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Chapter 31: Chapter 26: WeddingChapter Text

"I mislike war. It is indiscriminate and unpredictable. A fire, which while likely to kill your enemy, is just as likely to burn oneself as well. Give me knives and poisons and intrigue any day."

-King Rhaenyra I, the Dragonqueen

106 AC, Red Keep

I didn't murder anyone like I initially planned.

My first knee-jerk reaction was to poison Alicent, and I had already dug the vial out of my trunk before I realised that killing her only kicked the problem down the road. How long would it be until my father got seduced again and married another woman? The man was inherently weak willed, and very susceptible to the charms of women. And why wouldn't he be? In his childhood, most girls didn't give him the time of the day. The pudgy, awkward prince, compared to the lean and handsome Daemon.

No, killing Alicent was a horrid idea. Someone else would become Queen, and it wouldn't be a person I knew and could anticipate. An argument could be made that Alicent should be Queen over every other woman in the realm because I knew her future and knew whom were her allies and how to beat them. I wouldn't have that same luxury for the next woman in my father's bed.

I then seriously considered killing Viserys.

The Young King was arguably the cause of the entire dynasty's downfall. If he didn't marry anyone else, or father any sons, then the Dance could never happen. Killing him would neatly end said problem in a simple stroke. It would have been trivially easy. My father trusted me to the bone. To the point where he'd even named me his Best Man over everyone else. Giving him a poisoned glass of wine was beyond easy. I could do it in my sleep, and I'd even figured out a way to shift the blame onto the Hightowers.

You see, the Long Farewell took time to act on a person, depending on their constitution. A fit and active man like Bronn could last days before succumbing to it. Potentially a week. A pampered and inbred princess like Mycella would last mere hours.

For a fat, unfit and inbred man like Viserys, I'd give it less than a day, probably closer to twelve hours. It would be faster if he drank a larger dose, and then proceeded to do some strenuous activity that caused his blood to pump.

Like the bedding.

Where his only companion would be his new wife.

I decided against it in the end. I was young enough that I'd get a regent by law, unheeding of my opinion. And regencies were horrid businesses. The Velaryons would push to be named regent, propping Rhaenys up. While the Hightowers would fight tooth and nail, with Lord Otto as Hand. And knowing them, the Hightowers probably would get the High Septon to back them up, using some excuse like a child as blessed by the gods as I was needed godly supervision.

The worse part was that that excuse would actually work. The Vale would rise for them, pious folk that they were. Lady Jeyne Arryn herself hadn't outgrown her own regent yet, and her hold over the Vale was tenuous at best, contested by power-hungry cousins. The Riverlands would back them as well. Lord Kermit also had a regent, and his hold over his bannerman was even finer than Jeyne's. And that wasn't even getting into how notoriously fractious and divisive the Riverlords were.

I doubted that the North or Iron Islands would care enough to get involved, while the Baratheons would back Rhaenys to the hilt, but it was dubious which way the Westerlands would swing.

It would be a civil war that I couldn't stop. Unless I declared a Great Council, which set an even worse precedent in the process.

Worse, my glass candle made it clear we had enemies plotting war on us as well. We needed a strong, unified Westeros to withstand such threats. Not one beset by civil strife.

No.

My plan was always to win the Dance before it even begun, stripping the Greens of one advantage at a time until they were but last gasp of a cause. I could do this. I could do this because I knew the future. I wouldn't know what would happen in the war for the regency.

So there was only one thing to do.

———

106 AC, Red Keep, Castle Sept

I pasted a placid smile on my face as I stood beside my father at the altar, dressed in my black and maroon investiture tuxedo. Dark Sister hung on my back as usual, but this time, for my part as the Best Man of the wedding, I'd been given a grand cape of black wool with the three-headed-dragon of House Targaryen embroidered onto it to wear. The cloth was thick and heavy, significantly taller and wider than I was. And if it weren't winter, my hair would probably be drenched with sweat from the sheer weight and thickness of the thing.

And speaking of my hair, it had grown out over the last year, now in a pageboy cut instead of a pixie undercut. It pained me, but I was probably going to have to cut it again pretty soon. Until I'd solidified my image of a Prince of the Seven Kingdoms, it wouldn't do to present anything even remotely feminine whilst in public.

Which was quite a pity. I liked having long hair, but Singapore was very conservative in that regard. While the law banning men from having long hair had been repealed long before I was born, Singaporean employers still frowned on males growing their hair out, calling it unprofessional at the most kindest. Doubly so in a critical industry like medicine.

Ah well, I'd lived seventeen years before I grew my hair out for the first time. What was another few more?

Beside me, my father was also dressed in a matching tuxedo. I vaguely remembered him telling me in the wake of my investiture that he really liked the style of my suit, and was going to get the tailors create a matching wardrobe for him.

They'd done more than that for the King, in my opinion.

My tuxedo was made of wool, dyed black and red. The buttons were ebony. The belt was a practical strap of leather with a brass buckle. My usual half-cape was crimson wool.

Meanwhile, Viserys' blazer and pants were made of deep plum velour, trimmed with gold thread. His shirt was purple silk, with a starburst print pattern, with buttons of gold studded with black diamonds. His belt was a great sash of brightly patterned silk, dripping with so much gold I could barely discern it's original colour. His tie was much the same, with rubies, amethysts and orange tourmaline sewn into the silk backing. The wedding cloak he wore was a massive beast of black wool with ermine linings, a solid golden chain fastener and the three-headed dragon of House Targaryen done in rubies sewn into the cloth itself.

Blackfyre hung on his belt, but it was clear that the famed blade of Aegon the Conqueror was added on as an afterthought. It clashed with the entire outfit. It was tastefully decorated, but mostly austere. While Viserys' outfit… Well, I was pretty sure my father was going for splendid and flamboyant, but at some point he'd just ran headlong into tacky eyesore territory.

God, the sheer amount of money he'd wasted on the thing. That was bad enough. What was worse was that it was taxpayer money.

Maybe it was because I was brought up in a democratic society, but wasting taxpayer coin like that just felt to me like some cardinal sin. Like I was some corrupt despot in some tinpot dictatorship, sucking the wealth out of her lands for her own self-interest. This was why I spent most of my allowance on charity work, sending nearly ninety percent of it down to the orphanages in Flea Bottom. Because how could I touch those coins without feeling like I was some corrupt parasite?

My morals were few and far in between, but I had standards. And gorging myself on taxpayer dosh was just plain wrong.

I was shaken out of my thoughts on the matter, when the music began playing, the hired minstrels playing some sappy love song from the Reach. The guests all stood up. House Targaryen and House Velaryon stood on the right side of the sept, while the Hightowers were on the left, divided by a red carpet.

Here came the bride.

The doors of the sept opened, and Lord Otto Hightower walked down the aisle, arm in arm with his daughter.

My breath involuntary hitched as I took in my old governess in full wedding splendour, and from the sounds of the rest of the sept, I wasn't the only one.

I'd once thought that my old classmate Millicent Banner was the most beautiful caucasian girl I'd ever met. Tall and slender, Millicent had flawless sun-kissed skin, with a smidgeon of cute freckles over the bridge of her nose that just made her look even prettier. Delicate, elf-like features, wide eyes of light blue and wavy light brown hair that could look perfectly coiffed one moment, but casual in another. Millicent's beauty was such that she'd been crowned one of the two 'unattainable flowers' of our old boarding school, for everyone to admire, but never to claim.

Alicent today, had usurped that crown from my old boarding school classmate.

The eighteen-year-old Queen-to-be wore a white dress made from pure lace. The dress was floaty, and the hem, lining and train of the dress were embroidered with silver silk, the patterns suggesting flames like those atop the Hightower in Oldtown. White gloves covered her hands and her high heeled shoes were made from milkglass, beautifully sculpted and with silver ribbons on the ankles.

The white, translucent veil covering her face and descending down her back extended from a tiara made from interwoven roses. The train of her wedding dress trailed back for twenty feet, made from fine Oldtown lace and patterned with thousands of tiny towers on them. Her maiden's cloak was grey wool, with the Hightower embroidered on in white satin, with garnets, topazes, opals, tourmaline and rubies sewn as the flame atop the tower.

Normally Alicent wore the absolute bare minimum of makeup and jewellery, for like Millicent, she held that alluring confidence of someone whom knew that they they didn't need either jewellery or makeup to look beautiful. But today the Hightower scion had pulled out all of the stops.

Her strawberry blonde hair flowed down in lustrous waves, she wore a glossy, pale pink lipstick on her full lips. Her wide, pixie-like grey eyes were highlighted with eyeliner and she smelt of rose-scented perfume. From her ears dangled tiny towers made from platinum and crowned with garnets in the shape of flames. Her necklace was a wide spread of pearls, moonstones and diamonds set onto a white gold backing.

Alicent Hightower looked like an Elf Princess or Fairy Queen right out of a fairytale, ready to wed the dashing knight whom rescued her from some great demon that imprisoned her in some tower. So radiant and beautiful she was, that she seemed to shine, like an angel descended from the heavens, a divine avatar of the Maiden herself.

"Who comes before the Seven-Who-Are-One today?" The High Septon, whom we'd flown over from Oldtown with the Hightowers, asked ceremonially.

"Alicent, of the House Hightower, has come here to be wed." Lord Otto replied. "A woman grown, trueborn and noble. She comes to beg the blessing of the gods. Whom comes to claim her?"

"Viserys, of the House Targaryen, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms and Protector of the Realm." My father recited. "Whom gives her?"

"Otto of the House Hightower, who was her father." The Hand of the King spoke, before turning to his daughter. "Lady Alicent, do you take this man?"

"I do." Alicent beautifully smiled, the expression of pure unadulterated love on her face so convincing I would have bought it if I didn't know her future.

The first exchange had been spoken. The Andals actually had a similar tradition before they migrated over to Westeros, but like all things, had been changed over the passing of the ages. While the Andals were never shy about forcing religious conversion on the First Men, compromise had been the truth of the matter. The Old Gods and New Gods meeting halfway to make the new religion more palatable to the natives.

Faces of the Seven carved onto heart trees. Altars, statues and raiments of weirwood. Verses of the Seven-Pointed-Star carved into stones in the runes of the First Men. Septs raised in the style of First Men stone monuments. Septons wedding couples beneath a heart tree.

While the Faith of the Seven had eventually won out, some of the traditions of the Old Gods had managed to linger. Including the wedding traditions of the father giving away the bride, the cloaking of the bride and the bedding ceremony.

For a wedding under the Old Gods, the ceremony would be finished, but both bride and groom worshipped the Seven, and so we had many more steps to go.

"If anyone here has any lawful objection as to why these two should not be wed, speak now or forever hold your peace." The High Septon challenged. As Best Man, I had no choice but to draw Dark Sister and level it at the crowd, daring anyone to challenge the marriage, but quite frankly, I'd let anyone whom wanted to stop the wedding waltz right past. After putting on a token effort, of course, but honestly I wasn't motivated in the slightest. In fact, a good part of me was hoping that someone would be reckless enough to do so.

Oh how I wished that Daemon would return from the grave right about now and declare Alicent despoiled and impure. Or that some dastardly handsome mercenary would ride into the sept and steal the bride away. Or that some ex-boyfriend of hers would burst into the sept and declare his undying and eternal love for Alicent. Heck, I'd even take Aemma returning from the grave to…

Actually, on second thought, Mother could stay in the grave. Mindlessly devout dimwit would probably side with Alicent over me. But oh how I wished that someone or something would intervene and stop this wedding.

Alas my prayers were not answered. There were no ex-boyfriends, jealous lovers or dashing rogues. Not even a lightning bolt. Absolutely nothing happened, and the wedding went on as planned.

All eyes were on Alicent as she stepped up to the altar. She divested herself of her cloak, her father taking it off her shoulders and carefully folding it up, before releasing her.

"You may now cloak the bride and bring her under your protection." The High Septon declared.

Viserys unclasped his own cloak and draped it over Alicent's shoulders, and the bride and groom turned to face each other. Septon Eustace approached the High Septon, in his hands a small tray bearing the ribbons. Eight of them. Seven and one for the Seven-Who-Are-One.

"We stand here in the sight of gods and men to witness the union of man and wife: one flesh, one heart, one soul, now and forever." The High Septon recited, taking the first ribbon, red like blood, and tying the first knot between the hands of the couple.

"Let it be known that Viserys and Alicent of Houses Targaryen and Hightower are one heart." On went the orange ribbon.

"One flesh." The yellow one now.

"One soul." Green snaked around the hands.

"Cursed be he who would seek to tear them asunder." Blue like the ocean coiled around the intertwined fingers.

"In the sight of the Seven, I hereby seal these two souls." Indigo like my eyes.

"Binding them as one for eternity." The High Septon finished, his hands releasing the ribbon. Violet like Laena's eyes.

"Look upon one another, and speak the words." He commanded, the couple doing so obediently.

"Father, Mother, Warrior, Smith, Maiden, Crone, Stranger." They recited. "I am hers/his and she/he is mine. From this day, until my the end of my days, from this day until the last day."

"You may now kiss the bride." The High Septon declared.

"With this kiss, I pledge my love and take you for my lady/lord and wife/husband." The couple recited, before kissing one another. Fat Viserys and slender Alicent. The sight was rather comical, as the groom was easily twice the size of his bride, but I couldn't bring myself to laugh. Not today. Not when I was watching the Dance of the Dragons begin.

"I now seal them as man and wife, one heart, one flesh, one soul, now and forever." The High Septon finished, tying the last and final ribbon around the bride and groom. It was white, pure like snow, but I couldn't see it like that. It looked to me like chains of blood, promising death and suffering to the Seven Kingdoms.

The songs were joyous and the cheering and clapping was raucous and cheerful, but all I heard was the sound of hooves, thundering against the earth. The roars of dragons and the blast of flames. The marching of armies and the baring of steel. More battlecries than there were stars under the sky, screamed and shouted by voices young and old, principled and lawless, scared and brave. The holy incense in the sept, from the hundreds of scented candles lit beneath the seven great statues of marble, smelt to me like charred meat and smoke. Blood and shit and a thousand and one other things from the battlefield.

This was, I knew bone-deep, a marriage that would end in war.

———

106 AC, Throne Room, Red Keep

The wedding dinner was an intimate and frugal affair. It was considered gauche to feast in winter, even now that our new farming methods ensured that starvation had no bite, and as such, the ceremony was nowhere nearby as lavish as the coronation or even my investiture. The only attendees were family, so just House Velaryon, House Targaryen and House Hightower were present. And the High Septon, but he'd retired off to spend the night in prayer.

I watched as the Dragonseeds danced with Velaryon and Hightower children. Laenor, Laena and I had donated our old clothes to my cousins, hence they were all resplendently dressed for the occasion. Daena wore my mourning dress, though with a red sash to draw attention away from the black. Bell wore a teal doublet embroidered with silver seahorses with grey leggings. Daenys, my favourite red ballgown.

I danced a few rounds with Laena, Laenor and a couple of the other kids before taking a break on a chair at the side.

"A wonderful sight, are they not?" My new stepmother asked, sitting down beside me as my father danced with Rhaenys. Alicent now wore the crown of Queen Alysanne, a slimmer and more feminine copy of the one Viserys and Jaehaerys had worn.

The initial plan for the wedding had a small coronation included. Viserys intended for me to personally crown Alicent, as a show of unity, and only reconsidered after I'd sent him Mom's Death Glare #7. The single most baleful and repulsed one that my previous mother reserved solely for salesmen, particularly incompetent subordinates or her in-laws. There were few things capable of communicating such unbridled disdain, disgust and malice than said glare, to an extent that even stubborn Viserys was intimidated and decided that retreat was the more prudent course of action.

So instead, it was the High Septon that crowned the new Queen, whom was grinning, ear-to-ear, at the notion. God, I wanted to take a knife to that pretty face. See how much my father would want to bed someone with no mouth, nostrils or eyes. Just one single bloody hole in her head.

There was only room for one Queen Bitch of Westeros and that was ME.

"One would scarcely believe that they once were baseborn commoners." Alicent smiled, taking my hands in hers as an intimate gesture, while subtly putting her finger on my pulse. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at my stepmother's antics. Laena had taught me that trick. Quaint. That's what it was. Child's play for someone like me.

Even before Intelligence got ahold of me, Mom had already drilled all the tells out of me.

'Lying is the single most essential skill in life.' Mom had said, teaching me from the cradle how to deceive and trick.

And that wasn't hyperbole. I was barely two when Mom began coaching me how to lie and cheat. How to take advantage of my cuteness to charm and manipulate adults into doing my bidding. The lessons grew harder every year. White lies. Using truth to lie. Hiding all my tells. Coming up with increasingly convincing cover stories. She even bought a polygraph machine back home to practise with. Made me do it every day until no man or machine could discern truth or lie from me.

It was a wonky, inaccurate piece of garbage, but it gave me enough practise before I sat the real deal in Singaporean Intelligence's background checks. And not even they could tell if I was lying. The administrator had outright called me the single best liar of my company. Unsurprising. I'd lied so often and for so long that to me, that there hardly was any difference between truth or lie.

And what was Alicent's finger on the pulse trick, compared to a polygraph machine in the service of Singaporean Intelligence?

"You've done an impressive job teaching them." I praised sincerely. "You always did have a knack for it."

Before Aemma died, Alicent had been one of her aides in teaching the Dragonseeds the essential skills for high society, including dancing, singing, manners and etiquette. And after the funeral, my evil stepmother had taken over as head caretaker and continued raising my cousins. She'd actually done a better job than the former queen, my former governess' ability to coach children being superior.

I'd have contested the decision to appoint Alicent, but to be honest, I had way bigger fishes to fry in the aftermath of the funeral and by the time winter had come, my cousins had already grown used to the Hightower scion. This was annoying. The Dragonseeds were to be my personal airforce. It wouldn't do for them to be compromised by one of my greatest rivals.

"Well, I remember once having to teach another two silver-haired girls the etiquette and and skills required by a lady of high birth." Alicent tittered. "It was nostalgic teaching once again."

"I miss those days. I miss Grandpapa." I genuinely said, the two of us spending a moment in sad silence as we thought about the late King Jaehaerys.

"I was expecting a harder fight. I had all these things I planned to do and say to get you to stop glaring at me." Alicent finally said, after the silence grew deafening.

"I like you, Alicent. You're my friend and I consider you a big sister of sorts." I smiled warmly, hugging her tight.

"Thank you, daughter." Alicent happily said, hugging me back.

"Which is why I'll be honest this one time with you." I said, my voice bereft of emotion or warmth. Alicent stilled in my grasp. "Know your place, whore. Your sons will never be king. And if they think otherwise, then I swear that I will murder them, and you, painfully. I killed Daemon, and Aemma. I will do the same to you and my siblings if I have to."

I released her, bending forwards and placing a kiss on her cheek.

"And please, don't call me daughter." I sweetly smiled, leaning back into my chair.

Alicent cast a terrified glare at me, the same my mother and Laena had sported the day I murdered Daemon. She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted.

"Rhaenyra!" My father called out from where he was seated, with Lord Hightower and Lord Velaryon. "You've spent a year in the Citadel, how many links in your chain have you forged?"

"Good question!" I said, standing atop the table. "Anyone up for a betting pool?"

There was an enthusiastic cheer from the menfolk at that.

"A splendid idea!" Viserys praised. "Any hints before we begin?"

"I've forged more than my three companions combined." I allowed, my girlfriend showing her necklace, which had three links on a thinner silver chain, black iron for Ravenry, brass for Wildlife/Nature and cast iron for Animal Husbandry. Daenys showed her three links on a leather thong, copper for History, platinum for Culture/Languages and electrum for Religion. Rhaegar only had two, zinc for Alchemy and tin for Geology.

A gasp rang through the room at the implication.

"You forged more than eight links in a year?" Otto Hightower asked, incredulous. Unsurprising. The record was ten. Well it was ten. It was considered productive if an acolyte forged a link a year. Two a year for highborn, as unlike smallfolk, they didn't need to bother with earning money for day-to-day expenses.

"Indeed. And Uncle Vaegon, you and none of those that know are allowed to bet." I smiled, winking at the two Hightower maesters in the room before turning to Daena and tossing her a key. "Daena and Bell, please kindly go fetch my chain. It's in the ebony box inside my trunk."

My two cousins nodded and ran off. The instant the door closed behind them, the betting began.

"Three silver stags on twelve links!" A Velaryon cousin shouted, the first bet of the night. Laena went around with a bag, accepting the money as Daenys tallied the bets.

For five minutes or so, numbers were called out. Once the teen numbers ran out, the betting moved onto which links I would have.

Lord Corlys put four gold dragons on eighteen, inclusive of five yellow gold links and three silver links.

Mysaria betted a kiss and two silvers on twenty-one, every one a different metal.

Rhaenys went in the opposite direction, betting on nine links, half of which would be yellow gold.

Viserys declared thirty links and put twenty gold dragons on it, my father clearly not intending to win and just padding the winner's pot.

Three-year-old Lucerys Fyre put a single copper star into the pot and bet one hundred links, which made me laugh and hug him, declaring him my favourite cousin. Though I fished out his copper star and told him that he was both too young to gamble and wrong. I didn't have that many.

And finally, it was the moment of truth. My cousins reappeared, an ebony wood box held in Bell's hands. I undid the clasps on the box, about to open it before reconsidering.

"You know what, Luke, you can do it, since you had such faith in me." I allowed, pushing Daemon's fourth youngest forwards. Lucerys excitedly ran forwards, climbing onto the table and flipping the box open.

A round of gasps rang through the room at the sheer number of links on the chain. I picked one end of it up, struggling under the weight slightly, before letting it all spool downwards.

"Thirty-two links. Including six yellow gold links, four silver links and one of every other metal." I announced. "As he has the closest bet, my father wins the betting pool."

I was told there were two types of maesters. 'Depth' maesters, and 'Breadth' maesters. The archmaesters were Depth to the extreme, specialising solely in one topic to the extreme, with only a few other metals on their chains. A good quality castle maester would be Depth as well, well learned in two or three specific topics, but with enough general knowledge on half a dozen other topics.

Breadth maesters on the other hand, had many metals in their chains, but not many links of the same metal. The most extreme examples being maesters whose requisite sixteen links were all made of different metals. The demand was lesser for them, as not only did most Lords typically favour maesters with great knowledge in a specific few fields to address their problems— Healthcare and accountancy in particular— a lord's education would have granted him enough general knowledge to rival a Breadth maester. On the other hand, Breadth maesters were preferred among the smallfolk whom lacked a highborn's education. And towns rich enough to afford them would benefit greatly from their wide range of knowledge in many fields.

An acolyte required sixteen links to become a maester. My education from my previous life allowed me to earn nearly the requisite amount of links within two months of my arrival.

Yellow Gold for Finance and Accountancy. Six links, in fact, for whatever maths they taught in the Citadel I had already learned by fifteen in my past life.

Silver for Medicines and Healing. Four links. My past life as a medical student meant that I could breeze through this subject as well. I'd have gotten more, but surgery was nonexistent and I was unfamiliar with most of the current medications. Unfortunately modern pharmaceuticals were still a long long way away.

Zinc for Alchemy. Three links. Like I said, Alchemy was primitive chemistry. And chemistry was one of my strongest subjects.

Steel for Engineering and Construction. Two links. It was basically physics, which I did back in my past life and wasn't half-bad at.

Once I secured these fifteen links, my Depth topics, so to speak, I decided to try get one link for every other subject in the Citadel, just to complete my collection. It took me the rest of the year to earn my seventeen Breadth topic links, but I succeeded.

Cobalt for Politics and Statecraft.

Iron for Warcraft.

Pewter for Administration.

Green Gold for Agriculture.

Black Iron for Ravenry. 

Brass for Wildlife & Nature

Cast Iron for Animal Husbandry

Electrum for Religions

Copper for History.

Bronze for Astronomy

Lead for Philosophy

Nickel for Smithing & Metalworking

Platinum for Cultures & Languages

Red Gold for Geography

Tin for Geology

White Gold for Astrology

Valyrian Steel for Magic.

All in all, I had thirty-two links, with one in every topic, earned over a year.

It was around this time that I realised just how much emphasis modern society, or at least modern Singaporean society, placed on studying. I was trained to count to a hundred when I was one. Read at two. Write by four. I spoke a second language by six.

Now, I was one thing, being the smartest and most precocious of my brothers, but even my younger brother was bilingual and mostly literate by seven, and he was the dumbest of the three of us. And this was the same in every other family in our neighbourhood. Every Singaporean parent I knew was an education fanatic of some sort, and their children were trained from a young age to excel in school.

School indoctrinated us into learning how to sit still and listen for hours upon hours, work on little sleep and study even after we got home, with increasingly less amounts of free time as we aged. Modern children were trained since childhood to soak in large amounts of information in a short timeframe, with increasingly larger amounts of denser subjects as we aged. Laena didn't understand how I could sit through four back-to-back two-hour lectures in one day, but to me, that was normal. Life as a medical student involved about the same amount of learning.

Even the most bookish people in this world had to take breaks, unable to keep up with what they perceived as a relentless and breakneck pace. Or at least, not for long. Whereas for me, such as pace was normal for me. The fact that I had extra time after my classes to exercise and practice magic was proof of that. Back when I was cramming for my exams, I literally never did anything other than eat, sleep, shit and study, never leaving my house for days if not weeks on end.

And Pamela was even worse. Yuuki's old roommate from boarding school made me look downright lazy in comparison. And for good reason: During exam season, she literally did everything one handed, a textbook or notebook in her other hand. Everything from walking to eating to doing her business in the toilet. Even when she showered or slept or prayed, she'd play a recording of our professors lecturing and listen to it. There was a reason why she made it into Cambridge.

Now, most people weren't as extreme as Pamela, but her methods weren't unheard of on Earth. While people would probably lock up my good friend in a mental asylum if she was on Westeros. Nobody in this universe could even study a tenth as hard as either of us.

Not to mention other tactics that one could use to study. I was a big fan of studying smarter, not harder, so I found it strange that for some reason, nobody in the Citadel considered dredging up past examination papers or asking other acolytes what types of questions were asked by the archmaesters. And more oft than not, archmaesters, including Uncle Vaegon, used the same examination paper for every exam. Which was admittedly how I got over half my Breadth links; by asking acolytes whom had just forged their link what questions were on the paper they took before memorising the answers.

Also, students didn't have the concept of cramming, nor other memory tricks such as rhymes, flash cards and mnemonics. And over half of them didn't bother write their own notes, preferring to memorise. Which, as any student worth their salt could tell you, was basically a recipe for failure. There was only so much space in a brain, and memory was a broken CD in an imperfect apparatus. Maybe it worked for now, but how much longer would it last? Not more than a few days. Functional perfect recall was nonexistent. Forgetting details was as inevitable as the coming of dusk.

Which led to this very moment. Where I stood in front of a stunned crowd, bearing a chain of thirty-two links.

Lucerys began clapping enthusiatically for me, the applause slowly spreading to the rest of the room.

"To Prince Rhaenyra!" My father excitedly toasted, raising his goblet into the air. "My extremely intelligent daughter!"

"To Prince Rhaenyra!" The room chorused, knocking back their drinks.

"I'm so proud of you." My father happily said, walking up to me and hugging me tight. "You can have the winnings. You deserve it."

As he said that, he placed the bag of coin in my hand. Mysaria also walked over, planting the kiss she betted onto my cheek.

"Thanks, but I don't need it." I said, accepting the bag before putting it into Mysaria's hands.

"Go buy something nice for the children please." I told her, getting loud cheers from the Dragonseeds in response.

The party was going back into full swing when there was a sudden pattering of feet and a clattering of armour, before one of our household knights burst into the room.

"Your grace!" He shouted, gasping for air from the distance he ran in full armour.

"What is it?" My father asked. "And can it not wait for the morning? This is my wedding here."

"I'm afraid not, sire." The knight panted. "It's Dorne and the Triarchy. They've declared war on us."

Before any of us could respond, Grand Maester Gerardys threw open one of the side doors of the room, panting as he entered.

"Your grace!" He got out between breaths, waving a letter in his hand. "We have an emergency."

"Yes, I am aware of Dorne and the Triarchy." Viserys said.

"What? No, it's news from the Westerlands." Gerardys replied. "Walton Greyjoy has declared himself Iron King. He's executed half his bannermen and burnt the Lannister fleet at anchor."

"Are you japing—" Viserys began, before there was another patter of feet, and Gerardys' apprentice Maester Alfador burst into the room, clutching a letter in hand.

"Your grace!" He began, but was cut off swiftly.

"What now?!" The King demanded.

"It's from the Night's Watch. The wildlings have united under a King-Beyond-the-Wall, and are marching on Castle Black." Maester Alfador reported.