Chapter 16: Regret

As soon as the others left the tower, Aelor was speaking.

"I just preached a bad strategy to some of the finest military minds in the Seven Kingdoms; you had best explain to me why."

Rhaegar still had an air of finality around him, even as he looked at his younger brother. "I'm surprised you actually did it."

Aelor shrugged, violet eyes glaring into his brother's identical ones. "So am I. I still want to throttle you for starting this buggering war, yet I just proposed charging headlong into a trap to men who know it's folly all because you asked me to follow your lead in the war council." Aelor snorted and shook his head. "Why are we rushing into battle, Rhaegar?"

"Because I am going to die, Aelor." The King said it calmly, as if he were merely pointing out an obvious detail. "I will not survive this war." Aelor could only blink rapidly, his glare turning into a blank stare that the King returned with a sad expression. "I will die at that ford. I don't know how; rather it will be from an arrow or sword I couldn't say, but die I shall."

"Then why the buggering hell are we going there?" Aelor, for the first time since the tourney outside the very ruin of a castle they now sat in, could look at his brother and not feel the desire to feed him his own teeth. "How in the name of the Seven do you know that?"

"I saw it in a vision."

Aelor's glare returned in an instant. "You bloody idiot. You start a war that's killed thousands because of a prophecy and now you're going to march thousands more into a trap because of a vision ?"

"Yes." The King replied simply. "I started this war because of a prophecy, and I'm marching into a trap because I saw it in a vision. Aegon is the prince that was promised."

"Fuck your prophecy, Rhaegar." Aelor said, keeping his voice remarkably composed despite the rage that was coursing through his veins. I've yelled at him about this enough. Since that won't penetrate his thick skull, maybe calm reasoning will.

It was particularly hard for Aelor, though. He'd always been shit at calm reasoning. Seething in rage and killing things were his preference.

"Believe what you will, Aelor." Rhaegar's face was set, sad but firm in that infuriating way only Rhaegar could manage. "Whether you believe the prophecy or not doesn't matter. You are my brother, and you are respected greatly by the men camped outside; I find it likely most of them love you more than they do me. But I am the King. It is my decision whether we march for the Green Fork or not. I only asked your cooperation for appearances sake."

"Father was a King that did whatever he wanted becausehe was a King, brother." Aelor said, lip curling. "He ordered a city of thousands upon thousands burned to the ground. Don't tell me you are no better."

For the first time since they were young children Aelor saw rage flash across his brother's face. The King pointed a long finger towards the Dragon of Duskendale, voice no longer the soft tone he so often used, having been replaced with a timbre as hard as Valyrian steel. "Never compare me to Aerys, Aelor. Hate me all you like, but I care for Westeros far more than either he or you ever could. All I do I do for the future of the Seven Kingdoms. No one, not Robert fucking Baratheon or the Dragon of Duskendale, will stop me from doing what must be done."

"The future of Westeros, eh? What about your family? What about your son? "

Rhaegar lowered his finger though his expression remained the same. "My son is the future of Westeros and my family. They are all one and the same." The King took a long drink from his wine, lowering the chalice to reveal he was once more composed, sad expression again across his countenance. "My death is necessary for the ascension of my son. He will be a greater king than even Aegon the Conqueror."

Aelor sat back in his chair, shocked at all he was hearing. "You're son is an infant. "

"That makes no difference. He will be a great man and a great king."

"And a fatherless child."

Rhaegar shook his head. "Nonsense. You will be a better father to him than I could. You already are." Rhaegar chuckled once at his brother's expression, a soft sound. "Don't look so shocked, Aelor. You love my children as if they are your own. It's an admirable quality, particularly for a member of our family. History certainly has a lack of loving Targaryen family members and a plethora of murderous ones."

"I apparently also love your wife."

Rhaegar smiled ever so gently. "You know you do."

"You make it sound as if I want everything you have."

"You've always wanted what I have, baby brother. All except my inheritance. And my winged helm."

Aelor shook his head. "An ugly thing. I can't fathom what you see in it." Aelor was trying to digest all Rhaegar was saying, and failing miserably. "Aegon is a baby, Rhaegar. Even if he will be the King you 'foresee' him as, he will be a child king for years. The history of the Seven Kingdoms has not treated those well."

Rhaegar raised an eyebrow. "And who are the claimants to contest him? Viserys? A child as well, and our mother would not allow him to cause strife. Our unborn youngest sibling? Another baby, this one born after succession has occurred twice. You? No, Aelor. It wouldn't matter how much you could want the crown, you adore Aegon too much to even think harm upon him."

"The idea of power makes a man do unthinkable things, Rhaegar."

"Not you," the King said. "We both know it. You've never been able to lie to me, baby brother. You can't hope to start now."

Aelor held his tongue, unable to counter his brother's points. It was beyond infuriating, Rhaegar thinking he knew his brother better than even his brother did.

It was doubly maddening when it turned out he was right.

"Whatever your thoughts on your visions or your prophecies, Rhaegar," Aelor ground out, changing back to the most vital subject, "I'm not going to stand by while you march our men into a trap, especially if you believe this trap will lead to your death. If you're dead set on dying, at least have the curtesy to not bring the rest of us down with you."

Rhaegar stood, walking to the window of the tower to look out over the driving downpour outside. The sound of the rain on steel, canvas and stone was a constant backdrop to all that was said, a sound Aelor normally found peaceful but after the last few weeks found it as more of an annoyance. Of course, everything is an annoyance nowadays. "We will win, Aelor. Rather, you will."

The Lord of Duskendale rolled his eyes in annoyance. "Let me guess, you've foreseen that too."

"No, I haven't, but I know you will. It only makes sense; everything else has fallen into place. The Seven gave me the vision when they did because it is necessary to the completion of the prophecy. A defeat would be detrimental that."

"You know how much stock I put in your prophecies, Rhaegar. If I'm going to march into a slaughter I need more than decades old ramblings and your dreams."

" We will not lose. All is in place, brother." Rhaegar sounded so utterly confident, so unwavering and adamant about what he was saying that Aelor almost found himself believing it.

The King was silent a moment, staring out the window. "Lyanna is pregnant."

Whatever small amount of understanding Aelor may have begun to garner, whatever peace he had started to make with Rhaegar, disappeared in an instant.

Aelor's chair screeched in protest before clattering to the ground as he nearly flew to his feet, reminding the Dragon of Duskendale of his reunion with his brother in King's Landing. It seemed years ago, though it was in truth only a few weeks. " Pregnant? The Stark girl? You still have her?"

Rhaegar didn't even bother to turn. "Of course I still have her."

"Where?"

"Dorne, in the Tower of Joy. The rest of my Kingsguard are with her. I request you give her a safe home in the capital after all of this is over."

Aelor stomped to his brother, grabbing Rhaegar by the shoulder and whirling him around, placing his face mere inches from the King's. To hell with calm reasoning. "You fucking fool! You kidnap the girl and have the black heartedness to-"

"I did not kidnap her," Rhaegar interrupted calmly, keeping his voice level while his brother raged. "Lyanna came with me, and she has provided me with one of the key parts of the prophecy. A Visenya."

Aelor couldn't keep the horror off of his face. "You don't mean…"

Rhaegar shrugged loose of his brother's shocked grasp. "Aegon the First had a Rhaenys and Visenya. Now so will Aegon the Sixth."

Aelor stumbled back against the wall. "You can't mean this, Rhaegar. You saw what our family's marriage customs have led to. Men like Maegor the Cruel, Aerion Brightflame, Aerys the Mad. It must stop. You can't mean for your own son and daughter-"

"I can and I do." Rhaegar returned to his seat. "Aegon will marry his sisters, and he will be the prince that is promised. That is my will." Rhaegar waved his hand as he took another sip of wine, so calm and collected that you wouldn't think he'd just predicted his death and ordered what was to happen years afterwards. "I will not here your complaints on the matter, Aelor. We march for the Green Fork, with or without you. We both know it will be with. Now go. There is much to prepare."

Though he had thought about it many times in anger, for the first time in his life Aelor Targaryen seriously considered killing his brother.

This is madness. He is no saner than our father. Aelor's hand started drifting down his side to the emerald dagger resting in his belt. Our dynasty cannot survive another Mad King, no matter how brief a rein it is foreseen to be. Before Aelor was fully aware of what he was doing, his hand had taken the daggers hilt, his arm-as if it had a mind of its own-unsheathing it halfway. Rhaegar was no longer paying any attention to the Prince, reading the parchments in front of him as if the Dragon of Duskendale was a five miles away instead of five feet. Barristan had left with the others on Rhaegar's orders, and Aelor was alone with the King. It would be so easy to walk over and slit his throat, to end this folly that could only end in catastrophic loss of life before it could progress to something so much worse than it already was. It would be the best course of action for the Seven Kingdoms, for Aegon, for Elia. Aelor pulled the dagger the rest of the way free, still unnoticed by his brother. I'll be hated, but I can live with that hate if it saves so many lives, can't I? Killing was nothing new; he was experienced at it, he was skilled at it, he enjoyed it. He could take this last life to save so many others, couldn't he?

In the end, it turned out he couldn't.

Aelor fled from the room, carried off without conscious thought, right hand full of bared steel. His mind raced even as his feet did the same, vaulting down the stairs, dagger frozen at the ready by his side. The Dragon of Duskendale stumbled out of the tower into the driving rain, paying no attention to the water soaking his silver hair and stinging his skin. I nearly killed my own brother. I nearly cut his throat. Aelor hit his knees, his hand instinctually going out in front of him to stop him from falling on his face amidst the mud and shit. While it succeeded in that, it also succeeded in biting into his other forearm, causing the Prince to roar out in pain as red blood mixed with colorless water to pour down his arm into the brown and black filth below.

Aelor stayed there for some time, hearing the shouts of men as they rushed to his side, the squelch of mud and slosh of puddled water filling his ears as they neared. He paid them no mind, head and eyes downcast as his silver hair clung to his forehead. I nearly killed my brother. A great pain, not of the physical nature-that he could handle-but of the much more scarring internal kind ripped through his numbed body as another thought hit him. I should have killed my brother. Of all the lives I have taken, I didn't have the guts to take the one that needed taking most. I'm a craven. A craven who has condemned us all to a bloody death.

Aelor lifted his head, letting the droplets of rain pound against his face and eyes as he stared into the sky, channeling his despair and pain into a glare at the grey and black overhead. His men were huddled around him, their questions and concerns buzzing like an incessant fly in the Dragon of Duskendale's ears, the feel of their hands on his shoulders and arms no more relevant than the piss he'd taken that morning.

There is a second Mad King on the throne, and I'm as powerless against this one as I was the first.

Aelor Targaryen had never been more ashamed of himself in his life.