The Brightest Sun

Chapter 49

Rhaenys

This will not go well, she thought. They were waiting on Ser Arthur; Aegon had insisted on meeting with the Kingsguard knight, and Rhaenys hadn't wanted her brother to deal with the man alone, knowing the questions Egg would want to ask.

"You're being stupid, Edward," she sighed.

"He'll answer questions easier when it's only Targaryens before him," Teddy grinned, Viserys' features stretched into a smile that she had not seen in some time. It had been there briefly when they had first reunited, a small thing that had told her he was glad to see her alive.

Beyond what they had done to her, what they had left her mother to deal with, Rhae wanted to see them burn for helping put that look in Viserys' eyes.

"He'll answer his king's questions," she shot back, ignoring Teddy's snort of disbelief. It was odd; despite knowing Viserys for two months now, Teddy had not gotten close to the older boy yet he had his expressions memorized.

"Heads up," Aegon muttered, expression closing off as he saw the knight escorted in. Teddy straightened, adopting Viserys' stiff posture as his eyes became ice chips.

She didn't know what her brother thought of to bring that look into his eyes, but Teddy's emotions had been swinging between cold rage and overprotective paranoia the more they learned of Westeros that she doubted he needed to look too deeply to do so.

That this allowed him to remain close enough to intervene – in the manner all Blacks did when angered, she knew – was the only way to keep Teddy appeased.

"Your Grace," Ser Arthur intoned, kneeling before them. His eyes flicked to Rhaenys and then Teddy, slight surprise showing at Viserys' seeming willingness to be near him before he returned his gaze to Aegon.

"Rise, Ser," Aegon ordered, straightening in his seat. "There are a number of matters to discuss that require your expertise."

There was no crown on Egg's head to denote his status, but she had noticed a change in her little brother in the last month. He stood confident, refusing to let the weight of the crown burden him. Egg had been more solemn lately; sitting seriously in the lessons he took on the current state of Westeros, watching carefully as they sat with the council they had scrounged together to help prepare for the taking of the Stepstones.

He was no longer just Egg, she thought, a mixture of pride and sadness filling her whenever she witnessed him perform what duties he had to, finding time to help her and Teddy as they went through the books they had brought with them. They had a full year before everything was settled in place for a restoration, and Aegon had insisted on taking part in the changes that would come to Dorne.

"What kind of King would I be if I don't understand the needs of the regions I rule?" he had retorted; stubbornly sitting with a dull book on agricultural techniques their mother had packed.

"You are the only Kingsguard remaining?" Aegon asked.

"No, Your Grace," Arthur responded. "Ser Oswell remains in Essos, waiting on word of your return."

"The rest of your brothers?" Aegon asked idly, already knowing the answer.

"Dead," he replied, face blank.

They weren't entirely dead – two had survived to join Robert Baratheon's Kingsguard – but they might as well have been to him.

"Where did Ser Gerold die? Not at King's Landing or Dragonstone, else we would have heard," Rhaenys asked.

"Summerhall," he answered. "Or elsewhere in the Stormlands, if he moved the girl in time."

How touchingly poetic, she thought darkly.