Pre-Chapter A/N: For the next few weeks, you might only get chapters on Tuesdays. Real life stuff is getting in the way. I will of course maintain my commitment to at least one upload per day on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (some days there might be two like there used to be but I won't commit to that many for now). . Next four chapters on my patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)— same username as here and link in bio.
Bells had been ringing on the island since dawn. One set every half hour— she had counted the minutes when the noise had disturbed her overmuch. She was the only one they seemed to disturb though. With the benefit of the far-eyes provided in the chamber that had been given to her, she could see the City of Bloodstone rise with the sun. The people were energetic in a way that she had never seen in her days in either King's Landing or Dragonstone. There the people loved them, forsake, but this level of near-worship was far from the pale.
She waited for the call to come from the servant to be let into the room to begin to prepare her for today's occasion. While she had seen the so-called showers, she was a Princess of the Blood and the thought of having to do something so demeaning as to wash herself made her flush with rage. The fact that the servant had dared to suggest it would have been enough for a whipping in King's Landing. But this was a different land.
Laenor Velaryon seemed like the kind of man who would enjoy washing himself. He would never be able to comprehend that there were just some things that were beneath them as dragon riders and offspring of Valyria. When the servant eventually came in, she took joy in the hot water that flowed down from the taps and fell into the bath as she laid within. Not having to bear the discomfort of the bath cooling while she was in it was a pleasure that she hadn't even known that life had deprived her of.
When it was time to be dressed, she had the servants ferry her into a black and red dress that accentuated her natural beauty. Around her neck she had them affix the necklace that Laenor Velaryon had gifted her. Would it be a faux pas for her to remind the bride that the groom had once courted her as well? Who cared, she was a princess. And being honest, it was the best thing she owned. She walked over to the mirror placed in the room and gazed at herself to be sure everything was in place.
Now was the time that Criston would usually enter and send the servants away before telling her just how beautiful he found her. How she made him want to rip off the dress— an act that he assured her would be regrettable because it was such a beautiful dress (he called all her dresses beautiful so she was certain that the beauty of the dress had little to do with the dress itself and everything to do with the fact that she had placed it on her body)— and ravish her right there and then.
She would smile and kiss him and then have to spend minutes redoing her lips by herself to hide the evidence. She reached up and brushed off the tear that threatened to race down her cheek. This was not the day for that. This was the day to watch a marriage happen and to begin to work on her own plan.
"Princess, we are finished now," one of the women said. Rhaenyra turned to her. She had the look of old Valyria to her and an intelligence within her eyes that Rhaenyra found suspect.
"What is your name?" she asked.
"Myrilla, Princess," she said.
"And where do you come from, Myrilla?" she asked.
"Bloodstone, Princess," she said with a smile. Rhaenyra did not return it.
"I mean before you came here."
"In Lys I was a slave. I did not truly exist there. Here I am free. So how can I say I come from Lys, when it is Bloodstone that has made me what I am?" she asked.
"I see. You may leave now," Rhaenyra ordered, not having much of a reply to that point. Debating with servants was not a good way to spend her time.
"Pour me a glass of wine before you leave," she added.
"Princess, his Grace summons you now," Cargyll said, poking a head into the room after the servants had left. Rhaenyra turned to the room and picked up the glass of wine she had been contemplating before downing it in a single swig.
"Let us be on our way, Ser," she said.
He led her to the wing where her father's rooms had been placed. Her father was right next to the Velaryons, and she had been relegated to a different wing entirely to languish next to Alicent and those fools from the Small Council. Another insult. At this point, keeping a tally would do more harm than good. She would just get her due when the time came.
"Rhaenyra, good good. You're ready," he said when she walked into the room. It was massive— even by her standards. Almost like multiple rooms had been brought together into one. The bed took up one corner of the room and the rest was arrayed with couches, mirrors, and tables. The centrepiece though was a scale model of a city. She did not need to guess which one it was. It was not Valyria, that much she knew already. But there was only one other city her father would care enough about and that Laenor Velaryon would have the needed expertise to reconstruct. It was Tyria, the city that Laenor Velaryon had visited.
If it were not so effective, his attempts to get her father onside would have been pathetic. Instead, they were annoying. It was already difficult to convince him to rein the Velaryons in. How much harder would it be this time.
"Now that everyone is here, I can speak now. I have been asked by Rhaenys and Laena to do the honour of giving her away at the ceremony. I, of course, have said yes. So that means the initial plans for transit to the venue will need to be altered. Rhaenyra, you will sit in my place while I will sit with House Velaryon within the Sept," he said.
"You aren't her father," Rhaenyra said immediately. You are my father, she left unsaid.
"I am her cousin, the eldest male member of her family."
"Vaemond Velaryon is alive and well, I am sure," Alicent said almost absently. Their gazes met and they came to one of the quickest truces that people opposed to one another had ever reached, and would ever reach. No matter what, this could not be allowed to happen. Her father could not be seen extending such a privilege to House Velaryon before the Realm's great and good no matter what.
"He is no Targaryen. Corlys might have been their father, but the Velaryon siblings are as Targaryen as they come," he said, and she found her fears confirmed in one of the worst ways they could have been. Her father was not just going to see Aegon and Aemond presenting a threat to her future reign. He was going to give Laenor Velaryon the tools to do the same as well. She balled her fists, feeling her anger beginning to boil.
"They are Velaryons. That is the name they carry, that is the flag they fly under. Treating them as anything else is folly," she said, but even as she said that last word, she knew it was the wrong one. She had misstepped. Her rage had taken her too far. She had pulled too much on Daemon here, and not enough on the other person she had seen guide her father with a deft hand. Laenor Velaryon, ironic enough.
"I think it is a good choice. It will draw House Velaryon even closer to the Crown. Giving away the bride might be just what we need to do to lay the groundwork for a future match," Otto Hightower said, and she felt herself cast adrift at sea. Alicent had been her ally in resisting this, but the soft-spiked woman would follow along with whatever her father wanted. She would support this foolishness and Rhaenyra would find herself faced with an unstoppable tide. There was no way to stem what was coming. She was on a raft and a tsunami was coming.
"A match with House Targaryen is a privilege every house would be lucky to receive. There is no need to lay any groundwork, and doing something as mahout as giving away a bride at a wedding is not the way to do so even if that was the case. Giving her away is telling the entire realm that you see Laena Velaryon as a daughter. That you see Laenor Velaryon as a son. That all their actions before this one have your approval. That you support this match despite the issues it represents. It is too much, Viserys. Too much," Alicent said, and Rhaenyra could scarcely believe her ears. Neither could Hightower. Seeing his daughter go against him must have felt much like a slap to the face to the prideful man.
"I have made my decision and given my word," he said stubbornly, but Rhaenyra had been buoyed by the unexpected re-commitment of Alicent to their cause.
"It matters not. Laenor Velaryon had no right seeking such from you. He is playing you, Father," she said.
"I said Laena and Rhaenys asked me. In all our time together, Laenor did not even mention it. He was far more interested in talking about Valyria," he said.
"A manipulation. He softens your armour while his mother and sister slip the knife past your guard," Alicent added. They made a good team, she thought with an ache in her chest. It had been so long since they had truly been friends. Since Alicent had betrayed her and used her to slip into her father's good books and marry him. Now she bore son after son to challenge Rhaenyra's claim to what was her birthright.
"You think me a fool? You think me blind?" he asked, voice barely above a whisper. Yes, Rhaenyra thought but did not say. She loved her father, but his definition of family stretched just too far for her tastes. Family was the two of them. The Velaryons, for whatever blood they might share, were nothing but rivals to their position. Yes, there was value in bringing them close but they only needed to be brought close so their wings would be broken. They were like guard hounds. There was value in keeping them around, but only in so far as they could be brought onside and prevented from being able to harm their true masters.
"Nothing of the sort, my husband. We just think your love for family might prevent you from seeing things quite as clearly as we do," Alicent manoeuvred cleanly through the caltrop field.
"We know you want to care for them, see them as family, but they are a threat. Laenor Velaryon contested your claim to the throne barely over a decade ago. Has he forgotten just how close he came to wearing a crown on his head? Has the realm? I don't think you should give them the stamp of approval that giving away a daughter of their house would imply," she said, and then she caught a glimpse of Otto Hightower's amused face. He wanted this to happen, and so why was he not opposing them more strongly. There was only one reason.
"Enough of this. I am King and while I do allow both of you some leeway because of how dear you are to me, I will not see my actions second-guessed. I understand the politics of this better than either of you and there are factors at play that neither of you understand nor are aware of even. Enough," he said, and then he began to lay out the order for their procession. Otto Hightower had not bothered debating much because he knew they were wasting their time.
— —
She waited in the Sept with the rest of the guests. At the dais, next to the High Septon stood Laenor Velaryon in a resplendent set of clothes. Garments fit for a Prince, she could tell even from this distance. She sat at the first row, yes, but there was quite some distance between even her position and the altar where the soon to be married couple would stand. That dais was separated from the floor of the Sept by nearly as many stairs as separated the Iron Throne from the throne room. It was a grand thing, and it was one of the tamer aspects of the building she found herself in.
Even for all her misgivings on his nature as a person and the things he had done, she could not deny that Laenor Velaryon had clearly been blessed by some god with the gift of construction. Whether it was the statues of the Seven that looked more life-like than any she had ever seen before even where the gold ought to have diminished from the appearance, making it gaudy and ostentatious, it somehow seemed to make it even more beautiful than it should ordinarily have been.
Then there was the ceiling— or lack thereof. Roofed with glass, the ceiling let in enough light that this was one of the Septs she had been in that had no need for candles of any sort during the day. The floors were gleaming marble, and the chairs were nice wood benches that displayed masterful craftsmanship. She gave it all an assessing look, even while knowing she was playing into his hand.
Laenor Velaryon was doing this— all of this as a show. He was stopping just short of claiming to be the richest man in Westeros. Instead, he allowed the luxuries before them to make the argument for him. Could even the Lannisters have matched up to this. He wanted them to wonder as to his wealth, and therefore power. It was a statement sure as any other.
"You look beautiful, Princess," a voice whispered in her ear from behind. She felt Alicent flinch at the sudden intrusion on their space. She herself turned slightly to see who it was from the corner of her eyes. Jason Lannister, Head of House Lannister. The only one who could match House Velaryon and perhaps exceed them when it came to wealth.
No one knew how much gold the Lannisters had in that mountain of theirs, after all. Just like no one knew how much the Velaryons were making from their stranglehold on trade with the narrow sea and their dozens of ventures.
"You forget yourself, Lord Lannister," Alicent rebuked sharply, also turning to give the man a look. He lifted his hands in surrender, but the smile on his face was anything but chastened.
"I apologise, my Queen. But what man could see a vision of the Maiden in a Sept and not compliment her?" he asked.
"Turn your gaze to the statue of the Maiden herself, perhaps. This is a holy place," she said. Rhaenyra smirked as the man stepped back and returned to his seat a second later, taking the admonishment for what it was.
"Be careful with him," Alicent said, turning to her instead. Rhaenyra scoffed. Did she think that agreeing on a single issue had taken them back to what they once were. Where Alicent acted as Rhaenyra's guide and advisor through life.
"I will do as I wish," she said, turning her gaze away from her. She never saw the hurt that flashed in Alicent's face before being replaced by a stone cold mask.
The bell began to ring a second later, telling them to rise and she turned as the doors of the Sept were thrust open. Vhagar's roar threatened to deafen her as the massive dragon poked her head into the entryway. Rhaenyra worried that the dragon would try to enter and bring this building down upon them. What the hell were the Velaryons doing. She looked over to Laenor to find him smirking and watching.
The dragon's head retracted and then her father walked in with the bride to be on his arm. She was a vision, Rhaenyra thought with some envy. The dress of Myrish silk adorned with so many jewels that every step she took jingled. And then around her shoulders was a cloak in the Velaryon colours. By her side, even her father— King that he was— looked washed out. It was not the dress or the jewels that drew Rhaenyra's envy though. It was the look on her face.
She, from the second she stepped into the Sept, had had her face fixed forward, staring ahead at her brother. The smile on her face could have put the sun to shame. There was nothing clearer than the fact that she was extraordinarily pleased with her match. She wanted to be married. Would Rhaenyra ever know that feeling? She doubted it. From behind them came a pair of girls, Valyrian beauties dressed in a white that matched the bride's. They walked to the side of her father and Laena and then began to toss roses on to the ground before their feet as they walked. As they did so, Rhaenyra noticed that the gown was even more than it seemed. It swept along behind Laena, stretching so far that even as she reached the bottom of the stairs, the hemline of the gown was still closer to the door than it was to her.
She stepped up the stairs with Rhaenyra's father's help, and then into the arm of her brother. A brother who gave the King a hug and a kiss on the cheek a second later. She then turned her back to him and he removed the cloak that was there carefully before folding it over his arm. Viserys, smiling all the way, made his way to his seat by Rhaenys' side.
Rhaenyra barely heard the sermon the High Septon gave about love or something like that until it got to the important bit.
"Father. Smith. Warrior. Mother. Maiden. Crone. Stranger. I am hers and she is mine from this day until the last of my days." Laenor's voice seemed to swallow his sister's with the strength of his conviction. She smiled and then a man with skin too dark to be Westerosi came forward with another near-identical cloak that he then draped over his own sister.
"With this kiss I pledge my love and take you for my lady and wife," their voices sounded as one now, and they leaned in, kissing like the other was the air they needed to breathe to live. Rhaenyra never even noticed when the tears began to drop down her face.
A/N: Finally we get the wedding ceremony over and done with. Next four chapters up on patreon(https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) (same username as here and link in bio), support me there and read them early.