Chapter Text
Rhaenyra Targaryen should never have believed Alicent Hightower’s smile.
They were sisters once, long ago, before Rhaenyra had even been King Viserys’s heir. Her best friend’s reassuring smile had always provided great comfort. She received it after being told off by her septas. She had received it after her mother passed, murdered for a son who would live for only a day, in the Sept she never visited, but which Alicent was so fond of. She saw that smile before she accompanied her father to meet Lady Laena as a potential bride, a girl younger than herself. She received that damned smile right before one of the greatest betrayals of her life, before her father announced his intentions to marry "the Lady Alicent".
So when Alicent Hightower smiled at her after supper, Rhaenyra had felt like a girl again. She’d assured her she would be back in King’s Landing after seeing her children home, the children she knew Alicent called bastards to everyone and anyone who would listen. She had truly believed her when she said she’d make a fine Queen.
When Rhaenys came to tell her of her father’s death and how her throne had been effectively usurped by her little brother, the baby she’d held and taught how to say her name, Rhaenyra cursed herself for falling for that old trick of a smile. The disappointment and anger she felt were quickly replaced by heartbreak as she lost her child, her baby girl, the one Alicent knew Rhaenyra had dreamed of, for as girls, after her dear mother had lost another babe, she declared that if she would not have a sister, she would have a daughter of her own, to pick pretty dresses for and braid her hair as her own mother did with hers.
She was my only daughter, Rhaenyra thought, and they killed her.
Rhaenyra Targaryen had never felt as empty as when the damned crown was placed on her head at her daughter’s funeral. She only found strength when she saw her sons, her dear boys, look at her after Daemon crowned her.
Later, when Jace suggested sending them instead of ravens, she’d heard her younger self for a moment, and felt infinitely sorry for her father’s nerves. For the first time in ages, Rhaenyra wished she was a little girl again, to sit on her father’s lap as he’d tell her stories of their ancestors while her mother worked on a new piece of embroidery and smiled at her husband and daughter. She needed and missed her father, she realized, and tried her best not to burst into tears in front of her Council.
Rhaenyra was used to missing her mother. She prayed to her mother, not to the gods she doesn’t worship, before she was sent on a tour of Westeros to find a husband. She cried while she prayed to her mother when, months later, she was forced to marry Laenor Velaryon, whom Rhaenyra knew would not be able to give her the children she would need. When she began her labors with Jace, she screamed and begged for her mother, while the maesters who had Aemma’s blood on their hands looked down in shame, while her own father could not face her.
Now, seeing her heir’s determination, she prayed to both of her parents. She prayed to her father, to give her the strength and reassurance she would need in the following days, and then Rhaenyra prayed to her mother, to keep her boys safe and to guide them on the uncertain path she was about to send them on.
The Black Queen looked at her boys, and gave in.
"Very well," she declared. "Prince Jacaerys will fly north. First to the Eyrie to see my mother’s cousin, the Lady Jeyne Arryn, and then to Winterfell to treat with Lord Cregan Stark for the support of the North."
Rhaenyra looked at Lucerys, her sweet boy, and softened, "Prince Lucerys will fly south to Storm’s End and treat with Lord Borros Baratheon."
She cursed herself for the second time when, later that day, she saw her boys mount their dragons and get tangled up in a war that was not theirs to fight.