- 25 AC -
Two moons had passed since the tourney in King's Landing.
Two moons had passed for the dead to be carried home, for septons to speak their prayers, and for the men who had been affected by Maegor's actions to bury their anger beneath the duties of lordship and daily struggles. The anger had not disappeared; naturally, it had merely cooled enough to be weighed and bargained over.
King Aegon had spent most of those two moons paying for his son's actions.
House Bracken received 10,000 gold dragons from the Crown and five years during which Stone Hedge would owe no taxes to the Iron Throne. The Boltons and Greyjoys were granted similar concessions, though neither settlement troubled Aegon greatly.
The Starks had shown little interest in mourning a Bolton, while the mainland lords who had suffered under ironborn reavers were more offended by the manner of Quellon Greyjoy's death than by the death itself.
House Hightower was another matter entirely.
After naming Martyn Hightower the new Lord of the Hightower and accepting his oath of fealty, Aegon had sat with him from shortly after sunrise until the candles burned low in the evening. They had spoken of blood, honour, taxes, trade, the Faith and the future of the realm. Beneath every word had rested the unspoken image of Manfred Hightower lying half-headed in the mud.
Aegon knew the importance of Oldtown. It was the biggest city in Westeros, the seat of the Citadel and therefore the intellectual heart of the realm. It was also the home of the Starry Sept and the High Septon, making it the spiritual heart of the kingdoms as well.
House Hightower possessed wealth, ships, men, ancient prestige and influence that stretched far beyond the borders of the Reach. Compared with all of that, House Targaryen was a small house ruling a bleak island in Blackwater Bay.
They simply happened to possess dragons, which threw the entire status quo over the board.
Dragons were the greatest weapons in the known world. They had transformed a relatively small and isolated family into the rulers of six kingdoms in the span of a few years. The only reason why it was six and not seven was that Aegon had very little common sense, but that was something Maegor would look into in the future.
Still, Aegon had never been stupid enough to believe that fire alone could govern everything he had conquered. Balerion could burn Oldtown, sure, but he could not rebuild its libraries, replace the maesters and their knowledge, command the love of the faithful or restore the trade that would vanish with the city.
Oldtown was like a thick blood vessel for Westeros. Burning it would have made the kingdom suffer more than it would have helped. And even now, things were similar to how they were 20 years ago.
The simpler path was one upon which both sides, Hightowers and Targaryens, could walk away with something to show for their losses.
So promises had been made.
The Crown would pay House Hightower two hundred thousand gold dragons over the coming years. Its lands would enjoy freedom from royal taxes for nineteen years, one for every year Lord Manfred had ruled Oldtown. A great sept would be raised in King's Landing with royal coin, so that the faithful would no longer be forced to worship in cramped timber halls beneath the shadow of the Iron Throne.
Martyn and the High Septon had asked for more, of course.
He demanded that Maegor surrender Dark Sister, perform public penance and be exiled from Westeros for no fewer than seven years.
That was the first time Aegon refused.
Another king might have heard the demand. A weaker and dumber king might even have accepted it in the hope of buying peace, through the exile of Maegor. But Martyn Hightower had not been negotiating with Daeron the Good or some soft-handed lord who had inherited a realm already made.
He had been speaking to Aegon the Conqueror, and he knew better than those hypothetical men what it meant to be a dragonlord and to ride a dragon.
Aegon refused and warned the young Lord not to mistake his restraint for surrender. Only a fool would exile a prince who possessed a growing dragon, the strength to tear seasoned men apart and a mother who would follow him across the Narrow Sea upon Vhagar.
Maegor would not remain idle in exile and wait patiently for the seven years to pass. Without Aegon and Balerion to somewhat temper him, he would let loose. He would carve out a kingdom in Essos, gather armies and return years later on a fully grown dragon and ambition in his eyes.
Visenya would help him; there was no doubt in Aegon's mind. Perhaps she would even encourage him.
No.
Whatever else Maegor was, he was Aegon's son and therefore Aegon's responsibility. The King would keep him close from now on.
Besides, some small, private part of Aegon remained proud of the strength Maegor had displayed. Their conversation in the throne room had not made him approve of the bloodshed, but it had forced him to admit that there had been thought and cunning beneath the brutality everyone else seemed to focus on.
The marriage would therefore proceed.
That decision angered the Hightowers almost as much as Aegon's refusal to punish Maegor publicly. They despised the thought of Manfred's killer claiming their sister, then wedding her according to rites that the Faith called incestuous and heretical.
Martyn demanded a ceremony beneath the eyes of the Seven.
Aegon refused that demand as well, at least in part. He had given Maegor his word before the tourney. If the boy won, he would be wed according to the customs of Old Valyria.
A king who broke his word the first time it became inconvenient would soon discover that his threats carried no more weight than his promises. Naturally, Aegon was lying to himself and the lords, as he hadn't even realised that he had started compromising decades ago.
In the end, they agreed to hold two ceremonies: one according to the rites of Valyria and another before the Seven Who Are One.
Both sides left the negotiation believing they had yielded too much. But that was often the clearest sign of a successful and fair treaty.
Now the day had arrived.
Lords, ladies, knights, the High Septon himself and the Grand Maester crowded King's Landing and Aegonfort. Some had come to honour the joining of dragon and Hightower. Others had come to see whether Maegor would insult the High Septon, whether Morgan Hightower would reach for his sword, or whether Ceryse would refuse her vows before the entire court.
Everyone carried their own thoughts and plans, but all shared the same wish to see something happen that would end their boredom.
On Dragonstone, in the private chambers of Prince Maegor, something... else was taking place.
.
Maegor's bedchamber was warm from the coals in the fireplace.
The narrow windows were open, allowing the scent of salt, smoke and sulphur that clung to Dragonstone to come in. Red curtains stirred in the wind. Somewhere far below, powerful waves struck blackened rock.
Visenya lay naked beneath the thin blanket, beside her son.
Her black-and-red robes had been ripped off and dropped near the foot of the bed, tangled with Maegor's equally destroyed clothes. One of her silver clasps rested beneath the overturned chair, while an empty wine cup lay on the side near the candles.
The chamber bore every sign of the long, sweaty and passionate night they had spent together.
Neither of them had planned for it to happen, but they hadn't been surprised that it had. They had spent the first half of the night bent over the small table, speaking in High Valyrian and burning every piece of parchment after reading it.
There had been too much to discuss. Visenya knew Maegor's plans, even the one that he had gone to great lengths to conceal from everyone.
At some point, however, their conversation had stopped rather abruptly.
Visenya had watched Maegor standing near the fireplace. The light moved across the powerful body that 13 years of unnatural growth and relentless training had created. He had looked nothing like the infant she had once held or the boy she had taught to wield his first sword.
He was a man grown now, taller than almost every knight in the realm and stronger than all of them. And he wasn't even fully grown yet.
More importantly, he had become the embodiment of everything Visenya admired and desired.
Strength, pride, ambition, and absolute confidence with unbreakable will that refused to kneel before anyone or anything.
She had resisted the mysterious, growing pull for years, even after he had reached official adulthood. She had attempted to bury it beneath her duties as his mother and Queen, convincing herself that possessiveness was not desire and that the pull she felt was merely the unnatural bond between a dragon and the woman who had raised him.
The tourney had destroyed that lie.
She had watched him dominate the greatest warriors of the realm, cutting through noblemen and punching Kingsguard alike while hundreds looked on in terror. She had seen him stand alone in a field of blood, utterly victorious and without shame or hesitation.
The sight had made her weak and remained with her ever since.
Now another woman was about to be given the right to call him husband. Him... a true dragon... about to be domesticated. Ceryse Hightower would receive his cloak, share his bed and claim that she had been the first woman to possess what Visenya had spent 13 years creating and supporting.
Visenya would not allow that.
She had crossed the chamber before she could reconsider. There had been no hesitation from either of them.
Visenya had expected to lead him through the experience, since Maegor had never been with a woman before, while she had been married for nearly three decades and bedded a few men herself. She had assumed his strength would be accompanied by inexperience and that she would have to temper his hunger.
She had been wrong.
Maegor learned with the same terrifying speed with which he learned everything else. Any uncertainty disappeared almost immediately. His unnatural awareness and that gaze that seemed to see right through her allowed him to understand every one of her responses and find her weak points.
At the same time, his perfect control ensured that his immense strength never truly endangered her and only made her lose her fucking mind.
But control did not mean gentleness.
He approached intercourse with the same fire and passion with which he fought, refusing to do anything by half. What began before midnight continued for hours, interrupted only by brief periods in which she fell unconscious from bliss.
Visenya had thought his strength would eventually fade.
It never did.
Every time she believed exhaustion would finally overcome him, Maegor proved he possessed bottomless stamina. By the end, even Visenya—warrior, dragonrider and veteran of the Conquest—had fallen unconscious for good and hadn't been woken by the young dragon.
Now she rested with her head against his shoulder, one bare arm lying across his chest beneath the cover. Gods, she was sore... and thirsty.
She hadn't been able to help herself. That immense pull had become stronger with every passing year. She had lived beside dragons all her life. She knew how their presence seemed to change the air, how horses grew restless and how men looked at them with fear and awe.
Maegor carried something similar within him.
Visenya had been exposed to it longer than anyone. She had raised him, trained him and defended him. She had watched his impossible body and will develop from infancy and had known long before the rest of the realm that he would become something greater than an ordinary Targaryen prince.
Last night had changed the nature of their bond, but she did not regret it.
Ceryse Hightower might receive Maegor's vows before the realm. She might be allowed to wear his cloak and carry his name. But she would never be his first.
That belonged to Visenya.
Maegor's eyes opened finally. There was no slow process of waking up and stretching like other humans. One moment his eyes were closed, and the next his purple pupil was fixed on the ceiling.
"You are staring," he said.
"I am allowed to look at what is mine."
He smiled and sat up. The old bed complained beneath his weight. The loose sheet did nothing to hide the muscles in his shoulders and arms.
Visenya rose from the bed before her possessiveness tempted her to go another round. She would need hours before she could walk with a semblance of normalcy again.
"The hour is near," she said through gritted teeth.
"I know."
"You can still stop this."
Maegor looked at her.
"Is that what you want?"
"No," Visenya admitted. "But I am expected to say such things."
"You have never cared what mothers are expected to say. And I don't think you should start now. Not after last night."
"True."
She crossed the chamber and poured watered wine into a silver cup. She smelled it before drinking. Since the tourney and the arrival of many nobles and knights to Dragonstone, she had every cup tested without fail.
"Do you know when?"
"No."
"How?"
"No."
"Who?"
"No, but I'm eager to find out."
"And that amuses you?"
"Sure. It's not every day this happens, is it?"
Visenya shook her head and walked towards the chamber doors. She had to get ready.
"Dress. Smaug is waiting."
"Smaug is sleeping most likely, or eating."
"Smaug is patient. Learn it before you become King of the Ashes."
"I am not the one who plans to burn Oldtown."
"Not yet," Visenya grinned and left.