The Sea Snake
Beads of cold sweat were trickling down his brow as he was startled awake from his fitful sleep. Another nightmare. No matter how gingerly he sat, the pain in his hip flared, another reminder that he was old and broken. The faint light of the crescent moon streaked into his cell through its single window. The sky was cloudless, the glittering stars in the night sky clear.
Corlys Velaryon stood, and, supporting himself with his cane, walked slowly towards the window. The scent of the night air and the subtle but perpetual stench of the shit that riddled the city reached him as he took a breath, reminding him that he was alive. At least this time, he was not smelling his own shit. Unlike the whore, Cregan Stark had the decency of caging him in a cell designated for nobility. Such cells were attended to once a day, and the captive's chamberpot was emptied.
The nightmares became more vivid as the weeks and months blurred by. These days, they would torment him every time he shut his eyes, trying to sleep. They would remind him of how much he'd lost in the war for the bitch queen's throne.
In those dreams, it was the face of his wife, stern and strong and unyielding, that he saw most often. She appeared to him as she'd been when they had just married; young, lovely and full of life, a woman just out of her girlhood and with her entire life ahead of her. When he saw himself, he was a younger man too; The Sea Snake, the dashing adventurer just returned home from voyages taken to the farthest reaches of the Known World, the man that had single-handedly lifted the dwindling fortunes of his house to heights previously unknown.
The words she told him on the day she'd declared her betrothal before the entire court came back to him, 'We can go back to the ends of the earth together, my love, but I'll get there first, as I'll be flying.' Like always, he smiled at the memory. That was the day he knew he found his queen, the day he knew he would make himself a king, as he thought was his due. The folly.
The pleasant memory would only last a moment longer, however, before he would see her falling from the sky, Meleys' headless and lifeless body under her, smote upon the ground. The copper armour she loved to wear would then melt into her skin as the bronze flames of their daughter's Vhagar engulfed her, turning her to ash. That was all that remained of his wife, nothing but ash, as if she never even existed.
That was all that remained of Corlys' life and legacy in truth. All he pursued so relentlessly since he was only a boy was ruined. The strength of the Velaryon navy had been cut down by almost half. Spicetown, the fishing village he transformed into a thriving city more resplendent than King's Landing could ever hope to be, was a ruin. High Tide, the crown jewel of his life's work, the beautiful pale fortress he had built with stone and marble and silver, had been destroyed.
All of it was because of the mad queen and her stupid war. He had been right in his assessment of her; she burned everything she touched.
Corlys usually did his best to avoid the uncomfortable thoughts of his ruin, but lately, he no longer had the strength to. In the morn, his head would be separated from the rest of him. The young wolf's words came back to him, unencumbered, 'Aegon was an oath breaker, a kinslayer, and a usurper besides, yet still a king. When he would not heed your craven's counsel, you removed him as a craven would, using poison… and now you shall answer for it'.
Aye, the conviction with which Lord Stark had pronounced his judgement assured him of his fate. Reflection was all that was left for him to do. So he walked back to the small bed, put on the heavy woollen cloak atop it over his head, glad of the warmth it brought. He then lay down slowly, his knees complaining as he did so, and let his mind wander unobstructed, reliving the memories of his life.
Surprisingly, his memories took him back to his youth, when he was a much younger man, before he was the Sea Snake, still full of hopes and dreams and ambition.
The form of Daella Targaryen appeared in his mind's eye; the sweet, shy princess that was so unlike every other Targaryen he had ever met. None of the pride and senseless arrogance of her kin was present in her. Corlys cursed his ambition once more for rejecting her suit of marriage all those years ago. She would have made a splendid wife, he knew, and a kind, gentle mother to any children they would have had.
But for a man like him, a woman who made a good wife and a gentle mother was just not enough. No, he needed one that would make him a king. Only Rhaenys Targaryen, the sole child of the king's heir, the far future queen, was worthy of the Sea Snake. Not only would she ensure his children would be dragonriders, but that one of them would be king after him. His blood would rule these lands for eons to come.
Oh, how his delusions shattered. The gods had seen fit to send his ruin in the form of a spoiled princess, a pretender queen named Rhaenyra Targaryen. Oh, how he loathed even the taste of her name on his tongue. How had he, Corlys Velaryon, let a little slip of a girl not even a quarter of his age destroy everything he had built?
He had been glad, so very glad, when Viserys came to High Tide and begged for Laenor's hand for his heir. Rhaenys had warned him against it, that war would follow Viserys' death, that no son would sit idly by and allow their sister to sit Aegon's throne over them. He had laughed then. Whatever war would follow would be short and devastating for any who sought to usurp them, he had reassured her. They had Meleys, Seasmoke, Syrax, Caraxes and Vhagar on their side. All his grandchildren would be dragonriders too, he was sure of it. He had made sure of it.
Laenor's queer tastes had been accounted for; he had him lay with the beautiful Marilda and sire a child upon her, before the wedding between him and the princess was to take place. Sure, the methods used to coax pleasure out of his son were queer and humiliating for him, but what mattered was that it worked. He would just have to do the same with his princess after they wed, and all would be well.
The princess had turned out to be nothing more than a senseless harlot. She had her own desires, and she would fulfil them, regardless of the treason she committed. Corlys swallowed something foul and bitter when he remembered the first brown-haired, brown-eyed whelp presented to him.
At that time, he had not truly grasped the depth of the cretin's entitlement. When the dragon's egg in that babe's cradle hatched only a few days after his birth, he'd reasoned with himself that it must have been the Baratheon and Arryn blood lurking in both of his parents that caused the boy to have such common features. So he gave him a storied Velaryon name, Jacaerys.
A seed of doubt was cast in his mind, however, when Addam was born soon afterwards, Valyrian heritage clear in his look. The birth of the second babe he named Lucerys, caused that seed of doubt to sprout. Soon thereafter, he had his son lay with Marilda again, hoping against all hope that the next babe sired between them would resemble his half-brothers, to put to rest his suspicions. His hopes were dashed into the sea, however, for Alyn was born soon after Lucerys, again with silvery hair and amethyst eyes.
That was when his hatred for the harlot was truly set in stone. He did not even bother bestowing her third whelp with a Velaryon name, instead letting his son give him the common name Joffrey, for his paramour supposedly. He did not understand. His son claimed the bastards as his. The couple paraded the boys as trueborn heirs of the two most powerful families in the Known World. Laena was nothing but a doting aunt to them and even agreed to betroth them to her daughters.
He'd wanted to speak out, to travel to King's Landing and disavow the boys as not being of his own seed in front of the king, but he could not. Those same dragons that he had counted on so staunchly as his support, now had their jaws pointed firmly at his throat. Daemon would certainly not allow any shame be wrought upon his beloved niece.
Laenor declared in no uncertain terms that he would turn against him, should he try to dispute his bastards' parentage. 'You can only watch as the entirety of your legacy is inherited by mongrels, father.' He'd said, a vindictive smirk upon his face, 'I believe it to be sufficient payment for all the shame you've had me endure.'
He had futilely tried to beget another son upon his wife then, not caring for her advancing age. It was the only option left to him. Addam and Alyn were sired in secret. Bringing them forward would be rash, and would only serve to put them and their mother in danger. Laenor had no care for them, he'd never even seen them. There was nothing but hatred and contempt in his eyes when Corlys informed him of their birth.
More than that, it seemed all the realm knew of his son's proclivities. They were more likely to believe that Addam and Alyn were his sons and not Laenor's. Rhaenys would certainly not be pleased to learn that her beloved husband had not only sired bastard children out of wedlock, but was also putting them forward to be heirs to Driftmark.
So he quietly despaired for a decade, doing nothing as his son and daughter died, and as he was then forced to have the bastard whelp he had named Lucerys as his ward. He was a good lad, Corlys had to admit, and would have made a splendid lord of Driftmark, were he trueborn. The boy displayed the same enthusiasm for sailing that reminded Corlys of his youth, fighting and eventually overcoming the seasickness that plagued him. He had begun to tacitly accept him as heir after a time, and even took him on a few voyages.
After one such voyage, he fell ill with a fever, and his nephew Vaemond had the courage to do what he did not. He went to the king, declared the fatuous princess' children as bastards, and put himself forward as the true heir and future lord of his seat. For his trouble, he got his head removed and his corpse fed to the bitch's dragon. Vaemond's sons and Corlys' other nephews went to the king in protest, and some of them lost their tongues or their lives as a result.
The rest of his kin looked at him in askance, expecting him to answer the injustice done upon House Velaryon. He could not, and so most of them turned against him during the war. Many ships of his navy turned cloak and fought for the Triarchy when they attacked their blockade of the Gullet. In the chaos of battle, they were torched by dragonflame just as the Three Daughters' fleets were. The large Velaryon tree was trimmed so vastly that the remaining scions of his family could be counted on one hand.
All of it was because of a bastard and his hag mother.
Before the war, he had thought that at least all his sacrifice would be worth it. Jacaerys and Lucerys, falseborn as they were, would marry their cousins, Baela and Rhaena, who at least had Velaryon blood from their mother. At the onset of the war, he thought they would be victorious. They had more dragons to deploy on the battlefield. More lords of the realm swore to support the inane queen's claim. They had the most experienced battle commanders in him and his good-son. He thought this whole mess would be behind them within a moon's turn. Oh, how soundly mistaken had he been.
Lucerys and the usurper's son were slain in turn, sparking the war in earnest. The Riverlands were conquered soon afterwards by Daemon and his dragon. Save for losing his false heir, things looked to be going well.
That was until his wife died, sent by the shrewish queen against the usurper's forces besieging Rook's Rest, only to find Sunfyre and Vhagar lying in wait. She did not turn away from the prospect of facing the two dragons, instead choosing to go to her death fighting to take at least one of them with her. And she'd almost succeeded, for the usurper's golden wyrm was left maimed, rendering him useless for most of the remaining war.
Rhaenys' demise had been his breaking point. Corlys had decided to withdraw his forces and retreat to the comforts of High Tide, leaving the queen and her bastards to fend for themselves in their wretched war for the throne. His wife and children were dead. The remains of the bastard he'd named Lucerys lay at the bottom of Shipbreaker Bay. The twins were Targaryens, daughters of Rogue Prince, even with his daughter's blood flowing through their veins. He had nothing else to fight for.
Jacaerys had been the one who to change his mind. He offered him the Handship, legitimised his true grandsons as they deserved, and even let them claim dragons alongside three other dragonseeds. Addam succeeded in that regard, becoming the rider of Seasmoke, his father's dragon. Alyn unsuccessfully tried to tame the wild dragon Sheepstealer, fortunately coming away from that ordeal with only mild burns.
Addam Velaryon was then named heir to Driftmark at the prince's urging, as was his due. Jacaerys had not been fool enough to even dare press Joffrey's claim to an inheritance he had no legitimacy to, not with the threat of losing the Velaryon navy for his mother's cause looming.
Finally, his actual grandsons got their due, even amidst all the loss and turmoil. Prince Jacaerys' actions earned him Corlys' begrudging respect. He would have made a capable king, he could admit, certainly a much better monarch than his moronic mother.
Jacaerys did not live long, however.
After his grandson claimed Seasmoke, Hugh and Ulf, the two betrayers, claimed Vermithor and Silverwing, and the brown girl Nettles tamed Sheepstealer, Jacaerys sent Joffrey and Rhaena, together with Joffrey's dragon and three dragon's eggs to the Vale. He then sent his two young half-brothers, Aegon with his young dragon Stormcloud and Viserys with his dragon's egg, to Pentos aboard a ship. All in an attempt to keep his family safe. The latter two would be anything but.
On the way to Pentos, the ship carrying the two young princes met the Triarchy fleet sailing towards the Gullet to break the Velaryon blockade. Aegon barely escaped the Triarchy forces on his juvenile dragon, flying back to Dragonstone in the midst of a storm of scorpion bolts being launched at him. He came in haste to seek help in freeing his brother Viserys from the enemy's clutches. That was the only flight little Aegon took on Stormcloud before the dragon died from half a hundred wounds.
Jacaerys and his dragonriders responded immediately, flying to set the enemy fleet ablaze and trying to rescue young Prince Viserys. In the chaos of the battle, Jacaerys, looking for Viserys, flew too close to the sea and was shot out of the sky. The Triarchy forces and Corlys' rogue kin reached High Tide and Spicetown, sacking both and putting them to the torch. The enemy was put to rout yes, but it was a victory with too much loss for it to be considered one, and Viserys was lost and dead.
After that battle, the queen and Jacaerys' dragonriders took the capital, and that was when her foolishness was put on display for the entire realm to see. Corlys laughed at the memory of her idiotic reign. Her downfall came from the common folk of the city, not from his daughter's dragon now ridden by the Kinslayer, not even from Ulf and Hugh, the dragonseeds that betrayed her and fought for the usurper instead. No, it was from the common folk. A monarch had to be singularly addle-headed to rouse their anger.
Her short and mediocre reign began unravelling when they took the Red Keep, only to find the treasury looted. The usurper's Master of Coin was brutally tortured to find out where the gold had vanished to. He revealed nothing. Instead of sourcing coin by seizing the treasuries of the lords that supported her half-brother, or borrowing from the Iron Bank to pay them back once the war came to an end and trade was restored, the witless wretch, with the advice of her illustrious new Master of Coin, imposed taxes on the common folk of the city. Common folk that had suffered hunger since the Riverlands went aflame under the Kinslayer's wrath and the supply routes from the Reach had been seized by the usurper's youngest brother and the host he commanded.
As she deployed her dragonriders all over the realm to deal with The Greens, (her husband and Nettles north to hunt the Kinslayer on Vhagar, Ulf and Hugh south to destroy the usurper's youngest brother and the host he commanded) dissent in the city was sown. That imbecile soon became known as Maegor with Teats for worsening the hardship they had fallen on instead of trying to alleviate it.
The usurper's wife killed herself, and word spread throughout the city that their cruel queen did it. The usurper's toddler son was torn apart by innkeeps far south in the realm, and the denizens of the city were certain that the lunatic on the Iron Throne was behind it.
The dissent came to a boiling point when the city folk stormed the Dragonpit by their tens of thousands and killed five dragons, at the urging of a one-armed street urchin who convinced them that only with the death of the dragons would they be liberated from the hardship they were facing. They were right, he supposed.
Instead of mounting Syrax, who resided on the Red Keep's courtyard, and turning away all who tried to storm the Dragonpit, the brainless queen fled the city after her only remaining falseborn son tried to do the same and died for it, while she just watched. Despite himself, Corlys chuckled. Her bastards were truly mongrels.
Even he knew that one could never mount a dragon that was bonded to another. Joffrey assumed her mother's mount was familiar enough with him to accommodate a short flight. He was thoroughly disabused of that notion when the dragon shook violently, throwing the mongrel from her back, sending him falling to his death. Syrax then went feral, destroying a part of the city with her flames, before joining the carnage in the Dragonpit and getting killed by tens of thousands of city folk. Five dragons died that night, along with well more than a hundred thousand of the common folk that killed them.
Maegor with Teats fled King's Landing soon afterwards and went to Dragonstone, straight into the waiting jaws of the usurper. Aegon, her sole remaining child, watched as she was roasted and devoured by Sunfyre, who had healed enough from his ordeal in Rook's Rest and promptly flew to seek out his master on Dragonstone, killing Baela's Moondancer and the wild dragon Grey Ghost in his wake. Sunfyre died soon afterwards, however, from the fresh wounds he took fighting those two dragons.
Corlys had been in the Black Cells when he'd heard the news. Despite being near the point of death from starvation and the injuries he had suffered during his imprisonment, he had found the strength to be glad of the Black Queen's demise. Her dying in the most ignoble way possible served her right. She'd had him chained and beaten for rescuing his trueborn grandson from her executioner's blade.
When Ulf White and Hugh Hammer proved themselves traitors and turned their cloaks, she'd ordered all dragonriders deployed by Jacaerys be attainted for treason and detained. Daemon, in the Riverlands hunting Vhagar, sought to protect Sheepstealer's rider instead of obeying his beloved queen's word. He therefore sent Nettles away and went on to face the kinslayer and Vhagar by himself, both dragons and princes dying in the resulting duel.
That asinine queen had dared to order Addam be tortured to 'ascertain his loyalty'. Corlys could not have that, of course, so he forewarned his grandson, urging him to flee to one of the Free Cities and await the end of the war. The two Targaryen factions would obliterate each other and all their dragons, he had reasoned, leaving his house, House Velaryon, as the only remaining house of dragonlords in the world. Addam could easily claim the Iron Throne for himself if he so wished, being a descendant of Old King Jaehaerys through his firstborn son. And with him having Seasmoke, none would gainsay his ascension.
Addam, Corlys found out, did not share his vision. He was instead plagued by delusions of loyalty. Instead of finding solace in the cities across the Narrow Sea, he flew to gather fresh levies from the Riverlands to attack Tumbleton, where the traitor dragonriders roosted, to prove himself to the dragon queen. Addam and Seasmoke died in that battle.
Once Corlys was discovered to have aided Addam in his escape, he was seized, beaten as if he was some common born miscreant, and then thrown into the Black Cells. He languished in the darkness for weeks until Larys Strong pulled him out, compelling him to give the usurper his allegiance, or Baela, now the usurper's hostage after Moondancer died battling Sunfyre, would be beheaded.
He'd agreed, thinking the idiocy plaguing Maegor with Teats had been vanquished once the usurper's dragon made a meal out of her. It had not. A shorter, sadder reign of Aegon the Usurper followed the short, sad reign of her dim-witted sister. Instead of trying to unite the war-torn realm under his banner by marrying his daughter to Rhaenyra's son, as Corlys advised him to do, he sought vengeance on all lords flying the banner of the accursed queen. His folly was even greater than his sister's, and Corlys did not think that possible.
With Sunfyre dead, the charred husk that was the usurper did not have a dragon to enforce his will. The attacks he made on the petty lords of the Crownlands only served to rouse the rest of her dead sister's remaining loyalists. Jeyne Arryn, Rhaenyra's own cousin, inexplicably found ships to finally sail her men down the Narrow Sea. Stark and his northmen bestirred themselves from their frozen wasteland and marched south, a whole two years after he and Jacaerys signed the grandly named Pact of Ice and Fire, where the prince promised his firstborn daughter to Cregan's heir.
Somehow, the Riverlands respawned even more men and slaughtered the traitorous Baratheons, Rhaenys kin and now the usurper's greatest remaining supporters, whose forces had been largely unbloodied before then, as Lord Borros chose to instead march south to deal with the pesky Dornish, even after the kinslayer betrothed himself to his eldest daughter. The usurper was left exposed and naked, with hosts marching on the capital from all directions.
War would come to King's Landing once more, and at that point, he was exhausted of it. His time in the Black Cells had done much to make him weary. The madness had to end. And so, aided by an unlikely ally in the Clubfoot, he had the usurper poisoned and hailed the young prince as king when the Rivermen reached the gates of King's Landing. He thought the war well and truly over, until Stark and his host of northmen reached the city and took it from the Rivermen.
That the young wolf harboured ambitions of conquering the entirety of the realm for himself, Corlys could clearly see, veiled as those ambitions were by the pretext of preventing future rebellions when the boy lords whose fathers were slain in the war grew to manhood. 'Small babes become large men in time, and babes suck their mother's hate with their mother's milk,' he'd said.
When Corlys pointed out how Aegon thought the same and perished for it, Lord Stark accused him of regicide in view of the entire court, and had his men seize him and imprison him once more to await execution.
Seventy-eight years; Corlys had lived seventy-eight years and in all that time, he'd never imagined dying for regicide. Adventurer, sailor, builder, king, husband and father, all those titles he had imagined for himself, but never Kingslayer. The rest would never matter. Only ash remained of the towns and castles he had built. He could scarcely walk up a flight of stairs, let alone brave the seas aboard The Sea Snake as he did in his youth. The wife that was to make him a king was dead. The children that were to rule after him were dead too.
Memories of them brought nothing but pain and guilt. What had he given them for the entirety of their lives, apart from grief, pain and suffering due to his ambition? Laena, his pearl, had suffered for almost a decade, betrothed to a Braavosi wastrel by his will. Daemon had been the one to rescue her by slaying the vagrant and marrying her instead. That had ended in tragedy scarcely four years later with her death while birthing a son.
Laenor, his son, his brave boy, the first dragonlord in House Velaryon's storied history, died with an empty soul, ashamed to the point of plotting against his own father. Plunging his dagger into his killer's chest was not retribution enough for that.
Alyn, the grandson he'd kept hidden out of fear for so long, was the only one left to him now. And what would he leave him? Driftmark more of a pittance than it had been when the first Jacaerys Velaryon left Valyria. The Velaryon fleet no longer sailing the waters of the Known World's seas unchallenged. The pitiful legacy Grandfather left him lessened even more. The proud banner of the seahorse drowned in ash.
Despite himself, Corlys laughed, long and hard and throaty, until tears streaked his weathered cheeks when the realisation occurred to him. No matter how much he despised and mocked Maegor with Teats and her dolt of a brother for their follies, Corlys had truly been the greatest fool of them all. He'd risen high, driven by ambitions of legacy and glory, and had achieved all of it, only to throw it all away.
He married a princess who would have been queen. He sired children that rode dragons. He built a city on the dreary island that was his home, making it the greatest port in the Known World. Under his stewardship, House Velaryon had risen to heights unknown.
And yet, all that was gone now.
In two days he would die, and Corlys Velaryon would die with nothing, being nothing.
Suddenly, he was wishing for the morn to come sooner. There would be no sleep for him tonight, the nightmares would not allow it. At least when he died, he would no longer be there to be tormented by them. There were the seven hells, perhaps, where he would burn for eternity for his sins, but that appealed more to him than the mummer's farce that was now his life.
A chuckle escaped him. Even at the point of death, his unassailable pride remained.
The rapping to the door and the shimmying of keys into its lock burst him out of his ruminations. The rusty hinges groaned and creaked as it opened. Had Lord Stark decided to finish him off now? That would only be for the best, he mused. Gingerly, he sat up, anticipating northmen coming in and shoving him roughly onto the block. It would be less painful for his hips were he to be seated than lying on his back.
To his infinite surprise, his granddaughter was the one to step into his cell, running straight for him and taking him in a deep embrace. Tears were stinging his eyes as she squeezed him even tighter, the pink dragon coiled about her neck letting out happy squeaks and whoops at her bondmate's happiness. Corlys did not deserve an ounce of her affection, he knew.
"'Tis so good to see you, grandfather," she said, trying and failing to keep her voice even.
"'Tis good to see you, Rhaena," he replied, "How did you manage to get Lord Stark to let you visit me."
His granddaughter smiled, with those light lilac eyes of hers. Eyes that reminded him so much of her mother and grandmother. Laenor had been the only one out of his family to get his indigo eyes, while her daughter, grandchildren had inherited Rhaenys' lilac ones.
"I've done better than that," Rhaena told him, "You're free to go."
The words struck like a punch to the chest. For the first time in a lifetime, he was left speechless, "What… what do you mean free to go?"
"Free to go, as in, you have been offered a full pardon of all the crimes you have been accused of," she took her hands in hers, "Your time to die has not yet come."
"How?" was the only thing Corlys could ask.
"Even the fiercest of men have their weaknesses," was her only reply.
The Dragonkeepers alongside her came into his notice for the first time. The rigid Northmen that normally guarded him were gone. Only then did he truly begin to take it in.
"I'm truly free?" Corlys asked.
Rhaena chuckled, "Yes you are, Grandfather. Yes you are. Shall we leave this horrid place?"
That was not an opportunity to pass up, no matter the guilt rising within him at accepting the offer. Corlys had not been a very good grandfather to the twins. How they still held such high regard for him, he did not know. Regard enough to have him saved from the prospect of execution, regard enough to have him pardoned for what he knew were unforgivable crimes.
Instead of returning to his chambers in the Tower of the Hand, or him being assigned new quarters, he was led by Rhaena through the castle and out into the gardens, Valemen joined by the black-armoured Dragonkeepers walking behind Rhaena. All of them stood aside as Rhaena guided him deeper into the one-acre forest, and they were left alone.
"You have my gratitude, Rhaena," Corlys began saying, once they stopped at the front of heart tree, "For freeing me."
"You are my grandfather," his granddaughter replied, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world, "I could not let you rot in the dungeons any longer. We have much to do anyhow."
"What exactly, pray tell?" Corlys' curiosity was piqued. Not much thought was given to what he might do if freed. That had never been a consideration of his since the wolf had him put in a cage.
"Set the realm to rights. Rule," she began, "Only three of us are left now, with only one dragon, a hatchling under our control." She gestured to the sleeping drake around her neck. "The rest of the realm circles us like carrion crows, waiting to feast on our corpses. You, grandfather, are our blood, and the only one that we trust. We would ask you to serve as the Hand in the King's Council."
Rhaena held out the brooch, pure silver, wrought in the shape of a fist. His mind flashed back to another time, during the war, Prince Jacaerys holding out a similar brooch, begging him to return to the fold. It had taken much being lost for the offer to be made to him in the first place by the mad queen, and much cajoling by the prince for him to accept. Here his granddaughter was, making the same proposal, even after everything that had occurred between them, even after all she'd lost because of him.
There would be no cajoling this time.
His grandchildren were the only legacy he had left, as fire and ash had consumed all else that he'd built. This was why the gods had seen fit to spare him, he realised, like a sailor clinging to life desperately on a piece of wreckage. As the Hand of the King, he could try and assure their futures somewhat.
He could try and atone for all the devastation he had brought upon the lives of their parents, his children.
"I accept," was the only answer he gave, and the Sea Snake fastened the badge of office onto his weathered tunic. There was a knowing smile on his granddaughter's face.
Author's Note:
If you like what you've read so far, you can read three more chapters of it by searching up 'neyra29 linktree'.
This chapter is basically my attempt at untangling the mess that was the Velaryon story during the Dance era. A lot of it seems disjointed and illogical when reading Fire and Blood, but this is how I've pulled those threads to something coherent, while giving Corlys a motivation for being allied with his granddaughters and the king.
As always, give me the thoughts on it in the comments below or on Discord by searching up 'neyra29 linktree'.