The great bell of the Sept of Baelor rang through the stone and smoke of King's Landing, shattering the morning stillness like a blade of sound. Its deep, sonorous voice rolled across the city's crooked streets and steep alleys, bouncing from the red roofs of Flea Bottom to the towering bastions of the Red Keep above. It was a sound few ever heard—one reserved for moments of utmost significance. And this morning, no one had been expecting it.
The first to notice were the dockworkers, unloading barrels of olive oil and Dornish wine near the wharf. Salt still in their beards and sweat on their brows, they turned toward the sound as the bell echoed again.
Gong... Gong... Gong...
Three tolls.
"Ain't market day," one muttered, wiping his forehead with the edge of his tunic. "And I heard no rumors of a wedding."
"Nor a death," said another, voice low, glancing toward the rising heights of the Red Keep. "Unless it be one they kept hush."
In the streets of Flea Bottom, beggars stirred from their doorways and half-collapsed hovels, blinking against the light and staring up at the gleaming white dome of the Sept. Pigs squealed in muddy puddles, and dogs began to bark at the sky. A child clutching a half-eaten crust paused mid-bite, wide-eyed.
"Does the bell mean a war, Ma?" asked a little girl with a tangle of blond curls.
Her mother, stirring ashes from last night's fire, didn't answer at once. Her eyes were on the Red Keep's towers, her brow furrowed.
"Could be a birth," she said slowly. "Or... a death."
Gong... Gong...
The bell rang again.
High above the city, within the marbled halls of the Great Sept of Baelor, the bell continued its tolling under the supervision of red-robed septons. They said no word, even as the bell rope creaked in their hands. This was no accident. The order had come from the Red Keep itself—sealed, signed, and delivered by a white cloak sworn to the King.
In the Street of Sisters, noblemen in embroidered cloaks stepped out of their carriages, staring in confusion at the sky. House banners fluttered faintly in the morning breeze, but the streets had gone oddly quiet. The blacksmiths had paused their hammering. The bakers let their loaves burn.
In whispered corners of taverns and temples, the questions began to stir.
"Did the Queen pass in childbirth?"
"Is the King dead?"
"No—he was alright yesterday."
"Then who? And why the bell?"
It did not take long.
By the time the sixth toll of the great bell echoed off the walls of the Dragonpit, the whisper had already taken root in the streets like wildfire catching in dry hay. It passed from lips to ears, from inns to markets, from gold-cloaked guards to hollow-eyed merchants and fishwives stirring their pots.
"The Mad King is dead."
There was no royal herald, no official decree read from scroll or parchment. The Gold Cloaks moved swiftly through the winding streets, doing their duty with dull faces and forced gravitas. They cried the news aloud as they had been told, a careful script approved by someone high in the Tower of the Hand.
"King Aerys, second of his name, may the Seven guide his soul, has passed in the night," bellowed a Gold Cloak near the Iron Market, his voice flat. "His death is a tragedy to all of Westeros. We honor the memory of His Grace."
A few people made signs of the Seven. A few dropped their heads. A few even wept, though whether from relief or joy was hard to tell.
The truth was, behind shuttered windows and inside crumbling hovels, the smallfolk of King's Landing were smiling.
Because everyone knew.
They knew what Aerys had become. They had seen the smoke rise from Maegor's Holdfast, the black column that curled into the sky whenever his rage took hold. They had heard the screams—men and women dragged to his pyromancers for whispered crimes. They had seen the red robes come down the street and known to hide their children.
And just two nights past, the smell of burnt flesh had clung to the stones near the stables behind the Red Keep.
"A stable boy," said a merchant to his wife as they prepared their stall for the day. "Burned alive. Just a boy, maybe ten. Said he tried to poison the King's food."
"Did he?"
"No. Boy never set foot in the kitchens. Was afraid of fire. Irony, that."
The woman spat into the dirt. "Mad. Always was. His death is the first good thing the gods have done this year."
From the Street of Flour to the Hook, from the brothels of Chataya's to the highborn halls of Visenya's Hill, the people of King's Landing remembered.
They remembered the laughter that came from the throne room when the King watched men burned. They remembered his long, silver nails and the way his eyes darted like a cornered rat's. They remembered the scent of wildfire creeping through the city's sewers like a snake beneath the stones.
They remembered, and they did not mourn.
In hushed tones and safe shadows, they whispered other things:
"Perhaps the Prince will be better."
"Perhaps the madness ends with him."
"Perhaps the dragons are truly dead now."
And beneath the murmur of prayers and false lamentations, a strange thing began to happen.
The air felt lighter. The wind seemed cleaner. The stones beneath their feet felt, just slightly, less cursed.
The Mad King was dead.
And for the first time in a generation, the city dared to hope.
The news of King Aerys's death had reached the smallfolk like a holy gift, but within the red walls of the Maegor's Holdfast, there was no joy—only shock, silence, and the heavy perfume of disbelief.
It had been a strange death.
No blade had been drawn. No poison spilled. No wildfire lit.
Just a bone—a simple chicken bone.
The long table in the royal dining hall had been set with ceremonial grandeur, the feast offered as a display of peace and unity before the eyes of the realm. Aerys, ever watchful and paranoid, had insisted on a family meal. That, in itself, was unusual. He rarely broke bread in the presence of his own blood.
Yet here they were.
Queen Rhaella, her silver-blonde hair tucked beneath a jeweled net, sat two seats to his left, hands folded tightly in her lap. Her face remained expressionless, carved in years of silent endurance. Across from her sat Princess Elia Martell, a delicate figure with haunted eyes, flanked by her two children—little Rhaenys, full of questions, and the infant Aegon, nestled in a wetnurse's arms nearby.
The Kingsguard stood behind them all, statues in white cloaks. Ser Gerold Hightower. Ser Jaime Lannister. Ser Oswell Whent. None dared move. None dared speak.
Prince Rhaegar had not attended.
Aerys had noticed.
And he was furious.
"He dares not show his face," the King muttered darkly between bites, voice dripping venom. "My own son, too consumed with his harp and his North-born whore to honor his blood."
Elia's back stiffened.
The King noticed that, too.
He turned to her with a twisted smile, lips red from Dornish wine.
"You think him noble, don't you?" he whispered. "Your precious prince. He crowned the wolf girl, Lyanna, in front of the realm. A Stark, of all things. Their blood is old and cold. Did you not feel it? The insult? Or are you too busy plotting poison?"
He laughed then. A crackling, maddened sound that sent a shiver down the long table.
Elia lowered her gaze.
The Queen said nothing.
Even little Rhaenys seemed to understand the silence.
It had become a habit of his—this obsession with Elia, with Dorne, with poison. Every meal, every cup, was treated as a battlefield. And he had made it known to all that Elia Martell and her children must taste every dish before he dared eat a bite.
Tonight had been no different.
She had sipped the soup. Bit into the bread. Touched the meat. Even the child Rhaenys had been made to nibble at the roast.
Only then had the King allowed himself to eat.
He was chewing on a piece of chicken—roasted over almond wood, basted in honey and orange—when he paused. His fork fell with a sharp clink. His eyes bulged.
A strange sound came from his throat.
A half-cough. A strangled gasp.
At first, no one moved.
Aerys clawed at his throat.
Then he stood, knocking his goblet over. The wine spilled red across the tablecloth like blood.
The King was choking.
The Queen stood first, rushing toward him.
The Kingsguard moved, too—Jaime the quickest—but what could they do? There was no blade to block, no assassin to slay.
The Mad King flailed violently, his hands tearing at his throat as the bone—small, sharp, and treacherously placed—lodged deep.
It had all happened in moments.
And then, just like that, he collapsed.
The King of the Seven Kingdoms fell forward, striking the edge of the table with a sickening crack. A final wheeze escaped his lips as his crown tilted and rolled, ringing softly against the stone floor.
Silence.
No one moved.
Elia had frozen, one arm around Rhaenys.
Rhaella knelt beside the body, her hand trembling as she reached toward him—but there was nothing to be done. No healer. No maester. No prayer.
No foul play was found.
The food had been tested.
The wine tasted.
The King had died, as any man might, from a single bone in his throat.
And just like that—the realm had changed.
In the rookery of the Red Keep, maesters moved with swift precision. Ink-stained fingers scratched across parchment, and messages were tied to the legs of sleek black birds who beat their wings in the predawn gloom. News of a monarch's death could not wait. Every great House, from Winterfell to Sunspear, from the Eyrie to Oldtown, must be informed.
Each message bore the same words, sealed in red wax stamped with the Targaryen sigil:
"King Aerys II, second of his name, has passed from this world.
Crown Prince Rhaegar is summoned to assume the throne.
The coronation will be held in the capital upon his return.
All great lords of Westeros are called to swear fealty."
The flock of ravens burst from the towers like black arrows loosed from the sky, scattering in all directions.
And they were not the only messengers.
In the stables below, riders were being prepared—fast, trusted men loyal to the realm, to the dragon throne. Saddles were tightened. Scrolls secured. One by one, they galloped through the gates of the Red Keep and into the winding roads of Westeros.
Their destination: Crown Prince Rhaegar Targaryen.
The prince had vanished again, as he was known to do when the weight of the world pressed too heavily on his shoulders. He had not returned to the capital since his scandalous appearance at the Tourney of Harrenhal, where his crowning of Lyanna Stark as the Queen of Love and Beauty had set a thousand tongues wagging—and a thousand alliances trembling.
Some said he had gone to Dragonstone.
Others whispered he was seen riding through the Trident, alone.
More daring voices claimed he had disappeared with the wolf girl, and that nothing good could come from it.
But now the realm had no time for riddles or rumors. A king was needed.
In the Tower of the Hand, lords and advisors gathered in haste. Lord Qarlton Chelsted, the Hand of the King, sat pale and shaken, barely able to command his voice. Others spoke rapidly, urgently—planning funeral rites, debating security, arguing over coronation details and succession rights.
"The realm must not fall into confusion," said Lord Chelsted, voice hoarse. "We must crown the prince before others move to act. The lions will stir. The Stags will wonder. We must act swiftly."
"But where is Prince Rhaegar?" asked another. "Where do we send the crown?"
No one had an answer.
Only this: Find Prince Rhaegar.
In White Harbor, Storm's End, and Riverrun, lords received their ravens. Some read the messages with relief. Others with uncertainty. A few with quiet ambition.
In Winterfell, a man stood beneath the weirwood tree reading the words that would change the fate of his daughter.
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