Ruin Me

Chapter Forty Five

It was perhaps the perfect night for her to come calling, she couldn't sleep anyway. But when Rhaenyra was roused from her bed and escorted down the stairs and into the chambers of the Hall of History, she couldn't believe her eyes. She stood still on the stone staircase as a figure emerged from the darkness.

"I had to see you," Alicent said as she emerged, a cloak of pale blue wrapped around her shoulders. She wore her mother's colours, she did not wear green for the first time in decades.

Rhaenyra continued her descent, her movements across the floors hurried as were words; a secret no other could know.

"Who knows?"

"None save my protector, and he laid down his sword at your gate," Alicent promised.

Rhaenyra nodded at her guards to leave the room as Alicent continued.

"I've been, I think...mistaken."

"In what?" Rhaenyra drawled.

"I was raised to believe in the order of things, that there was security in following the paths laid out for us. I resented you, I think, for never caring for any of it, for knowing what you wanted. I did not know what I wanted. I knew only what was expected of me. Moreover, still, you had Daenyra. There has never been a moment where she waivered in her loyalty to you or in her ideals for her life – taking Daemon to husband, ruling Dragonstone and the Iron Islands and –"

Rhaenyra laughed crudely. "I suggest you keep my sister's name from your mouth and thank the gods that she departed well before your arrival. You are right in her loyalty to me and she would see you sliced to shreds by her own hand so tell me, Alicent, why are you here?"

"Because I have lost my way. Or rather, it was taken from me. All those I put my faith in...m-my husband, my father, my lover, my son..."

"Ooh," Rhaenyra remarked as she crossed her arms over her chest. "The incorruptible queen sullies herself with a lover."

"Do not judge me for what you yourself have done. For what your twin has done. Your father died. I took comfort with another. I too have desires."

"Yes, but you alone made virtue your banner."

"And I clung to it...in defiance of you, I think, who so disdained it." Alicent spun in a circle as she tried to find her next words, the reason true of her being here. "I have been alone, of late. I walked outside the walls of the city and I felt a weight lifted from me."

"How lovely for you."

"I thought, for the first time, what I would choose if not for the duty I put before all else."

Rhaenyra shook her head as she chuckled. "Shall you cast your son down and rule alone?"

"No," she said almost instantly. "I do not wish to rule, I wish to live. To be free of all this endless plotting and striving. The crown will pursue war and victory at any cost. But as for me...I would take my daughter and her child and leave it all behind."

And for once, Rhaenyra wished that her twin was here to listen to this absurdity. They had suffered so much and now that they were at the cusp of war, near outnumbering the Green army, she wished to find the easy way out after she denied Rhaenyra's fervent plea. Now, Rhaenyra threw those same words back into her face.

"It's too late...Alicent. You said it yourself. Blood has been split, cities burned, armies march, my twin at the head of them all, and you wish to wash your hands of what you yourself set in motion."

"Oh, the arrogance of blaming me, as if you would not have been challenged regardless," Alicent bit back.

"Did not your hand bring it forth like a midwife?"