After Aemond and Criston Cole marched out with the army, King's Landing suddenly felt hollow.
The once-noisy barracks stood silent. Only the Gold Cloaks and Hightower knights remained, patrolling the walls with echoing footsteps that sounded lonely against the stone.
Alicent Hightower stood on the high battlements of the Red Keep, staring after the departing host. The dust cloud rising from the Kingsroad slowly faded into the sky.
Her body stayed rigid, knuckles white, nails digging crescents into her palms without her even noticing.
Ever since the Blacks and Greens had torn each other apart, this gnawing anxiety had never left her.
Rhaenyra had once been her closest friend. They grew up together, shared everything, whispered secrets in the dark.
But the moment Alicent became Rhaenyra's stepmother, everything changed.
"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispered.
In her mind she saw the hatred burning in Rhaenyra's eyes the day she left King's Landing. The memory twisted like a knife in her chest.
A bitter mix of resentment rose—toward the woman who kept pushing, and toward her dead husband Viserys.
Rhaenyra had been the king's favorite princess from birth. She already had Dragonstone. Why couldn't she be satisfied? Why did she have to hunt Alicent's sons to the ends of the earth?
She had been given so much—almost as much as Aegon and Aemond. Why steal Aegon's crown?
Alicent's fists clenched harder, nails biting into flesh.
If Viserys had simply declared Rhaenyra his heir in open court while he still lived, she and her father Otto never would have risked crowning Aegon. The Blacks and Greens wouldn't have split the realm. Her daughter Helaena wouldn't be suffering like this.
Maybe the whole war had started with Viserys's weakness.
If he had settled the succession properly before he died, House Targaryen would never have torn itself in half and bled rivers of blood.
But there were no do-overs. What was done was done.
No amount of regret or hatred could change it.
A salt-tinged wind swept over the battlements, drying the tears at the corners of her eyes.
Alicent gazed across the Narrow Sea toward Dragonstone and whispered Rhaenyra's name one last time. Then she turned and walked back inside the Red Keep.
She needed to see her daughter.
Outside Queen Helaena's chambers, two maids stood guard like statues. The door stayed tightly shut. Inside, nothing moved—only a suffocating silence.
Alicent's heart clenched again. When she pushed the door open, a faint sour smell hit her.
Twenty-year-old Helaena had locked herself away. She refused food, water, even baths. She spent her days sobbing, slipping deeper into madness with every passing hour.
Her signature Targaryen silver hair hung dull and tangled from neglect. Her nails had grown long and filthy. Her once-beautiful face was bloodless, the skin pale from never seeing sunlight—like a ghost already dead inside.
If Alicent hadn't ordered the maids to clean her regularly, the girl's condition would have been even worse.
Helaena didn't notice her mother enter.
She huddled in the corner, clutching a pillow like a lifeline, eyes vacant, murmuring over and over, "Jaehaerys… my child… Mother's here…"
"Mother will protect you… I'll stay with you forever… please forgive me…"
Alicent watched her daughter hug the pillow as if it were her murdered eldest son, lost in a world no one could reach. Fresh tears spilled down her cheeks.
Ever since the war began, Aemond had killed Lucerys and his dragon. The Blacks sent assassins into the Red Keep for revenge.
They forced Helaena to choose which son would die. She offered her own life instead, but the killers demanded blood for blood.
In the end, Helaena had pointed to her younger boy Maelor.
But the assassin killed Jaehaerys anyway—right in front of her—then told the surviving child that his own mother had chosen him to die. They left laughing.
After that night, Helaena had never been the same.
Alicent stood there a moment, quietly wiped her tears, and slipped out without a word.
She no longer tried to wake her daughter. She had learned it was useless.
Just then Tyland Lannister approached with two Kingsguard—Ser Willis Fell and Ser Rickard Thorne.
He had come to report on the city's defenses, but when he saw the Dowager Queen emerge from Helaena's rooms with tear-streaked cheeks, he stopped short.
Power really is a terrible thing, he thought silently. It turns families against each other and breaks once-beautiful women into ghosts.
Though his heart ached for Helaena, he didn't intrude.
His own future was tied to the Greens now. There was no turning back.
Once Alicent had steadied herself, Tyland bowed. "Your Grace, I need to borrow some men from the Red Keep.
Since Prince Aemond took the main army, crime in the city is rising and the gate guards are stretched thin. We must reinforce the defenses quickly."
"Discuss it with my father," Alicent said wearily. She had no stomach for governance anymore and pushed the matter onto Otto Hightower.
With King Aegon II still bedridden from his wounds and Regent Aemond away at Harrenhal, Otto—once demoted—had quietly taken back the reins of power. He was now her strongest support.
Tyland hid a flicker of disappointment, but he only needed the queen mother's silent approval. He bowed again and withdrew without another word.
These days, very few ministers in the Red Keep still worked this hard for the Greens.
In another royal bedchamber, King Aegon II lay wrapped head to toe in thick bandages, groaning in pain from the burns he had suffered at Rook's Rest.
"That damn brother of mine never respected me as king. Look what he's done to me."
His voice was a venomous rasp, eyes filled with pure hatred.
During the battle, Aemond had used him and Sunfyre as bait to draw Rhaenys and Meleys, letting dragonfire roast him alive.
That fury had never cooled.
When they returned to King's Landing, Aemond had declared himself regent and stripped him of every scrap of power. The resentment only grew.
But even with all that hate burning inside him, Aegon was now a crippled invalid. All he could do was lie here and curse the brother who had disrespected him, praying Aemond would die a painful death.
At that moment, Master of Whisperers Larys Strong slipped quietly into the room.
He approached the bed and leaned close to the bandaged king. "My liege… I bring bad news."
Aegon's cloudy eyes shifted toward him.
"Reports from the Blackwater front say Dragonstone has been unusually active lately. A large fleet appears to be gathering—aimed straight at King's Landing."
The burned king's eyes snapped wide open. The constant groans of pain stopped instantly.