c3: The Dragon Slayer
…
Just before Viserys lifted Rhaenys into the carriage, he instinctively glanced back toward the upper windows of Maegor's Holdfast.
There
A woman stood framed in the open archway of a high stone window, the wind tugging at her dark hair and pale Dornish robes. Her skin was olive-toned, her features delicate but drawn with exhaustion. In her arms she cradled a bundled infant.
Viserys knew her at once.
Princess Elia Martell, sister to Prince Doran of Dorne and wife of the fallen Prince Rhaegar.
And the child in her arms
Her son.
Aegon Targaryen, the infant heir to the Iron Throne after Rhaegar's death at the Trident.
For a brief moment, time seemed to slow.
Elia's dark eyes met the courtyard below. Her posture was fragile; she had always been of delicate health, and the strain of war and grief weighed visibly upon her. Yet she held her son tightly, protectively, as though she could shield him from the collapse of a dynasty through sheer will.
Viserys' thoughts swirled chaotically.
He had arrived in this world only days ago awakened within the body of a seven-year-old prince on the brink of catastrophe. He barely understood the full scope of his father's madness, of the wildfire hidden beneath King's Landing, of the betrayal marching under the golden lion banners.
Yet he understood enough.
He understood that Rhaegar was dead.
He understood that Robert Baratheon's victory meant the end of Targaryen rule if the capital fell.
And he understood that Princess Elia and her children remained inside the Red Keep.
Why had his father not sent them away?
Rhaegar's wife and heirs were just as vulnerable as Rhaella and himself. Dragonstone was the ancestral seat of House Targaryen strong, isolated, defensible. They could have escaped together.
But King Aerys II Targaryen trusted no one. His paranoia had grown monstrous since Duskendale. Perhaps he feared Dornish betrayal. Perhaps he believed the capital impregnable. Or perhaps his mind, fractured and burning with visions of wildfire, simply no longer reasoned clearly.
Viserys did not know.
He only knew the rebel host was approaching.
Lord Tywin Lannister had reached the gates under the guise of loyalty. The city was swelling with rumors. The Gold Cloaks whispered. The smallfolk panicked. The shadow of the lion stretched toward the throne room.
And so, in that fleeting instant before departure, Viserys had acted.
He had pulled Rhaenys into the carriage.
It was reckless.
It was impulsive.
It might even draw his father's wrath, if Aerys learned of it before events spiraled beyond control.
For all he knew, riders might be dispatched after them. The Gold Cloaks could intercept the procession and drag the princess back by force.
And if that happened…
Viserys was not certain he would have the strength or the authority to stop them.
Still, he had done something.
Like a butterfly's wing beating against the winds of history, perhaps it would change nothing.
Or perhaps it would alter everything.
Above, Princess Elia remained at the window of Red Keep, watching as the small column of riders and carriages began to move.
From her vantage point atop Maegor's Holdfast, she saw her daughter by chance or fate being carried away within Viserys's carriage.
Her body swayed faintly.
Tears gathered in her dark eyes and spilled freely down her cheeks.
She clutched baby Aegon closer to her chest.
Some instinct deep within her whispered that this might be the last time she ever saw her daughter.
…
The sky over Blackwater Bay had been unsettled for days.
Storm clouds rolled in from the Narrow Sea, and rough winds battered the harbor. Under normal circumstances, the fastest route to Dragonstone would have been by ship directly from King's Landing's docks.
But the seas were unpredictable, and secrecy was paramount.
Ser Willem Darry, overseeing the escort, had weighed the risks carefully. Rather than sail immediately from the capital in full view of the harbor, he chose to move the royal party discreetly by land first, intending to embark from a more controlled position along the coast.
Time was their enemy.
News of the Trident had not remained contained within the castle walls. Though King Aerys had burned the messenger who brought word of Rhaegar's death an act of fury and denial the truth had already spread.
The Red Keep was no longer secure.
Servants whispered in corridors. Guards exchanged uneasy looks. The Alchemists' Guild moved barrels of wildfire through hidden passages. The Mad King muttered of burning them all rather than surrendering the city.
Outside the gates, chaos mounted.
The rebel army advanced steadily toward King's Landing. Robert Baratheon, though wounded at the Trident, had won the decisive blow. Eddard Stark and Jon Arryn marched in alliance. And Lord Tywin Lannister's vast host loomed ominously, its true intentions concealed behind promises of fealty.
Fear gripped the capital.
The great city home to hundreds of thousands packed within its walls buzzed like a disturbed hive. Merchants shuttered their shops. Mothers pulled children indoors. The bells of septs rang more frequently.
War was no longer distant.
It was at the gates.
And somewhere behind those walls, a young knight in white armor would soon earn a name that would echo through history
The Kingslayer.
The Dragon Slayer.
The escorting procession rode out from the gates of the Red Keep and descended from Aegon's High Hill into the crowded arteries of the city.
Fully armed soldiers rode at the front and along both flanks, their mail glinting in the afternoon light. The gold cloaks of the City Watch forced their way ahead, shoving back merchants, beggars, and panicked smallfolk who clogged the streets in growing confusion.
The carriages bore no Targaryen sigils. No three-headed dragon flew from their sides. Thick curtains hung low, concealing the identity of the royal passengers within.
"Out of the way!"
Whips cracked through the air.
Crack!
The chaotic crowd recoiled under the lash. People stumbled backward, clutching children, dragging carts aside. Angry cries and frightened screams echoed between the stone buildings as the soldiers carved a path forward.
The first carriage carried Queen Rhaella Targaryen, heavy with child and bound for Dragonstone. Close behind followed the second carriage, where Viserys sat beside his niece, Princess Rhaenys Targaryen.
Inside, the wheels rattled violently over uneven cobblestones.
Viserys carefully lifted the curtain just a finger's width, allowing a narrow strip of daylight to cut across his face. He caught glimpses of shuttered shops, tense faces peering from windows, and distant smoke rising from cookfires left unattended in haste.
Surrounded by armored riders, the carriages wound through tight streets toward the outer districts. Looking up between rooftops, Viserys could see one of the great hills of the city rising in the distance.
"That's Rhaenys's Hill," he said softly, attempting to distract the little girl beside him, who still seemed convinced they were embarking on some exciting outing.
King's Landing was built upon three principal hills: Aegon's High Hill, where the Red Keep stood; Visenya's Hill, crowned by the Great Sept of Baelor in later years; and Rhaenys's Hill.
The brown-haired girl clutched her small black cat, Balerion, and leaned closer to the window, her violet eyes bright with curiosity.
The hill that shared her name.
Viserys searched his memorynsharpened by his strange Lunar attribute and drew upon the histories he had devoured in Maegor's Holdfast only days before.
"Long ago," he began, "when our ancestor Aegon I Targaryen conquered the Seven Kingdoms, he had two sister-queens: Visenya and Rhaenys."
He spoke quietly over the rumble of wheels.
"Queen Rhaenys loved music and flying her dragon, Meraxes. During the First Dornish War, she was killed when Meraxes was struck by a scorpion bolt at Hellholt. The dragon fell from the sky."
The little girl's smile faded.
"In her memory," Viserys continued, "Aegon named that hill for her."
He did not mention that the Dragonpit would later be built there a colossal domed structure meant to house the Targaryen dragons after the Conquest. Nor did he describe how, during the Storming of the Dragonpit in the Dance of the Dragons, enraged mobs had slaughtered nearly all the remaining dragons within its walls.
Some histories were too heavy for a child of four.
Rhaenys listened intently, tears forming in her eyes when she heard of the queen's death.
"I want to find a husband who loves me like that," she sniffled softly. "Like King Aegon loved Queen Rhaenys."
Viserys forced a faint, polite smile.
She did not know.
She did not know that her father, Prince Rhaegar, lay dead at the Trident. She did not know that her mother and baby brother remained inside the Red Keep as Lord Tywin Lannister's army approached the gates. She did not know how thin the line between survival and slaughter had become.
The name Rhaenys seemed shadowed by tragedy.
Two centuries ago, a queen had fallen from the sky in fire and blood.
Now another little girl bearing that name rode away from the capital in secret, her fate hanging by a thread.
Because she was so young, she forgot courtly formality entirely. Though Viserys was her uncle, she addressed him simply by name, as though they were equals in age.
"He could even slay a dragon for me," she declared stubbornly, lifting her small chin despite the tears on her cheeks.
The fantasy was pure childhood drawn from songs of gallant knights and dragon slayers that traveling singers performed in marketplaces. In truth, there had not been a true dragon slayer in generations.
Viserys gave an awkward chuckle.
The wheels thundered onward. They were nearing the outer gates of King's Landing. No riders had yet appeared in pursuit, no royal command ordering Rhaenys returned.
That meant one thing: King Aerys II Targaryen had either not noticed or had chosen to ignore the girl's absence.
Perhaps, in the king's fractured reasoning, Elia and her infant son remained sufficient hostages. Perhaps one granddaughter more or less mattered little against the looming siege.
Viserys exhaled slowly, tension easing slightly from his shoulders.
He reached out and ruffled Rhaenys's brown hair the color inherited from her Dornish mother until it fell messily across her forehead.
"There are no more dragons in the world," he said gently.
"Rhaenys."
"The last dragon died during the reign of King Aegon the Third. That was more than a hundred years ago."
Outside the carriage window, Rhaenys's Hill loomed larger as they passed, its silhouette stark against the unsettled sky.
Viserys watched it in silence.
If House Targaryen still possessed dragons living, breathing dragons like Balerion the Black Dread, like Meraxes and Vhagar Robert's Rebellion might have ended very differently.
Perhaps Rhaegar would not have fallen.
Perhaps the lion banners would not dare approach the gates.
Perhaps the blood of the dragon would still rule unchallenged from the Iron Throne.
But the dragons were gone.
And now the last surviving children of that ancient house fled their own capital under cover of anonymity.
....