The Dragon's Legacy

Chapter Sixty-Four

Jaehaerys was seated behind his desk, reading through the recent reports that he received from the North, his eldest sister, Rhaena, broke into his chamber and began walking toward him.

Jaehaerys could see that Rhaena was prepared to spread her wings and breathe fire upon him like a dragon, for when he opened his mouth to greet her, his face met with Rhaena's slap.

"Sister-" Jaehaerys tried to speak after her slap.

"How dare you?!" Rhaena spat angrily as she cut Jaehaerys off and she slapped the other side of Jaehaerys's face. "You dare betrothed my daughter without my say?! My daughter?!?"

Jaehaerys remained unfazed by her slaps and only closed his eyes and opened his eyes and looked at Rhaena calmly. "Forgive me sister but as I explained to Daemion, this is the only way to have and bring the Hightowers to our side."

Jaehaerys's calm tone and words did not ease Rhaena's fury.

"You could have given them anything! A place in the court! A handful of gold or a fucking land! Not my daughter's hand in marriage!" Rhaena yelled at Jaehaerys. "You also betrothed our mother to a fucking brute?! Is that how less you think of us?! A boy who is even greener than the grass in the garden and a brute that his head thicker than Red Keep's walls?!"

"Rhaena... Mother herself was welcoming of this betrothal, more than most people are..." Jaehaerys spoke calmly. "If she, a woman grown, is welcoming of such match, then even Rhaella—"

Jaehaerys was cut off, as Rhaena grabbed Jaehaerys's beard and forced him to lean down as Rhaena poked her finger in his chest. "Rhaella is a child! She has not even turned three and ten years of age! You dare compare her with a woman our mother's age?! She may be mature for her age but she is still nothing but a child! My child! Mine!" Rhaena yelled in Jaehaerys's face. "And from what I hear that boy is no better than a child himself... You had no right!"

Jaehaerys looked calmly into his sister's eyes as she held him by his beard. "As King, I have a responsibility to ensure the realm is united as it was during the reign of our grandfather and the early days of our father's reign. The arrangements have already been made, for both our mother and Rhaella." Jaehaerys spoke calmly as he gently opened Rhaena's grip from his beard and stood tall. "As your brother, I apologize and am sorry for what it has come to, but as King, I only did my duty to stabilize the realm by any means necessary, no matter how much I disliked it myself."

Rhaena chose silence rather than to speak to Jaehaerys. Jaehaerys had hoped that Rhaena's fire would spread around if the news of Rhaella's arranged marriage had come from her beloved, but he was sorely mistaken.

Rhaena was a dragon. Untameable and quick to anger. A dragon that even Daemion Targaryen was not safe from.

"I had only hoped she was older than three and ten before married off." Rhaena spoke slowly and coldly. "Or not at all, which I preferred."

After moments of awkward silence passed, Jaehaerys closed his eyes and took a deep breath in. "Rhaena... Rhaella will not wed Lyle Hightower until her coming of age of sixteen and not a moment sooner." Jaehaerys spoke calmly. "And until her coming of age, she will remain with you and her father."

"Her father is dead!" Rhaena spat. "You would have known if you had truly performed the funeral and not let Aegon's body rot in the cellar next to our uncle's body."

"I was not speaking of Aegon." Jaehaerys spoke calmly as ever as he looked at his eldest sister, his face expressionless and his eyes sharp enough to show her that he was aware of the secret Rhaena bore with her.

"You know?" Rhaena asked calmer.

"Yes. Your romance with the Black Dragon wasn't merely a rumour..." Jaehaerys spoke calmly. "But thankfully none of those rumours insinuate that the twins are his, which is for the better. Let Westeros and the world believe they were Aegon's."