The Princess Rhaenyra

Rhaenyra paced back and forth before the doors to the small council chamber, trying not to let the worry show in her face. Her slippers seemed to echo down the hallway, the conversation mere feet from her closed behind a foot of lacquered wood, and the two knights of the Kingsguard posted on either side paid it all no mind, her own sworn shield standing silent paces away. Outside in the courtyard, the Vale knights were preparing for the journey back home, all noise and confusion amidst stewards and wagons and horses, but inside the red stone walls it was quiet but for her footfalls. Too easily her mind went back through memories of the days since the tourney's end.

She heard from the servants that the champion had rode all the way to the Red Keep, bearing the wreath of white flowers upon a white lance, and presented them to the queen on bended knee. A sight that brought many to tears. The feast had come later, with all three champions present, the heir born, and Rhaenyra had blushed near red as her dress, scarcely managing two words when Aegon sat beside her. Like her tongue had went lame. He looked especially handsome that night dressed in his finest silks, injured as he was, and offered no ill remark over her lack of conversation. Alicent had given her sad smiles through the feast, and later when they went to pray, she had offered her comforting words and wiped away her tears.

The days after that seemed to have flown by. Every lord, lady, and knight wanted to speak with Aegon, the young champion of the joust in the Heir's Tourney. Her cousin had met with all he could, from early in the mornings to late into the nights, and that some of those meetings were with the queen. Rhaenyra didn't know what they had spoken of, only that the talks were long, and that Aegon would visit the royal sept afterwards with a scowl marring his features, while Mother remained deep within her own thoughts next to Baelon and the unnamed hatchling. She had found that the only true chances to speak with Aegon alone were when they went dragonriding, that her tongue did not fail her after flying with Syrax, and so she had endeavored to get him in the air with her as many times as she could.

They had gone flying only yesterday, soaring above King's Landing. She had shown him tricks with Syrax, and she had watched with a smile as Aegon tried the same with Dreamfyre. The smiles came easily whenever she flew and even more so with a partner. Aegon still had a ways to go when it came to flying, movements less precise and practiced, but he was taking to them all the same. Landing on the beaches south of the Blackwater Rush, Rhaenyra slipped off Syrax's saddle, while Aegon unchained himself from Dreamfyre's own. "It's like riding a horse," he'd said. "Practice will always make perfect, though I believe I'll keep the chains long after practice has truly made perfect." His smile stole any clever remark she had, and she never managed to tell him, not even after the return to the Dragonpit. Her only solace was that she would not hold him in her heart for long, that the gods would answer her prayers.

But in this the gods were silent, for as the day he would leave grew closer, she loved him still. Spend what time you have together, and then let him go, but do not hold him in your heart forever. How could she? Aegon was what she wanted in every manner she could think. A noble knight armored in his faith, chivalrous like Ser Galladon of Morne and Serwyn of the Mirror Shield, so handsome the Maiden herself would weep for him, so skilled the Warrior would name him sworn brother, and a dragonrider as fierce as his father. His smile sent her heart fluttering, his voice like music to her ears, and his gaze had a way of stealing her words. But he loves another…

The tears threatened to spill, and she turned her back to the two knights as she blinked them away.

"Princess," said Ser Harrold Westerling, her sworn shield.

"There is no need," she said, waving off the offered square of white silk. "I am well."

For if I am not, the words will never come. Her mother said that a lady's armor was her courtesy, words her sword, and rumors her daggers in the night. Yet Rhaenyra felt bereft of all three pacing in front of the small council chambers. She envied Lady Johanna Reyne, who had ridden so well in the joust as a mystery knight, and reacted not a whit to the many things said of her after the fact. The lady more skilled than many knights, unafraid and unyielding in what a lady should and should not do, who looked as well in a suit of plate as she did in her finest court silks. Lady Johanna would not be pacing here like a worried child. Rhaenyra stilled in her steps and held her hands before her to keep from fidgeting. She would tell him how she felt, and I will as well.

When the doors opened, Rhaenyra whirled around with his name on the tip of her tongue, but it was her father and Lord Commander Ryam Redwyne instead. She could see Aegon and Daemon sitting across from one another at the small council table, speaking too low to hear, and then the doors were closed again, and her father's hand was on her shoulder, a curious look to his face. "Is all well, Rhaenyra?" he asked. "I've never seen you so worried before."

"I… It is nothing you need to worry over, father, truly."

"Are you sure? If there is something amiss, I would like to know, for today is such a joyous day."

He leaves today. She shook her head. "Is it not something you can help with."

"Truly?" He looked bemused. "I am king. Whatever this problem is, I can right it with but a word."

"Not in this. Not in matters of the heart."

Her father raised an eyebrow at that, peered at the closed doors, and then returned to her. "Matters of the heart, you say? Yes, that may be the one thing I cannot command, and your mother may be more suited for such matters in truth. But I know that Aegon upholds Vale chivalry like no other, and he will be of great help to you with whichever strapping knight has caught your heart."

But he loves another… Rhaenyra could only pull the beginnings of a smile to her lips and nod. Her father left with the Lord Commander and his other Kingsguard knights, leaving her with but Ser Harrold, and soon enough she was pacing again with worry. If only she could hear through the door. She had not a clue as to what Aegon and Daemon were speaking of. The two had spoken but a dozen words since the tourney's end, Daemon returning to his duties as Lord Commander of the City Watch of King's Landing, Aegon the center of the attention in the king's court and its many nobles. Nor could she understand why they would speak. The memory of the argument in the royal sept flashed through her mind, the words clear in her ears as if she had just heard them. But no sounds of fighting came from within. Only silence and the sound of her slippers padding along the stones.

Mayhaps they've reconciled? The thought seemed preposterous the moment she had it, and a nervous chuckle left her lips as she shook her head. Aegon and Daemon are too unalike. If the gods were just, father and son would put aside their differences, but the gods they followed were not alike. Aegon followed the Seven Who Are One, and Daemon disliked the Andal gods as he did those of the First Men. "Valyria gave us dragons," he'd said to her once. "What have the others done? The Seven have too many rules and not enough benefits. The old gods are nameless as they are numerous and would have me worship trees." She saw now that Daemon was wrong, arrogant that the only gods that mattered were the Valyrian ones, for they had given the Valyrians the power to tame dragons while the others were deaf to the pleas of man. The Seven heard and answered my prayers. They saved my mother and gave me a little brother.

Rhaenyra thought to beseech the Maiden to sway Aegon's heart for a moment, and she did away with such thinking the next. The songs of love never had the maiden fair praying for the knight's heart, she always fell in love with him, as he fell for her all the same. It had been the same for her parents, when Father had been nothing but a prince, and Mother only the youngest daughter of Lord Rodrik Arryn. Why was it not the same for her? Aegon was a knight and she a maiden fair. It was perfect, yet not to be?

"… see the truth of it, blinded as you are," she heard, as the doors opened. Rhaenyra turned, and out strode her uncle, a hard look to him. He met her gaze for a moment, his eyes searching for something she knew not, then he shook his head with a wry grin, and was down the hall the next. Within the small council chambers, Aegon was seated with his back to the doors, and the muscles of his neck and shoulders were tense. His left arm rested on the table; fist clenched, a glass of water sitting untouched opposite the empty glass of wine.

Gingerly, she stepped across the threshold, and said, "Aegon?"

He turned in his seat, an easy smile coming to his lips, and then he was on his feet, crossing the room to her. "Rhaenyra. Did you need something?"

"I…" She ignored how handsome he looked and pressed onward, even as a flush warmed her cheeks. "I wanted to speak with you, before you left."

"Would you mind if we spoke along the way to the royal sept? One last prayer before the gods never hurt, especially when flying such long distances."

"Of course," she said, blushing at how eager she sounded.

But Aegon didn't seem to notice, and Rhaenyra walked arm-in-arm with him, Ser Harrold following a respectful distance behind. It was only after they turned a second corner did she manage to speak. "Can you truly not stay in King's Landing any longer?"

"Unfortunately, I cannot. There are many duties I have in the Vale that I can't ignore. More so now that Dreamfyre is returning to Runestone with me. I'll need to have several meetings with the Dragonkeepers joining us about where and how to house her, and with my mother as well."

"Some of the Dragonkeepers are going to the Vale with you?"

"They are. His Grace and the small council agreed that it would be best. No one in the Vale knows how to handle dragons of such size."

"Oh."

Then her words failed her, and silence reigned after. Whenever she managed the courage to tell him, they encountered someone along the way who tried to speak with them. Aegon maneuvered out of any such conversation with polite ease, smiling pleasantly with his apologies, not breaking stride. She could only watch, and blush whenever he fended off an interrupting person, sharing a little grin with her like a jape only they were party to. It made her want to never let go of his arm, to bask under that lilac gaze, but all too soon they were across the courtyard and up the steps, through to the altars and statues of the Seven.

Aegon nodded to the septons who quietly excused themselves, and Ser Harrold waited outside, leaving the two of them alone with but the gods. "Now that we are alone with but the gods for company, will you say what you wanted to say from the start? I know that my return to the Vale was never the true matter."

He lit a taper and placed it before the Father, nodding to the statue. "I… I…" she stammered stupidly; her words caught in her throat. A second taper was placed before the Mother. "You…" A third was granted to the Warrior, a fourth for the Smith, a fifth for the Crone. "I…" At the Maiden, he placed a golden dragon at her altar beside the lit taper, and when he turned, Rhaenyra found her words. "Why did you have to steal your way into my heart?! Why… Why do you love another?"

The tears spilled down her cheeks, and Aegon's touch was gentle, his calloused thumb brushing them away with deft swipes. His lilac eyes were sad, his smile soft. "Rhaenyra. It was never my intention to have you love me when we first met in the outer bailey. Truly."

"T-Then why do I love you?"

"Because we cannot decide who we love. It comes when it comes and goes when it goes. Only the Maiden knows for certain, and she has remained succinctly silent whenever I've asked."

"But… You have a lady's honor… You wore it during the tourney."

"There is that," Aegon said, nodding to himself. "And I do love her, but then I was always meant to love her in truth, and even if I did not, I would still be by her side."

"I… I don't understand."

"You are a princess, Rhaenyra, daughter of the king. I am a prince, son and heir of the Lady of Runestone, the one who will succeed her to the lordship. More than anything, politics will dictate who I wed, and the same may be said for you as well. Love has little place in it, as much as I loathe it to be. You may love me, Rhaenyra, and mayhaps I could come to love you if we married, but such a marriage would never come to be. Politics would not allow it, and everything a Targaryen does is political."

"But Father is king," she reasoned, grasping for what little hope remained.

"And for the sake of stability of the realm, he must make the practical choice, and not one influenced by the wants and desires of the heart. As must I for the sake of Runestone and the Vale as a whole." Aegon shook his head, and Rhaenyra felt as if her heart were to break. "In my own arrogance I believed I could solve all my problems during this tourney, but by its end I've been enlightened to the fact that I am now in an impossible position, and one that might only grow worse as the years go on. No matter what I do there will be problems that arise. But in this I can be sure. Rhaenyra, for the love you have for me, I would ask that you not keep me in your heart. It will only bring you pain and tears."

"But…" The tears came again, and then his arms were around her, and she was weeping into his chest. "It was never meant to be?"

His embrace was warm, and he spoke into her hair. "Mayhaps in a perfect world, but the one we live in is hardly that. I am sorry."

"Why can't everything just be perfect?"

"Because we humans are ambitious by nature, and politics is the game we play, the rules not even we can change, dragons and all. The only thing we can do is play along and pray for the best."

"It sounds unfair. If I can't have the man I love, what is the point?"

Aegon chuckled, and Rhaenyra found herself smiling sadly into his chest. "I don't know," he said softly. "I truly do not know. All I can say is that you need not play if you do not wish to, and that love will come again, for the Maiden is loving as she is beautiful. We're still young, and someone else will come along to steal their way into your heart, of that, I'm sure."

I don't want another, I want you, I love you. But she knew that he did not feel the same, and that his honor forbade him to abandon his duty, to lie to her. That it was not meant to be, even if she so dearly wanted it, when they were perfect together in every way. Rhaenyra held him close, wanting to remember the feeling of his embrace, the smell of his chest, the strength of his arms. He was a pillar and she wanted nothing more but to lean against him.

When his arms fell away, she mourned their absence, and her heart ached. The chaste kiss he placed on her cheek had her smiling a sad smile, tears threatening. She held them back and stood on the tips of her toes, kissing him as he had her, and she looked into his eyes until they were both chuckling sadly and shaking their heads. Aegon's eyes were wet, but his smile was true, and he nodded to the gods.

"I will pray for you," he said, as he stepped away. "Will you pray for me?"

"I will."

He nodded, then sketched the perfect bow he had when they first met, and she giggled at the sight. After that he took his leave, and she was alone with the gods, a shuddering breath wracking her body. It felt as if the doors to the royal sept had slammed shut. The tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she held firm, and turned to the seven marble statues with her head held high. The Maiden looked beautiful in the light, the Warrior tall and strong. Keep him safe, she prayed to them, lighting a taper for each. Guard both his heart and his flesh, from all that would do him harm. She couldn't find it in her to ask them for the strength to let him go from her own heart.

Later, as she watched the Vale knights ride through the city for home from atop the Red Keep's battlements, she saw a blue dragon rise from the Dragonpit. Seven times he flew around Aegon's High Hill, and Rhaenyra could almost make out his smile.

Seeing Aegon and Dreamfyre fly off into the distance warmed her heart as much as it brought tears to her eyes.