Chapter Text
Rhaenyra Targaryen died a few weeks shy of her sixth birthday. She died silently, in the darkness of shadows, alone with only the acrid company of flames to help her cross beyond the veil.
Rhaenyra Targaryen died some miles from the big mahogany bed carved with the dragons of her family’s past, that safe place where her parents had lovingly deposited her each night as it had been done since their move to the Red Keep upon her father’s ascent to the Iron Throne. A kiss on the forehead, the rustling of soft sheets, the careful watch of a candle as to keep the nightmares away.
Her charred remains –not fully a body but a collection of flesh, bones, and a blazing necklace made of Valyrian steel– were found almost a full day after she had been reported missing by her nursemaid. Dumped and left to rot in a clearing in the now forever cursed woods surrounding her father’s city, a mere short horse ride from Dragon’s Gate.
Sixteen days after her mother had failed to deliver yet another child, fourteen days after the king had given up all hope of a male heir, officially, from then on, declaring Prince Daemon Targaryen the one and only heir to the Iron Throne. Twelve days after the wide eyed child had been promised to her uncle, a small, teary-eyed queen-in-waiting for her days of servitude to the crown. Cherished by every servant and knight, beloved beyond duty; a girl who would beget the strengthening of the bloodline of those who had declared themselves in the realm of Gods.
But because Rhaenyra Targaryen had been assigned a role too coveted to be bestowed on the helpless, she had also paid its price.
Many said, years after her passing, when the King had poured blood and iron down the throats of his known enemies with the rage of all the mad warrior conquerors that came before him while her uncle –never-to-be husband– had sowed bloodshed on every territory that doubted the strength of the crown, that the Targeryans had been consumed by the mania of blindness.
Blindness to the suffering the young girl must have endured; blindness to the hand that had brought upon her pain. So they suffered, and like all powerful men before them, they gifted their suffering far and wide across the realm.
Prince Daemon Targaryen refused to take any other wife.
The Targaryen line continued without an heir, male or otherwise.
But here’s another story.
A trick behind a trick. The magician’s hand hides the coin inside his sleeve; someone steals his boots while he is pretending to walk on fire.
The girl is taken from her bed by her killer, the killer doesn’t know this, but he is set to be rewarded with a blade to his throat by his own master. All the good illusionists are taught to leave no trace behind.
The killer takes the girl from her bed, and before they reach the forest, an angel–friend–warrior finds them both and kills the man. The warrior takes the girl and flees, on the back of a dragon no less. Another angel–friend–warrior burns the remains of a recently deceased child –bless her soul–, buried in a nearby shallow grave. She is small, she doesn’t deserve this degradation, but there is nothing else to it.
None of this is an act of luck, but of double crossings and treachery upon treachery.
The girl can’t go back to the castle, not while the depth of the treasonous act set in motion that night is yet unknown by those who seek to protect her.
She is flown to safety and given a new name.
And so her life begins anew.