HOTD SI: The Bloody Prince (OC x Rhaenyra)(OC x Alicent)

Part 17

Chapter 17

ALICENT HIGHTOWER

The death of Queen Aemma Arryn had hit everyone hard, especially Rhaenyra, who had been apoplectic when she had heard of the news. She was there when the servant had come to inform them of the tragedy, and immediately, Rhaenyra had rushed into the castle. despite the attempts from various servants and acolytes, she had entered the birthing chambers, and Alicent could scarcely reimagine the scene she had witnessed inside those chambers.

The lifeless body of the Queen was covered in blood, which had soaked the sheets and the ground, as the Queen lay there with her belly cut open, and the most tragic of it was how the King stood to the side, holding an unmoving babe, the very babe he had just sacrificed his wife for.

Rhaenyra's screams had shaken the entire castle, her grief unimaginable, and Alicent understood that grief, the anger, better than anyone, having lost her own mother a few years ago. And yet for Rhaenyra, the more suffocating was the fact that her mother had lost her life to her own father's obsession with a son.

And now, hours after that day, as the Sun lay set and the cloak of darkness began to put a balm on the wounds from the day, she finally left Rhaenyra's room as the Princess succumbed to sleep, getting a short respite from all the crying and wailing.

As she stepped out of her room, she was greeted by a familiar sight: Prince Aegon stood leaning against the wall beside the door.

"Prince Aegon," she greeted him mildly, and he nodded.

"How is she?" he asked, his eyes dull and his expression dulled by grief.

"Not good," she answered as she bit her lip.

"I never should have let her enter the birthing chambers. The sight of her own mother cut open and de... No daughter should ever have to witness such a scene," she added, and that same sentiment had been eating away at her for hours now as she held her friend in her grief.

"Indeed. No one shall ever have to witness such a gruesome sight," he added as he walked towards the border and leaned down on it.

"Yeah, that was a sight no child should see," he repeated, and she joined him with pursed lips.

"How is your grace?" she asked.

"The King has secluded himself in his own quarters and has asked not to be disturbed. The only command that has come is about the funeral, which is set to take place early tomorrow morning," and the King himself was grieving the loss of a life.

And a dark, angry corner of her heart wished for the King to suffer just as Queen Aemma had, for it had been his obsession that had killed her. Five times she had tried to give him an heir in twice as many years, and she had failed, and yet he had refused to back off, refused to let her rest properly as he forced her to do her duty, with no care for her well being, mental and otherwise.

She had been at court long enough to see the changes in the Queen with her own eyes, on how thin she had become, how, over the years, with each loss, her eyes had lost that glint, how her smiles had become hollow, her flesh pale and her very soul torn asunder.

"So, he is alone?" she asked, and Aegon nodded.

"Yes, Prince Daemon is asleep because of the injuries he sustained during the match. I think the maesters gave him the poppy milk because of the pain, and so he is asleep because of that," and that was a surprise.

Prince Daemon, the famed prodigy, was felled by a baseborn knight from the Stormlands. Had it not been for the tragedy that had come, the Prince would have lost the duel and the bout, causing an uproar, for he was the favourite to win the joust.