The Winter Queen

Chapter 23

Rhaenyra

She had now been a wife for seven moons and was just about that far gone with her first pregnancy and she was already far larger than she had ever seen her mother get to be. Her back constantly ached under the weight of her massive belly and she was beyond ready to have her overly active children out of her. At the same time, however, she knew she still had a couple of moons before she finally reached full term and the closer she got to term, the better the odds her children had of surviving and as such, she prayed and prayed for them to stay within her for as long as possible and to take all they could from her to grow as large as possible.

Even as her energy levels dropped and her body swelled, Rhaenyra felt as though her life was fading before her very eyes. If she managed to keep her babes in her for at least another moon or so, and then managed to actually birth them alive, there was a high chance that she would die soon after. Would she even get to hold one of her babies in her arms before Baeleron took her into his embrace or would they never know her touch?

On one of the days when she felt especially melancholic, she asked Lady Sansa to be her scribe as she dictated a letter to her unborn young to give them once they were older, should things go the way she feared.

“To my precious children,

You do not know me but I am your mother, your birth mother. My name is Rhaenyra of House Targaryen, daughter and only surviving child of King Viserys Targaryen and his first wife Queen Aemma of House Arryn. I was also the King’s heir and Princess of Dragonstone.

My mother, Queen Aemma was ordered to be butchered on her childbed by my father in his hope to get a living son out of her body during a difficult birth. My youngest brother, Prince Baelon died mere hours later and both were laid to rest on the same pier. I was two and ten when I set them ablaze.

Now I lay with you, my own children, growing within me less than two years later and I fear I will never see my fourth and tenth birthday nor that  I will ever see your faces or get to hold you in my arms. 

Everyday that you remain within my womb, I know you grow stronger and better able to survive outside of my body even as the strain of growing you weakens me. I do not say that to make you feel poorly about getting to have your lives even as I lose mine but to know that you are my single greatest achievement in my short life.

I do hope you are and remain close to your brother Benjen and sister Alys and that you do not blame your father or his father for my untimely passing. Your father only got me with child at the insistence of my father, his second wife Queen Alicent and her father Ser Otto Hightower, who had been my father’s Hand.

Please know that despite never truly having the chance to know you, that I love you with all my heart and soul and wait for you in Baeleron’s domain with my mother and trueborn siblings and our forebearers.

Also, please, if your father has not taken a third wife by the time you are reading this, urge him to do so as I do not want him to be alone. Cregan Stark is a great and wonderful man whom I only wish I had more time with.

All my love,

Your Mother,

Rhaenyra”

After the letter was dictated, Rhaenyra signed it and sealed it with her personal seal. 

“Lady Sansa, should I perish as I fear, please ensure that my children receive this by their tenth name day." 

Lady Sansa, with tears in her eyes knowing the intense fear of the young mother to be, curtsied before replying, "Yes, my Lady.”