Chapter Text
Chapter 1: The Good Queen. [Early 98 A.C.]
The wind off Blackwater Bay came soft that evening, carrying with it the salt of the sea and the distant murmur of a city that never truly slept. Queen Alysanne stood alone upon the terrace of Maegor’s Holdfast, her hands resting lightly upon the cool stone, her gaze fixed not on the waters below—but on the future she feared she had already begun to lose.
The realm was at peace.
And yet, it was not whole.
The Great Council at Harrenhal had settled the matter of succession in the eyes of lords and maesters, but not in the hearts of men. The choice of Viserys I Targaryen over Rhaenys Targaryen had been meant to prevent bloodshed. Instead, it had drawn a line—clean, cold, and lasting.
Alysanne had seen it in the hall that day. Not spoken, not declared, but felt.
A fracture.
Rhaenys had smiled, as was expected of her. She had bent the knee, as honor demanded. But something had gone out of her then, something proud and bright.
The Queen knew it as surely as she knew the weight of her own crown. A daughter wronged was a wound; a dragon denied was a danger.
And now… the realm waited.
It always waited.
For weakness. For division. For fire.
Alysanne closed her eyes briefly. Once, she and Jaehaerys I Targaryen had ruled as one mind in two bodies. Where he built laws, she softened them. Where he saw order, she saw people. Together, they had forged something rare in Westeros—a peace that held.
But even the greatest works fray at the edges.
And family… family was always the weakest thread.
Her thoughts turned, as they often did of late, to the Vale.
To a marriage she had insisted upon.
To a boy who had not asked to be born.
Prince Andon, the first of his name. Born of a union she had desired.
A small thing still. Dark-haired, with eyes that caught the light in a way that reminded her—painfully—of earlier days.
Not of Daemon Targaryen, no. There was none of Daemon’s restless fire in him yet. The child was quiet. Watchful.
That was what unsettled her. Yet brought pride to her mind.
Babes should cry, grasp, demand the world. This one… observed it.
She had held him only once, in Runestone, beneath the ancient bronze armor of the Royces. He had not fussed in her arms. He had simply looked at her, as though weighing something beyond his years.
Alysanne had felt it then—a flicker of something she dared not name.
Possibility.Or perhaps danger.
She exhaled slowly.
Yet even then she considered the consequences of what occured.
She was the only dragonrider on Runestone at the time. Daemon had not stayed for the child's birth.
Nor shown any care for the wife he ensured all knew he never wanted.
Daemon had not come.
Not for the birth. Not for the child. Not even for duty.
He had spoken his displeasure plainly enough, as was his way. A Royce bride forced upon him, a Vale he despised, and now a son he refused to claim. In another man, it would have been shame. In Daemon, it was defiance.
But she knew her grandson.
Too well.
Daemon did not reject weakness—he rejected anything he could not shape.
And this child… this child was not in his hands.
“Then perhaps,” she murmured softly to the wind, “that is why you may yet matter.”
The realm would not be held together by dragons alone. Not anymore. The Great Council had proven that. Blood mattered—but so did perception, alliance, balance.
Andon was all of those things, whether he wished it or no.
Royce and Targaryen.
Bronze and fire.
If guided well… he could be a bridge.
If neglected… he could become something far worse.
Alysanne turned from the terrace as footsteps approached behind her—measured, confident, and utterly unconcerned with ceremony.
She did not need to look to know who it was.
“Grandmother,” came the voice, smooth and edged with impatience.
She faced him then.
Daemon stood as he always did—like a blade half-drawn. Handsome, yes. Proud, certainly. But there was a hardness in him now that had not been there as a boy. Or perhaps she had simply chosen not to see it then.
“You have avoided me,” she said calmly.
“I have been occupied.”
“You have been sulking.”
A flicker of a smile touched his lips. “If that pleases you to think so.”
“It does not please me at all,” Alysanne replied. “What does not please me is that you have a son you refuse to acknowledge.”
“I have no son,” Daemon said at once.
The words hung between them like a challenge.
Alysanne did not rise to it. “He bears your blood.”
“He bears Royce blood,” Daemon corrected sharply. “Andal stock, stone and sheep. You may dress him in silk and call him prince, but it does not change what he is.”
“It changes everything,” she said.
He scoffed. “Then you are a fool.”
There was a time she might have struck him for that. Now, she only watched him, weighing him as she once had weighed kings.
“You speak as though blood is a purity to be guarded,” she said. “Yet your own line is not so unbroken as you pretend.”
She thought of those she loved and those she lost.
Those of her blood that time and duty stole from her.
“That is not the same.” Daemon said calmly, yet she could see how her words began to a have an affect.
“No,” Alysanne agreed softly. “It is not. Because this child was not your choice.”
That struck true. She saw it in the tightening of his jaw.
Daemon looked away first.
“I will not have him near me,” he said. “Raise him in the Vale. Let him swing a hammer and worship his runes. He is no dragon.”
Alysanne stepped closer, her voice lowering—not in anger, but in certainty.
“He is precisely that which the realm now lacks.”
Daemon laughed, short and humorless. “A half-breed lordling?”
“A balance,” she said. “Something that does not tear the realm in two when the question of succession rises again.”
“It has already been settled.”
“For now.”
Their eyes met.
He understood her then. Of course he did. Daemon always understood—he simply refused to yield.
“That is not my concern,” he said.
“It will be,” Alysanne replied. “Sooner than you think.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then, deliberately, she said, “I have given orders.”
Daemon’s gaze sharpened. “What orders?”
“A cradle egg will be sent to Runestone.”
The reaction was immediate.
“No.”
It was not loud—but it was absolute.
“You will not,” he continued, stepping toward her now. “You will not arm that place with a dragon.”
“I will.”
“He is not worthy of one.”
“He is of our blood, my blood and the blood of my husband.”
“He is not mine,” Daemon snapped.
Alysanne did not flinch.
“He is more yours than you care to admit.”
“That creature will never—”
“That child,” she cut in, firm now, “will have the same chance as any of his kin. You do not get to decide otherwise because it displeases you.”
Daemon’s eyes burned then, a flash of the fury that made lesser men step back.
Alysanne did not.
“You would give a dragon to Runestone,” he said, low and dangerous. “To the Vale. To those who would see us weakened.”
“I would give a dragon to a Targaryen, a boy who rightfully bears the name.” she said. “And I would give the realm a chance at something other than the divisions you seem so eager to widen.”
“He will grow soft there.”
“Then perhaps he will grow wise.”
He shook his head, almost in disbelief. “You place too much on a mongrel babe.”
“I place them where I must.”
For a moment, something almost like doubt flickered across Daemon’s face.
Then it was gone.
“You are wrong,” he said.
“Perhaps,” Alysanne allowed. “But I have been wrong before and still built something that lasted.”
She turned from him then, signaling the end of the matter.
“The egg will be sent,” she said. “What becomes of it… we shall see.”
Behind her, she heard nothing more.
No protest. No farewell.
Only silence.
And as she walked away, Alysanne Targaryen allowed herself one final thought—not as queen, but as a woman who had seen too many futures rise and fall.
Let this one be different.
Let this child be more than the sum of what we have made him.
Let him be enough.
For the realm.
Or, if need be…
to survive it.