aegon almost laughed. Of course that was what mattered to him.
"You won," the King said bitterly. "Whatever else today was, no man can deny that. I gave my word before the Gods and the realm, and I will not teach the lords of Westeros that a king's word means nothing when it becomes inconvenient. If House Hightower does not break the betrothal and they won't, the Valyrian ceremony will be held. But not in Dragonstone, here in King's Landing."
Maegor turned toward the doors, and Aegon watched him leave.
For years, he had imagined Maegor standing beside Aenys as his strong right hand: the sword his kinder eldest son lacked, the dragon who would frighten enemies and preserve the dynasty.
Now Aegon wondered what would happen when the sword no longer wished to serve the hand and reached for the Crown instead. Aegon had to prepare Aenys for such an eventuality.