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Jacaerys had never paid heed to the gossip that circulated court. He had spent his entire life in King’s Landing, and so had much experience of it. He had always preferred running around with his brother and uncles, and found even his aunt, Helaena, was greatly preferable to taking part in spreading the thorned remarks that echoed the halls of court.
Jacaerys had always chosen to approach them as his grandsire, King Viserys First of his Name did. To completely ignore them.
Unfortunately, the task had become egregiously difficult to bear. Jace hadn’t been bothered by Hightower gossipmongers running their mouths, for he saw them for what they were: a distraction.
Not until his mother’s fifth and twentieth nameday celebration, where his cousins and grandparents visited court, did he begin to feel a creeping chill crawl across his skin. His grandfather, Lord Corlys, always embraced them the same every time, with laughter and rough clasps on his and Luke’s backs, the same on Baela and Rhaena’s shoulders. He had a clear favourite in Luke, his heir, and whilst he greeted Jace, Baela and Rhaena jovially, there was no mistaking who held his greatest affections. His younger brother had that effect on everyone anyway, Jace thought, as he ran straight from behind their mother’s legs, into his grandsire’s arms from where he was flung around in a circle.
Rhaenys Targaryen arrived after that of her Lord Husband. The Queen That Never Was rode in on horseback, having left Meleys in the dragon pit. She greeted her daughter happily, beaming at the soft swell of his aunt’s belly before wrapping her arms around his twin cousins. She was even cordial with Daemon.
When she turned from her daughter’s family to him and his parents, Luke still in the arms of Lord Corlys, Jace froze. Her eyes dulled as she congratulated her parents too on the announcement of another pregnancy. And when she turned to greet him, there lacked the same light in her eyes. The warmth in her smile whilst embracing his cousins chilled when her gaze reached him.
Jace stepped backwards from his mother’s side into the chest of Ser Harwin, his mother’s leal sword. His grandmother’s eyes flashed, like the light reflecting off a sword, sharp as its blade.
The look had been incredibly brief, but Jace retreated unto himself for the rest of their visit. He spoke not once unless spoken to, by anyone, for the entire visit.
He hadn’t understood the looks then – from his grandmother, from the Hightowers, from those in court. He did now. He looked nothing like his parents. His flat, muddy hair and equally dull eyes were a stain, one which he desperately wished to be washed out. Luke’s hair was a darker Baratheon umber, eyes a mixture of brown and blue. His hair properly curled, short as it was and whilst not so much as his father or aunt’s hair, the first time they had met their aunt Laena, she had commented how they reminded her of Baela and Rhaena’s hair when they were but babes.
Grandsire Viserys and his mother had always said he looked like Aemma, his dearly departed grandmother. He had seen paintings of her, and once marvelled at their shared brow and cheekbones. At her silver hair and lilac eyes. The comparisons were wishful thinking now, for he could no longer bear to look at them for all he saw was how he did not measure up to the Targaryen he ought to be.
***
It reached a tipping point now that Joffrey had been born. After his mother’s labours had ended, she was no sooner dragging her body across the Red Keep to present her new-born babe to the demands of his step-grandmother (his mother refused to call Alicent Hightower ‘mother’ and had prohibited her children from calling her ‘grandmother’). Still shaking from the afterbirth, his mother had painstakingly pulled herself to the Queen’s private quarters, courtiers watching in horror.
Overhearing the whispers of the servants and his mother’s maids, as well as that of the guards in the training yard had been horrific. Even moreso was the flame of hatred in Ser Criston Cole’s eyes as he sent Aegon to pound into him again and again whilst they trained. He never hid his disdain for his mother or his family in his eyes like the rest of court. He hadn’t the practice and seemed not to care to gain any.
Maybe, Jace wondered, as Aegon came at him sword drawn, if he had been gifted with silver hair like his mother and siblings, and as his cousins too possessed, then maybe the whispers might stop.
But the rumours only continued to spread in the days following Ser Criston and Ser Harwin’s fight in the training yard. His mother coddled him for the injuries she had found on him after and fussed all throughout dinner. That night, he dreamed of green fire swelling through the boughs of a large castle, one he had never seen before. It flooded through the ancient walls, burning everything and everyone in its path. Jake woke with a jolt, sweat beading at his brow, hands clammy.
As he was led to break his fast in the nursery the next morn, a maid came and took them to their mother’s apartments instead. His Mother was distraught. For whatever reason, she did not tell them, and would clearly be waiting a time before she revealed what had upset her so. She clung to her sons desperately and kept to herself whilst they ate. She hardly spoke a word all morn.
His days soon filled with drilling against Aegon in the training yard at Ser Criston’s insistence. Ser Harwin had vanished from his usual spot overlooking training, to which Cole had taken clear advantage of. Lucerys and Aemond were consistently left to their own devices, sparring with each other and straw men and the occasional squire. They got away with anything and everything meanwhile day after day, Aegon chipped further away at Jace’s resolve with his stronger blows from the training sword.
All Jace could do was silently take the beatings delivered each day. No one was there to protect him or prevent him – who cared for a filthy blooded bastard boy, claiming far higher than his station? He was of less worth than the parlour maids, for all he saw. Of less worth than the whipping boys the Queen had abandoned in favour of hitting her children herself. Why shouldn’t the Queen’s sword shield and the real heir to his mother abuse him as they did? What had he done to deserve any protection?
Every evening as he watched the mud from the yard wash away under water, as he bathed in the nursery, he wondered what it was all for. What was the point in washing the filth away from his hands and knees? Would anyone truly notice if he didn’t?
Then in the following fortnight, he awoke to the sobs of his mother in the nursery. She clutched Joffrey tightly to her chest, gentle sobs reverberating through the room and wracking her pregnancy-weakened body.
Ser Harwin and his Father, the Hand of the King, Lord Lyonel Strong, were dead. Killed by a fire in Harrenhal, which took the lives of three servants besides.
Luke avoided the training yard that day for his grief, managing to pass by on claiming stomach ache. Jace was less fortunate and as he was passed between his uncles in training that day, all he could focus on was the smug flame in Ser Criston’s eyes, the uncovered glee pouring from his seams.
It was far from the only tragedy that week. The following evening, Jace accompanied Luke to bid their parents good night, and found them together in their chambers distraught. His Mother’s face was stony and tear-stained, Father sprawled across the floor. His sister, their aunt Laena, had passed away in the birthing bed.
They had hardly known their aunt outside of a couple uncommon visits and so did not mourn her as his parents did. Having so soon lost Ser Harwin, however, made putting on a face of grief that much easier. Especially as they set off to High Tide for the funeral.
Jacaerys was the only one who truly understood – Joffrey was but a few weeks old, and Luke still far too young to understand death at only six years of age. Both his parents were distraught, as there was none their father was closer to than his sister. Their had relied on Laena too, her only ally at court after marriage and the one who had gotten her through her first pregnancy. She had also provided friendship when the Queen had first betrayed her by marrying his grandsire.
They travelled on dragon back, as did Jace’s aunt and uncles. Rhaenyra took their two youngest with her on Syrax, Jace accompanying his father on Seasmoke who had become much more guarded and hostile since his last ride – mirroring the moods of his sides. His father and dragon were far from the only people being hostile, for Jace avoided his grandmother as much as he could before the actual funeral proceeded. He could not bear another thing on top of it all.
The funeral was dizzying. Numb with grief, Jace glanced up through thick lashes at Lady Laena’s coffin, ready to be returned to the sea. Velaryons Jace had never before met, gathered amongst Targaryens.
The Velaryon side of his family were a picture of open grief. Baela and Rhaena, his cousins, clung to their grandmother’s skirts and chest whilst Corlys stood grimly. His mother’s Uncle Daemon, Aunt Laena’s widower and father of her children stood stony cold to their side. His Mother echoed him in a way – her refusal to show emotion easily read by her son where it was not with Daemon.
Father on the other hand, was wracked with grief and was clear for anyone to see. His shoulders slumped eyes dark as his under-eyes. Shadows loomed within them, ready to descend and consume him whole.
Lord Corlys’ brother Vaemond Velaryon spoke the words of ceremony. At some point during the ceremony, Daemon let out a harsh laugh as their mother huddled them tighter, holding them as close to them as she could appropriately. Jace couldn’t reconcile later what it had been at, the words spoken having long blurred together as he spent his time concerned for his parents and festering in his jealousy. That they could mourn the Lady Laena’s death, at all. That they could do so in public, too, no less. Concern for his family collided with anger and grief for his own father – for he had dutifully accepted that he was a bastard, now, so far long into understanding the rumours at court. Eyes clouded with the array of blooming emotions he had scarcely before experienced, he glared intensely at the ground whilst the ceremony ended, and Lady Laena’s coffin slid into the sea.
The funeral ended, and they were left to mingle. His uncles and aunt descended upon the meeting point in their yards of green and whilst his gentle aunt sequestered herself away, a large smile cracked across Aegon’s previously bored face as he submerged into the small crowd, Aemond at his tail.
Not that Jace had noticed, his mother finding him at the wall, overlooking the sea edge. The sea crashed chaotically into the shore, unrelenting in its attack on the shore.
He hears her approaching before he sees her and turns around glumly.
“Have you seen your father?” His mother hardly looked at him at all, eyes flitting between guests before resting on her nieces, sat alone against a wall. “Your little cousins have lost their muña, they could use a kind word.” Her fingers carded through his hair, pulling the strands gently and flattening them to his nape.
“I’ve an equal claim to sympathy.” Jace sniped. “We should be at Harrenhal mourning Lord Lyonel and Ser Harwin.”
Rhaenyra twitched. “T’wood not be appropriate. The Velaryons are our kin, and the Strongs are not.” He could not look at his mother. The Strongs were kin – how could no one see so? They were closer kin than the Velaryons, who he’d only ever seen three times in his life.
“Look at me,” Mother scolded.
Jace ended up holding Baela’s hand as she grieved. Her hand, warm to the touch, gave him silent comfort, too. He flinched away from them not a few minutes later, however, when their grandmother Princess Rhaenys, joined them. He was pushed out, forced to watch once again. He watched as Princess Rhaenys cloaked her granddaughters in loving embraces and whispered small comforts into their ears. Held them and their darker skin, their rounded noses and High Valyrian cheekbones. He wondered if she might love him if he had the same silver-white curls as the twins. Maybe if he had been the second son and not heir, then she might at least tolerate his presence. She might at least look at him without poorly disguised bitterness if he had the same lilac eyes as his father…
His father couldn’t stand to be near anyone currently, as it was. As his Lord Grandsire yelled for Ser Qarl to retrieve Laenor Velaryon from the beach below, Jace wondered if his father would truly ever love him the way he did his sister. Why would someone love anyone they were forced to claim? He was absent enough the past years, likely avoiding the fate that were his three bastard sons.
The day left him exhausted. He had trooped through the ceremony but was falling apart during dinner in his father’s apartments that evening. Not that his mother nor father were present. It was solely Luke and Jace who ate dinner together than evening, the maids ensuring they had eaten and the soft coos at Joffrey with the wet nurse filling the room through the cracked open door into their sleeping quarters.
He awoke drowsy, hardly taking anything in. Baela was still shaking him awake as she frantically announced Vhagar had been stolen. All Jace could remember was following Luke and the twins out the door, grabbing the dagger from beneath his pillow that he had kept with him everywhere since Ser Harwin’s disappearance and death. Adrenalin pumped through him and made him overly alert, so he reacted but hardly took a thing in.
When they found Aemond the world came down, crashing and burning on their shoulders. Baela ended up punching Aemond for stealing her mother’s dragon on the eve of her funeral, for wearing green at the funeral, for having the cheek of the Hightowers and flaunting it in her home. Jace felt like he was falling, the moment the accusation “bastard” left Aemond’s lips. A knife was pulled, a punch thrown, the crunch of a nose being broken.
A rock above his head. A rock coming towards him. Screaming.
Jace blearily opened his eyes to a dark lit room. His head was bursting at the seams, and he could not open his left eye, try as he might. Luke clutched his arm desperately, sobbing broken apologies to Aemond who was surrounded by two Maesters. Jace focused as much as he could with his open eye.
He then saw Baela and Rhaena, desperately clinging to each other and then to their grandparents as they arrived. Grandsire, the new Lord Hand and the Queen all stood behind Aemond and Aegon, hiding behind the Master and their mother.
His own mother then arrived. But not with their father.
It was Uncle Daemon who followed Mother into the mêlée.
Shouting soon echoed in the chambers, accusations, screams of frustration and of denial.
“He called us bastards.”
Why would he say that? What on earth possessed him to say such a thing? Why should Aemond lose an eye for seeing the obvious? Despite all his mother defended, Lord Corlys protected, and his royal grandsire ignored, it was clear for any eyes (or eye) to see that they were not of Laenor Velaryon’s blood.
There was a flurry of movement and the Queen’s sworn shield – Jace’s bully before anyone else, edged towards them as Alicent pulled a dagger from her husband’s gowns.
Luke’s screams woke him from his stupor and for the first time, Jace was truly afraid of the woman. His mother held her back from her children. None else would protect them, they knew their true worth; nothing. Only Ser Harrold and the Kings Guard moved to protect them. And Daemon. Where was Laenor? He wanted his father. His father would help, for he knew war and could help them whilst their mother defended them, protected Luke from this madwoman…
Rhaenyra stoically wrestled Alicent with his grandsire’s knife in her hand. She didn’t so much as flinch and Jace could only wish he could say the same thing for himself one day. Defending his family, his mother, and brothers so fiercely.
Orders and words echoed through his head, but despite his daze he saw Ser Criston ready himself to pounce. No – he would not get to Luke too – he could have him injured and maimed as many times over as he wished. Not Luke, just not Luke. Luke, who was still innocent to the world. Luke who was not hardened by the world, who was not burdened by the truth that was their parentage, and who would never be, if he could help it.
Jace and Daemon started towards Ser Criston at the same time, but Daemon was faster and headed him off. But also set off Queen Alicent: and so Jace kept moving, without a single thought processing what was happening.
His mother and Alicent broke apart as Alicent aimed true, the Valyrian steel blade falling true. Mother fell backwards into him and Lord Corlys, and he continued falling as his mother was caught by her good-father. As blood dripped down his mother’s arm from the treasonous injury Alicent Hightower had just inflicted upon the Heir of the Iron Throne, none noticed as Jace’s head smashed into stone the second time that eve.
He finally fell into darkness.
Only after his true grandsire had left did Ser Harrold see the boy sprawled in a small heap behind his mother.
***
Jace woke to an agonising headache on the morrow. His fingers clumsily sliding across the numerous stitches at his temple and forehead. His fingers come away free of blood. What on earth did he need stitches for?
He wasn’t sure where he was, the lull of waves against the shores, the salt lingering in the air… Driftmark?
He surges up from the warmth and safety of the bed in which he lay, hoping to soothe his scratching throat with a drink. The first thing he notices when his eyes brush over a mirror-glass is his hair. Just behind his ears, ruffled and uncovered from rough sleep, silver-white curls growing from out of his scalp. When he fingers at the small, irregular tufts of white, they don’t dissolve. They don’t disappear. They move, with his fingers.
It is all he has ever wanted, to look like his parents. To not stick out like a sore thumb. Shamefully, to not be a Strong. At least by appearance. For his hair to be growing silver now… why?
And as he regrets his prayers to the Fourteen for his white hair, the previous night’s memories wash over him and he is hit by the truth of the day. And he spirals into an abyss of never-ending anxiety.
Why become silver-haired now? Now the accusations, the truths have been voiced by a Prince of the Realm. Now that the heir has been injured, because of him. Because of what he said: he had snitched. He had been the one to tell his mother.
And then he truly sees it – no wonder he could barely open his eye yesterday evening. The eyes staring back at him are unfamiliar. They’ve changed, the left iris having melted into the rest of his eye, as white as the rest all apart from a blotting of bright indigo. Shaped just as the stitching on his temple. It is once more, all too much. And as he hears the fall of feet approaching the door, he falls into a long fitful sleep.
He wakes up again to someone’s hand in his, stroking the top of it gently. Its dark outside, the curtains still open. A gentle breeze floods the room. It is his mother, he realises when he musters the energy to finally pry his eyelids apart. She’s collapsed into his side, head on his lap whilst tears slide down her face from her closed eyes.
Her arm is stitched up where the Green Queen had sliced through the thin flesh with his grandsire’s Valyrian steel blade. Its ugly and jarring on her porcelain skin, bare to the world as her sleeves have likely been raised so as to not aggravate the wound.
She appears silently distraught, red eyes, normally firm grip loose. She is collapsed into him, he is her rock. She has nothing left in her to be what she always has been, the support for her sons and husband. He may be a child of eight years, but he is not blind to his mother’s behaviour. She may not wear her emotions on her face, but its more visible in her body, in her hands, in her spine.
She looks up at him after a long while, eyes rimmed red. “Jace,” she croaks out. “Your Father-“
The door to the chamber opens and Luke bolts inside, coming at his mother and elder brother. Tears and snot stream down the six-year-old’s face, high pitched keens escaping his chapped lips as his mother embraces him too.
Jace is still hardly awake, and thus taking everything in slowly. The door now open, he can hear echoing cries of a distraught woman. Begging ‘it’ to not be true, begging for her son to be safe. Dread fills his stomach. The cries are unmistakably that of Princess Rhaenys. So…
Jace sat in steely silence as a tear slid down his face. “Muña…” his voice cracking as reality dawned on him.
Father, the one person who never lied to him, who never concealed anything from him. The one who stuck with bastard sons for children and who had shown them love and kindness they did naught to deserve. For how could they deserve it when they were not of his blood?
None on earth deserved the kindness that Ser Laenor Velaryon had gifted him and his brother throughout their lives. None whatsoever. Certainly not them themselves.
And they wouldn’t have it in the future. For he had gone. He was gone. He was gone forever.
The next morn when he awoke – not really the morn, as he rose past midday – he awoke alone. His stitches in his head felt swollen, or maybe it was just his whole head? He avoided looking in the mirror as he washed himself for the funeral in the evening, for mother had told them it would take place last night through tears and hushing Luke into a hiccupping sleep. It was a relief, washing away the sticky, clammy layer of sweat that clung to his body ever since he had been made bed ridden. The water was scorching, just as he liked it.
They were never able to have it at such a temperature in King’s Landing, but so far from the influence of the Queen and Maesters of the Citadel, it was a much-needed comfort of being on Driftmark. Another jab at his mother, the rules in King’s Landing were, to show her what little power she had.
No power over how poorly her sons were taught to fight, nor over the temperature of her own baths.
Such abuse of power also did not reach Dragonstone, which ensured their flaunting their freedom whenever they were there each year. Maester Gerardys had said how he cared little for what the Maesters of Oldtown babbled on about when they had last seen him, during his mother’s pregnancy with Joffrey. Those in the Red Keep were especially stern about not flouncing the rules during pregnancy, whilst Gerardys encouraged it. They were the blood of the dragon and thus should be allowed to warm their children as they did their eggs whereupon a clutch had been laid.
He had tied his hair out of the way to bathe, but after clambering out, let the ends of his curls dance on the tops of his shoulders. His skin was still damp slightly as he shrugged on a loose navy shirt and pitch black velvet doublet, silver seahorses and Vermax embroidered up the sides and around the button holes. His clothing clung to his skin for a moment but had begun to dry by the time he tugged on his trousers, socks and boots.
Finally, he knew he would have to reapply the ointment and cream the Maester had prescribed for him for his wound when he had been first stitched up. But applying it properly would entail looking at himself. Looking at the dreaded silver-white hairs bleeding through the brown. At his mutilated iris.
He sat down in front of the mirror as fast as he could, busying himself with opening and preparing the creams to delay the inevitable as long as possible.
His breath caught when he finally looked up from his lap. The pot of cream fell from his hand and hit the stone beneath him with a ‘crack!’ before rolling away, spilling its contents as it went. He stared at his reflection. Then closed his eyes and rubbed at them again and again before reopening them and staring once more. His deep brown hair, all of it, was silver-white.
He pulled at it madly, tugging out a strand to attempt to consolidate what he had always known with what on earth had happened, what on earth was happening. Then he saw his eyes – his left eye looked almost the same as it had the last time he had gazed upon his reflection, though a light violet ringed around the white of his iris. His right eye, too now, was a range of shades of violet, indigo encapsulating it all.
He laughed a cruel laugh at his eyes, especially – one being the same colour as his Father’s, despite all that had been said of him never having sired them in the previous days. Despite his mother’s almost confirmation of Ser Harwin being their true sire, the sire of three bastards.
A knocking of knuckles rapped on the outside of his door, being pushed open before permission might be asked or granted.
“Jace?” Luke’s voice followed his lithe body inside. “Are you okay? Mother said your concussion mightn’t’ve- “
His eyes finally took in Jace with his hands clutching at his scalp and shrieked, calling for his mother before Jace could shut him up.
“Muña!”
Jace tried running at him but started too fast and so his head exploded in pain, causing him to half crash into a startled Luke. He was right then, a concussion still possibly sustained. Taking advantage of his position, however, he covered his younger brother’s mouth to prevent him from calling out again.
It did nought, as Luke licked his hand until he pulled it away in disgust, wiping it upon his shirt sleeve. He reiterated the call for his mother again, tacking on a call for their Lord Grandsire on the end.
The door slammed open as Mother and grandsire came to the doorway, slowing to a standstill before ever breaching the room. His mother’s face was still puffy from the onslaught of tears the previous night, Lord Corlys hosted heavy, dragging bags under his eyes. A large, white-toothed grin cracked across his Lord Grandsire’s face as his mother rushed at him, burying her face in his shoulder and pulled him into a fierce hug in relief.
Corlys' grin had broken down into full-bellied laughs by the time Jace removed his face from the crux of his mother’s neck.
“Look at you! The spitting image of my good-father! Laenor’s eye, too!” He guffawed.
Jace blinked through tears as his grandsire pulled them and Luke into a bone crushing hug, not so mindful of Luke’s bandaged broken nose as he ought to have. He refused to let any of them free from his grasp for a good few minutes, leaving his mother to clutch at his silver-white hair, watching as it shone in the midday sun.
“You look much more like my Muña, darling.” She whispered into his ear, low enough that only he could hear.
Maybe he did now – they’d have to return to King’s Landing for Jace to be properly compared and stand next to the portrait of her in the halls. He hardly knew what he looked like, currently, with his changed eyes and hair, the stitches on his temple marring his pale freckled skin.
As soon as his grandsire let go, he and Luke immediately disappeared into the castle in search of Princess Rhaenys. Whispering sweet nothings into his ears, his mother continued to grasp at her eldest son, desperately. She had lost so much recently, so much of her support system in the past fortnight, that this latest event had finally broken the dragon’s back.
She sat with him on his bed, fiddling with his white curls, plaiting them then undoing them dozens of times over. After twenty minutes spent basking in the glowing warmth of his mother’s love, she had to say goodbye. She ordered him to find her in a half hour, after she had finished overseeing Joffrey’s midday feeding. He was still so young; and yet the melodrama of the last few sennights, Jace had lost track of time completely, and suddenly his youngest brother was almost a moon old.
Before the door could fully close, a hand caught it and nudged it back open. Jace shuffled on his bed, playing with his fingers and toes flexing with teetering nerves inside his black leather boots. His grandmother stepped inside, her deep umber hair striped with grey and white swaying behind her, half caught on her shoulder.
She came to him, sitting next to him on the bed and took a deep breath when he refused to raise his eyes to meet hers as they stared intently at him. When she made to clasp his hands in her own soft ones, he finally looked up at her. But only to her lips, avoiding her eyes directly still. She gasped instantly.
For the first time he could remember, her eyes softened when she looked at him. Gone was the steaming fury of dragon fire in her gaze at an attempted deceiving by her son and good-daughter. Gone was the disgust and contempt she usually flashed at him. Her eyes were in fact wet, glistening in the bright room, filled with the warm midday sun.
“You look a picture of mine dear father and sweet cousin. A perfect blend.” She tucked a strand of his curling hair behind his ear.
“Your grandsire will be most enamoured to see how much more you look like his beloved Aemma. But you do truly look a perfect cross of my father and her late majesty.”
His eyes widened as he took in her words. Her Father – Aemon – Jaehaerys’ first heir. His great grandsire by his father. By Laenor. And Aemma, the one member of house Targaryen that they all appeared to love unconditionally.
“This too happened to our dearest Aemma, you know,” she choked. “Her golden-brown Arryn locks grew silver by her tenth nameday. She had greatness ahead of her, in being your mother’s most trusted advisor upon ascending that gods-forsaken throne. Only it was cut off at the stem through her slaughter by the birthing bed which had already stunted her as a child.”
She took a deep breath before continuing.
“You will make a great king, one day, Jacaerys Velaryon. And whilst I may not be there to see it, know that as your grandmother, I will be with you every step of the way. As shall your mother, and father, and all those whom have and do love you. And as I shall be when we go face the vipers in our nest.”
She pressed her lips to his wound, before she gathered her dark skirts and rose from the bed, offering him her hand in support. She had clearly not forgiven the green regalia the Hightowers had worn to Laena’s funeral. And he knew above all else that there would be hell to pay if they dared repeat their misstep at his Father’s funeral that afternoon.
From the moment he left his room, there were stares. Jace and his grandmother slowly walked past his own Kingsguard and three of the Velaryon guards on their way through the hallway. They managed to startle each of them, as they realised whom it was his grandmother was escorting towards the centre of the apartments that his family had been temporarily roomed in. The guard at the door to the solar in their apartments took a double-take as they reach the door, though still opened the hulking oak slab with little delay.
Daemon laughed as soon as he saw him, open guffaws alerting the other inhabitants to his and his grandmother’s presence. Baela and Rhaena stared at him, open mouthed and dumbstruck. His grandsire sat with Alicent and Aemond on the lounge, both decked in green once again and his Lord Grandsire and Luke coming up from behind them at the table and made towards him to lead him to his chair.
Jace could not look up from the arm of Rhaenys and Luke as they lead him steadily to the wheeled seat opposite them. It had been brought in specially for him.
He felt his grandsire’s eyes on him the entire time he made towards his chair, his wisping hair and rotting face following him as his eyes bore into the body of his grandson, Aemma reborn.
He sat in the wheeled chair that would take him down to say one last goodbye to the man who raised him. As Alicent’s eyes burned into the side of his skull and Aemond’s eye wettened with jealousy upon seeing his father’s reaction, all Jace could do was stare. He may have further solidified an enemy in the Greens (how, when he had never thought it possible), but had gained staunch allies in his uncle, cousins, and grandmother. His grandmother especially, he was glad for, for he knew he could not have borne the weight of her ire on top of the searing grief his father’s death has now brought about.
And they were not the only allies they would gain – as soon as they would step foot back into King’s Landing, word of a silver-golden-haired first-born Targaryen heir would spill through the streets. It may be frantically mopped away by the ‘new’ Lord Hand, Ser Otto Hightower, but Jace knew it would do nothing as soon as he stepped foot ashore.
By turning silver-haired alone, he was affirming any allies previously lost to that of his mother’s cause. And he would only work to continue expanding their retinue of allies.