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Westeros, King's Landing
5th Moon Of 58 AC
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The King sat with his back to the high window, the crown resting on the corner of the heavy oak desk. He wore no heavy courtly robes; instead, he was clad in a simple linen shirt, unbuttoned at the neck to reveal the pale skin of his throat, his long silver hair falling over his shoulders in untidy strands. Across from him, standing by the hearth with a cup of spiced Arbor red between her hands, was Alysanne.
And between them, seated on a low stool with a heavy leather ledger balanced on his knees, sat Septon Barth, the Hand of the King.
"The reports from the Pentoshi captains are no longer mere rumors, Your Grace," Barth said in a slow, almost dry voice, as though he had been speaking for hours without a drop of water. "The city of Qarth is no more. It is not simply burned or looted. The sailors speak of the stone itself melting into black glass. They say the harbor boiled dry, and the ships anchored within the Triple Walls were turned to ash before their crews could drop the sails."
Jaehaerys leaned forward, resting his forearms on the map of the Known World stretched out between them. His long fingers traced the narrow line of the Jade Gates, thousands of leagues away from the chamber in which they sat.
"A city built of granite and marble," the King said softly, as if speaking to himself. "A city that survived the Doom, the Dothraki, and the Century of Blood without a single brick being moved. And how long did it take him?"
"One day, Your Grace," Barth replied. "Some say less. The survivors who reached Pentos speak of a single beast—the one they call Endaxia the Purple Death—and of the sorceries the Khal commands. They say the flame burned neither red nor yellow. It burned like lightning turned into a purple river that boiled the sea into steam and melted stone to slag."
Jaehaerys looked up at his Hand. His violet eyes were cold and calculating, but beneath the monarch's stoicism lay a deep, gnawing weight that had not left him since the first raven arrived from Oldtown months ago.
"A dragon that can melt the walls of Qarth is no ordinary beast, Barth," Jaehaerys said, lowering his tone an octave. "It is an engine of war like no other. Balerion did that to Harrenhal, yes... but even Balerion took an entire night, and then had to rest for the whole next day. If this... this Khal, this Caspian, commands a dragon capable of such ruin, then the balance of power in the world no longer exists."
"He is not just a Khal, husband," Alysanne interrupted softly from the hearth. She had not tasted her wine; she simply held the cup to warm her fingers against the damp chill of the room. "He is a king. A king who has bound the Lords of the Horses to the steel of the cities, and who now demands that the ancient realms of Essos bow or burn. Facing a Khalasar in open field is suicide—even more so with a dragon at their back. And he does not ride alone."
Jaehaerys winced slightly, a tiny muscle twitching near his jaw. He did not need his wife to remind him of the rest of the report, but Alysanne was not a woman to spare him the truth when the truth was what he needed to hear.
"Aerea was with him," Alysanne continued, her voice softening with a mix of grief and wonder—that of a mother... and an aunt. "Our niece. The girl you declared unfit, the girl who fled Westeros as if the Red Keep were a dungeon. She flew upon Balerion during the fall of Meereen. Merchants say the Black Dread roared over the Great Pyramid, and beside him flew Dreamfyre."
"Rhaena..." Jaehaerys muttered, closing his eyes for a long moment. "Rhaena took wing as well?"
"She did," Alysanne said, stepping closer to the desk and laying a hand on her husband's shoulder. "She fought for her. For her daughter. For the kingdom they are building across the sea. While we sit here in King's Landing counting silver stags and debating road tolls, the dragons of House Targaryen fly beneath a banner that is not ours."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to drown out the patter of rain against the windowpanes.
For fifty years, the Iron Throne had been the absolute center of the world. The Targaryens ruled Westeros not merely by their laws, but because they held the monopoly on fire and blood. Vermithor, Silverwing, Dreamfyre... all the great beasts of Valyria belonged to the Red Keep or Dragonstone, with even the three dragons of the Conquest still alive.
Now, that absolute dominion was shattered. Vhagar sat riderless; Meraxes attacked anyone who dared draw near after losing her rider in battle; and Balerion, the supreme power of House Targaryen, now flew under a foreign banner.
"We no longer command the skies, Your Grace," Septon Barth said gently, breaking the stillness. "If Caspian turns his eyes west... if this Khal decides the Seven Kingdoms are merely another collection of cities waiting to be unified under his rule, what do we have to stop him? Vermithor is vast and fierce, Your Grace. Silverwing is swift. But Balerion is with them. Dreamfyre is with them. And this Endaxia... by all accounts, it is a creature that defies the natural order of dragonkind."
Jaehaerys stood up, walking to the window to gaze out over Blackwater Bay. The water was gray, flecked with white foam under the squall.
"He will not attack us without cause," the King said, though his voice lacked its usual unyielding certainty. "He is occupied in Essos. Yunkai has surrendered, Astapor is his vassal, Meereen is his, and Xandar is still young. First they must secure what they have conquered—they are building an empire out of mud and blood. Why turn toward the Seven Kingdoms when the wealth of the Free Cities lies at his feet?"
"Because he is a conqueror, Jaehaerys!" Alysanne exclaimed, her patience finally giving way. She set her cup down on the desk with a sharp clatter. "And because we gave him reason to hate us! Or have you forgotten how you treated Aerea before she fled? How you spoke to Rhaena? You drove them away with your pride, your rigidity, your insistence that everyone bow to your vision of the Realm!"
Jaehaerys turned his head, his face pale and his jaw set tight.
"I did what I believed necessary for the stability of the crown! Aerea was wild, untamable—"
"Aerea was a child!" Alysanne retorted, her eyes flashing with a violet fire that rivaled any dragon's flame. "A child who needed a home, not a prison! A child who needed an uncle to listen to her, not a monarch who saw her as a threat to his succession! And Rhaena... Rhaena was broken by Maegor, shattered by loss, and instead of wrapping your arms around your sister, you treated her like an inconvenient relic of a past you wanted to forget!"
The King did not answer right away. He stood there, bathed in the gray light of the storm, suddenly looking much older than his years. The crown on the table seemed too heavy; the throne downstairs, too vast.
Septon Barth coughed softly into his sleeve, stepping in before the royal couple could sink deeper into the old, bitter wound.
"Your Grace... Queen Alysanne is not entirely wrong," the Hand said carefully. "The past cannot be rewritten, but the present demands a remedy. The hostility between the Iron Throne and the Golden Tree—as his seat is called—is our greatest vulnerability. If we remain estranged, every ship that crosses the Narrow Sea is a potential scout for an invasion fleet. Every messenger could bring a declaration of war."
Jaehaerys walked slowly back to the table, fixing his gaze on his Hand.
"And what do you propose, Barth? Do I send an army to Xandar? Do I fly Vermithor across the sea to demand an apology from a man who melts cities for sport?"
"No," Barth said firmly. "You do what a wise king does when faced with an adversary he cannot crush. You make him family."
Jaehaerys frowned.
"Aerea is already his wife. Rhaena is his ally. How much more 'family' can we become without surrendering the crown itself?"
"Prince Aemon," Alysanne said softly, the anger melting from her voice, replaced by a quiet, desperate hope. She stepped around the table and took Jaehaerys's hand in hers, her fingers cold against the King's warm skin. "Aemon is our heir. He is young and noble. If Caspian and Aerea have a daughter... a child born of the dragon of Xandar and the blood of the Conqueror... we could betroth her to Aemon's future line."
Jaehaerys looked between his wife and his Hand.
"An alliance through a child yet unborn? Caspian is a young man, but in the eyes of many he is still a barbarian king. Will he accept a pact with the throne that exiled his wife's family?"
"He is no barbarian, Jaehaerys," Alysanne insisted. "Read the reports Barth brought us! He does not merely burn; he builds in equal measure. He has freed the slaves, established laws, opened trade routes that are already enriching Pentos and Braavos. He thinks like a king, acts like an emperor. If we offer him an honorable peace—a marriage joining the Iron Throne with the Empire of Essos—he will see the wisdom in it."
"And what of Aerea?" Jaehaerys asked, his voice weary. "Do you think she will forgive me so easily? Do you think she will yield her unborn daughter to the man who made her feel like an exile in her own ancestral home?"
"She will not forgive you simply because you demand it, Jaehaerys," Alysanne said, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "She will forgive you if you ask it of her. If you write to her not as the King of the Seven Kingdoms, but as her uncle. If you admit you were wrong."
Jaehaerys Targaryen, First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, turned his back on the table and walked toward the window once more.
He thought of Balerion—the great beast that had belonged to his grandfather, his uncle, and now flew for a stranger. He thought of the stone walls of Qarth, reduced to liquid glass under the breath of a dragon he had never seen. He thought of his brother Aegon, dead on the shores of the Gods Eye, and how the blood of his line had split, flowing east across the salt sea while he sat upon a chair of melted swords.
"Write the letter, Barth," Jaehaerys said, his voice barely louder than the patter of the rain outside. "Draft the terms for a formal embassy to Xandar. We will offer trade concessions, recognition of Caspian's titles over Essos, and a betrothal between our house and his."
He turned to face Alysanne, his expression filled with a quiet, profound sorrow. "And hand me the parchment, my love," the King added softly. "I will write to Aerea myself."