Prince Aegon Targaryen, Prince of Dragon’s Heart

  Gss candles illuminated the entire room with their unnatural fme. The light they birthed emphasized the color of each, making it brighter and more noticeable in the non-twilight. Shadows falling upon the faces of the gods' statues were bcker than night, bcker than the scales of Balerion and the Cannibal combined. The fire did not flicker, and thus Vhagar’s toothy grin looked even more terrible, and the spear Meraxes clutched seemed even sharper. Both goddesses looked severe, ruthless, and displeased, and only Balerion seemed imperturbable, still holding the obsidian bead, an allegory of deaths, in his outstretched hands.

  For the prayer room, the Prince had chosen a spacious chamber on the st residential floor of the Widow's Tower and on the same level as the bridge connecting it to the Kingspyre. There were no chambers above—they were being rebuilt and reinforced to transform the tower's summit into a roost for Silverwing in the future. The windows in the hall faced all cardinal directions, but by Aegon's order, the builders had bricked up all save the southern ones, and even those were hidden most of the time by heavy and dense curtains of bck velvet with silver dragons embroidered upon them.

  At the northern wall, Ser Meyrr Teltaris's taciturn men, all natives of Dragonstone to a man, had erected a two-tiered altar hewn from bck stone from the Dragonmont; the upper step was adorned with statuettes of Balerion, Vhagar, and Meraxes, on the lower the master of the castle had pced obsidian dishes and Valyrian candles obtained in Mantarys. Before the sanctuary, a kneeling bench and a pew were pced, and a few more further back.

  At first, Aegon supposed the room would remain a family prayer room with the logical exception of Dennis, however, a few months after its arrangement, the castle casteln and the captain of the Dragonkeepers, along with some of their men, asked their liege's permission to visit the temple in their free time. The Prince, without thinking long, gave his consent: natives of Dragonstone and Driftmark had always honored the gods of the old homend no less, and perhaps more than the Seven, to which he had been a witness in the past.

  To neutralize possible dissatisfaction from the Faith, a generous sum of gold dragons had to be donated for the decoration of the great sept being built in Baelonis and another one founded by the road to Darry. He did not fear the lords' opinion: with the help of the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, Westeros had accepted the rule of the House of the Dragon with all its strange customs, and Aegon was sure that this one, with due caution and benevolence, would not be an exception; after all, the River lords tolerated worshipers of the Old Gods as neighbors and subjects somehow. And yet, by the Prince's order, the guard of the tower as a whole and the prayer room in particur was strengthened: its riches alone could attract unwanted attention.

  Aegon rubbed his palms over his face, chasing away fatigue, and knelt before the altar for the umpteenth time that evening. The candles standing in a row formed an ambiguous line: bck and dark green burned at opposite ends, separated by red and smoky ones. The Prince was ready to swear he had not arranged them so on purpose and had not swapped their pces, but now the coincidence turned out ironic, eloquent, and therefore especially bitter.

  Of course, praise the gods, they had managed to avoid war again, although this time they had approached its edge so close that the Master of Dragons already felt the heat of dragon fire engulfing the entire continent, the heat of the funeral pyre of their realm and House Targaryen. Perhaps for the first time, he realized how dangerous Daemon could be, restrained by no one and nothing. Never before had he stooped to open threats to his brothers; half-hints and allusions to grave consequences for the King's "bad councilors," especially addressed to the royal father-in-w, bore no comparison to the mad fme in his eyes and the resolve to put Dark Sister to use.

  At some moment it seemed to Aegon that his brother was about to draw his sword from its scabbard and everything would end, but he merely spat disgustedly and fled. Did Daemon pity his brothers? Unlikely; had it been his will, they would truly have remained lying there, and no Kingsguard or sworn shield would have stopped him. So, he simply did not wish to dirty himself. For some reason, this contempt cut even more painfully than Valyrian steel, which was not allowed to drink blood.

  Only when Daemon flew out of the Small Council chamber like an arrow did the Prince, unlike his brothers who allowed emotions to take over, rex his control and give rein to fear. Naturally, he told Viserys that Daemon would flee, yet at the same time, he did not share the exaggerated confidence with which he spoke. Even if he refused a fight in the room, difficult but not hopeless, nothing prevented him from turning Maegor's Holdfast into Harren the Bck's stronghold. And yet Caraxes, rising from Rhaenys's Hill with an angry cry, flew beyond the Bckwater and the Kingswood toward Tyrosh.

  The next day, Aegon managed to persuade Viserys to send a raven after the dragon with a repeated offer: all grievances, accusations, and insults would be forgotten, all Daemon's privileges would be preserved, including the office of Hand, if he gave his eldest daughter to the new heir to the Iron Throne. An exchange, of course, imperfect and risky, and the Prince expected any answer, but at the end of the week, a raven returned from Tyrosh with a reply.

  Daemon accepted the offer, though Viserys expected a decration of war, however for his consent he demanded much: complete exemption of Tyrosh from taxes until the wedding of Alyssa and Aegon the Younger, and after—a reduction of payments by seven times, the right to independently set duties in the port of Tyrosh without regard to King's Landing, the right to revive the old mint of the archons and take Aemond as his squire.

  When Grand Maester Mellos read the contents of the letter, dead silence reigned in the Small Council chamber for several long moments, during which all eyes converged on the King. Viserys let out a sigh either of relief or bitterness, covered his face with his palms, as if not wishing to see either the infernal missive, or the infernal councilors, or the infernal brothers, but in the end said:

  "He agreed, and that is the main thing."

  "But the conditions, my Sovereign..." Tynd Lannister tried to object. "A mint in Tyrosh..."

  "We accept them. I will not haggle when the alternative is war."

  "We must think of Prince Aemond's safety," Hightower frowned with concern. "He will be completely in Prince Daemon's power. Nothing prevents him from getting rid of the hostage and freeing Vhagar for his own children."

  "You are right, my lord," Aegon remarked. "He will be a hostage, if not formally, then in fact. But if something happens to Aemond, the obvious culprit will be known and will immediately become the enemy of the entire realm."

  "Suspicion will fall on him first," Beesbury nodded. "Killing his own squire will turn everyone against him."

  "And even if Vhagar is left without a rider, we still retain superiority in adult dragons that can rival Caraxes in the sky. Besides, Daemon cannot put his older children on Vhagar—they already have dragons, and he will not risk the younger ones."

  "Do not worry, Lord Otto, Daemon is still Hand," Viserys hastened to reassure his father-in-w, and Aegon could not suppress a chuckle—this was hardly capable of reassuring the Chamberin. "He will visit the capital almost more often than before, and Aemond will always be in sight."

  "And in Tyrosh, a pair of kind eyes can always be found," Septon Eustace, usually taciturn, added.

  For the next couple of weeks, ravens flew from King's Landing to Tyrosh and back with unprecedented frequency: the Small Council coordinated the procedure for transferring the title of heir to Viserys's eldest son in minute detail, so as not to give either Daemon or any of his possible supporters cause for indignation, which would inevitably become a new prologue to war. Letters were sent to the lords of the Seven Kingdoms summoning them to arrive in the capital to swear allegiance to the new Prince of Dragonstone, which was to follow what Dennis not very cheerfully called the "circur marriage."

  As Viserys had said, after all the numerous quarrels and changes in succession, House Targaryen needed to demonstrate unity and show that despite the expanding family tree, the descendants of Jaehaerys the First were capable of preserving the peace in the Seven Kingdoms nurtured by him. His grandchildren had too many children for the continent's tranquility to be arranged with just one wedding. Besides Aegon the Younger and Alyssa, to strengthen the bonds of the House of the Dragon, Jaehaerys, heir to Tyrosh, was to be betrothed to Bae, Rhaena to Aemond, and Aemon, future Prince of Dragon’s Heart, to Heena. The chain of betrothals touched even four-year-old Vaegon—his cousin Visenya, not yet a year old, was intended for him as a wife.

  Viserys had either grown or built the complex system of alliances within the ruling dynasty not without Alicent's help. The Queen grasped the chance to pce her eldest son on the throne with both hands and for his sake agreed to send another as a potential hostage to Tyrosh. After that, she directed all her efforts to help her husband persuade Aegon to participate in the leapfrog of betrothals among the younger generation.

  Naturally, the Prince of Dragon’s Heart understood that one way or another he would have to trade his children's marriages at this hasty fair, but remembering the conversation with his wife, he was in no hurry to agree to everything at once. Although it was agreed that dowry issues would be discussed separately as the spouses approached marriageable age, he had already managed to obtain decent compensation from the Hightowers for complicity in transferring the title of heir to the throne to their descendant. Gold dragons were never superfluous—the construction of Baelonis and the prolonged reconstruction of the castle demanded new funds, just as dragons of flesh demanded their lunch.

  But the most important result of all negotiations and bargaining was peace. All threats and insults were put aside, swords remained in scabbards, dragons did not rush at each other, grappling in a deadly dance, the royal House Targaryen preserved unity.

  And yet Aegon was not fully satisfied. After the endless court game of cyvasse of everyone with everyone, he was left with some underlying feeling of the ephemeral and fragile nature of what was happening. Perhaps it was because of how close they had come to the edge of the fiery abyss, perhaps vague, barely formed suspicions that the new established order was not as solid as they wanted to see it were to bme. Whatever the true reason, it left a feeling of bitterness and regret.

  Wishing to rid himself of it, Aegon returned to Dragon’s Heart for a few days while the lords of the Seven Kingdoms gathered in the capital, and now, kneeling before the altar, offered praise to the gods. Fingers cut on the wicks of Valyrian candles still burned, although the blood on their gss curls had already managed to cake, and the fme began to slowly fade.

  Having paid due tribute to Meraxes, who in her infinite mercy had saved them all from war, preserving their lives, and most importantly the dragons, Aegon was about to address Vhagar, the Lady of Just Retribution... But at this moment reason slipped a vile question to the soul experiencing religious awe: is the price they all had to pay for peace just?

  Peace bought with the marriages and fates of their children, his children. If the gods are merciful, they will be lucky, they will be happy as their father and mother are happy, but what if not? Jaehaerys remained his father's son and could inherit his vices; the same was true for Aemond. Heena could turn out to be just as ambitious a maniputor as her mother hiding behind the Faith. Visenya... nothing could be said about her yet at all. The same could be said about the entire young generation of Targaryens, who became bargaining chips in the great game of thrones pyed by their parents.

  Yes, arranged marriages have existed since time immemorial; their grandmother, for example, engaged in such matchmaking all her life in the interests of the realm. Strictly speaking, Aegon understood the full importance and significance of these marriages, but the Prince understood this, while the father worried for the children's future.

  Moreover, these marriages could deceive an external observer, which, in principle, they were designed for; even Viserys could indulge in his illusions. Formally, the unity of the dynasty was affirmed for at least another generation ahead. However, logic suggested that the very necessity to demonstrate and confirm this unity before someone testified in favor of the fact that there was no unity at all.

  Daemon negotiated with them, but his letters were dry and brief, no more than necessary. Rhaenyra limited herself to very formal letters to her father and equally formally polite letters to Laena. The small bargaining Aegon allowed himself caused some annoyance in Viserys, which could hardly be considered a good sign either. Once united House Targaryen was now divided into three lines, which they were now trying to tie together. Even now each of them possessed its own interests and significant forces capable of defending these interests, and with the years the problem would only grow... Today there were three lines, and in fifteen years there would be nine, and what then? The Old Freehold knew no kings, and this problem was solved simply there: in the end, that is how the Forty Great Houses arose, but this was hardly a solution for Westeros.

  Rising bitterness forced Aegon to grimace and look at the candles with impatience: he could not leave before they went out, but for the first time he wanted to extinguish them himself and hide from the ruthless gaze of the gods.

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