|| AUTHOR'S NOTE: I'm sorry I haven't been posting these last three months, but apparently this site has been giving me a lot of trouble. Reason? Every document I put doesn't get recognized again and again, even though I've been doing it for years. Has anyone ever encountered problems like this before? 'Cause it's been getting on my nerves. I thought I was locked out! ||
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King's Landing — The Red Keep...
The raven came while King's Landing was still smoking.
By then the bells had stopped ringing without purpose, which some men took for peace and wiser men recognized only as exhaustion. Smoke continued to creep upward from Flea Bottom, Cobbler's Square, and the shattered approaches to the Dragonpit, thinning as the morning advanced but never quite leaving the air above Aegon's High Hill, so that every open window of the Red Keep admitted the smell of wet ash, burned timber, horseflesh, lamp oil, and too many dead. Below the castle walls, the City Watch and House Tully's bannermen moved from quarter to quarter in weary knots, collecting abandoned weapons, marking ruined houses, hauling bodies from gutters, reopening bakeries under guard, and attempting to persuade a city which had spent one blood-soaked night believing every rumor that order had somehow returned before breakfast. Jaehaerys remained in the streets with the relief companies, Aegon the Younger had taken men south toward the last armed bands of Trystane's scattered followers, and Aemma rode between the Dragonpit and Visenya's Hill despite orders from three different maesters to lie down somewhere and permit her ribs to remember how breathing was meant to work. Their absence left the Small Council chamber full of older faces and older fears, the kind that understood riots rarely ended when crowds went home, because the causes that brought them into the streets usually returned after hunger, grief, and humiliation had enough time to change clothes.
The council table still bore the previous night's scars: a sword pommel had split one carved edge, and wax from hastily lit candles had hardened across three maps. A cup of watered wine sat untouched near Rhaenyra's hand, long since warmed and soured. No servant dared replace it; she had not noticed it at all. She sat with both hands flat on the table, her silver-white hair loosely braided, stray strands framing a face hardened since Lucerys's death. Her violet eyes rested not on the maps, but on nothing visible. Jacaerys stood behind her instead of sitting, brown hair falling toward brown eyes, his jaw clenched so tightly that a muscle twitched in his cheek whenever someone entered. Across from them, Alicent sat in mourning-dark green, grieving Daeron, Viserys, and now her brother Gwayne. Otto occupied the Hand's chair, restored to active duty by necessity rather than reconciliation. His recent confrontation with Jaehaerys had left a chill between grandfather and grandson, but no one spoke of it; King's Landing had produced greater crises faster than resentment could ripen.
Corlys sat nearest the great sea map, one weathered hand resting upon the knob of his cane and the other over a carved wooden marker representing the Velaryon fleet. His legal grandson Joffrey had vanished somewhere on the Narrow Sea, and granddaughter Rhaena had vanished with him; the Sea Snake's face had taken on the stillness of a man who knew fury was most dangerous when it ceased needing expression. Bartimos had brought three ledgers despite the city nearly burning around him and guarded them with almost paternal concern. William sat straight-backed in bronze-studded black wool, parchment already arranged before him in ordered columns. Farrier wore no jewels and made no effort to resemble the lord his offices technically rendered him, his plain coat and unreadable eyes belonging more naturally to the corridors beneath the Red Keep than the council above them; Alwyn stood beside the rookery messages with both hands resting upon the table, his chain lying heavily over a robe marked by the sleepless creases of a man who had spent the night treating princes, guardsmen, burned smallfolk, and anyone else deposited before him. Ser Willis Fell, newly raised to Lord Commander of the Kingsguard after so many white cloaks had died or betrayed their vows, stood behind Alicent, both hands resting lightly on the pommel of his sword.
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Fire and Blood
FanfictionPrince, dragonrider, spymaster, heir to the Iron Throne... Aeonar Targaryen had it all growing up and strived to prove his worth. But when the people he cared deeply about betray him, he strikes out on his own to leave his mark on the world - his ac...
