Chapter Text
Present
Alicent imagines the histories will say it ended in Fire and Blood, as is the way of war between Targaryens.
Such a claim would not be an outright lie, she will concede. Castles have burned, armies reduced to ash. The Riverlands, she hears, have been set aflame, the final act of her ghastly second son before he too met his own fiery fate.
And Alicent has seen the blood herself. Heads on spikes and hanged bodies swinging from the castle’s walls— first loyal Blacks, then Greens, then Blacks again. The blood spilt has indeed felt endless, enough to flood Blackwater Bay and lap at the walls of the Red Keep, a never-ending tide of viscous red.
And so, Fire and Blood, many will say.
But in truth, it ends with a poisoned chalice.
That is how the last of Alicent’s children meets his end. Aegon dies quietly and suddenly, and so too does any claim to the Iron Throne.
Some serving girls find him in his chambers at first light, and their screams are loud enough to rouse all of Maegor’s Holdfast.
Alicent finds herself a bit numb to the commotion. Perhaps it comes from an intimate familiarity with death and mourning. She had shed tears for the babes, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera both. And she had sobbed for Helaena, cried till her throat bled raw. So perhaps, she reasons, she simply has no more tears of grief to spare.
Or perhaps it is different with sons. News of Aemond’s death had come by raven not a fortnight past, and all she’d felt was hollowness. Her two terrible sons, now gone forever.
They hadn’t always been terrible.
Aegon had been a loud and insolent child, though always quick to laugh. Aemond had been quieter, slow to walk and slow to speak, yet stubbornly determined to see things through. They had been helpless little things, soft and yet unspoiled by the world. And perhaps by Alicent herself.
Then they had grown into men— worse, into alphas.
Alicent watches the servants carry out her son’s bedding, stained with vomit and spilt wine and the pus of his ever-festering burns, and wonders if Aegon would have mourned her death with tears.
Alicent remembers when King Jaehaerys had died. The bells of the city had tolled from dawn till dusk, the streets filled with mourners of the Old King. Alicent had been little older than a babe, then, but she remembers the sea of flowers that covered the streets, from the Red Keep all the way to Visenya’s Hill.
The bells had not tolled for her husband— he had been left to rot in his chambers for days on end whilst they’d plotted their next moves in secrecy. Aegon’s coronation could not wait for a public mourning, not when Viserys’ declared heir sat waiting on her seat, just a short flight across the Blackwater.
The bells do not toll for her son, either.
“The remaining Westerlands forces passed through the city gates just after dawn,” Her cousin Ormund paces the length of the small council chamber with a heavy limp. He had fallen in battle near Tumbleton, suffering wounds that have since rendered him unable to ride to battle. “They brought with them enough grain to see us through another moon.”
“And what good will grain do? The king is dead, and his heirs before him!” Lord Tyland protests. “And we have yet to find the culprit.”
The room goes silent. Alicent imagines suspicion roils amongst the five of them. The death of a king brings both some to gain and some to lose for those who play their cards right.
But it matters not, she thinks. Her son is dead, and it all has come to an end.
Maester Orwyle clears his throat. “There is word that Rhaenyra now marches on King’s Landing, with a host of the remaining Riverland and Northern armies. It is expected that the Knights of Vale will join them where the River Road meets the Kingsroad."
“It is done, then,” Tyland surmises. “We should open the gates and wave our flags of surrender, and hope for a show of mercy. Her men will outnumber what remains of ours, ten-to-one.”
Unwin Peake snorts loudly. “We have the boy as our prisoner, still,” he points out. “The war is not yet lost. And the False Queen’s dragon is maimed, her uncle and his dragon now slain. That means she marches on foot upon King’s Landing, but they have no dragons to seize the city. One man inside a castle is worth a hundred outside its walls.”
“And what is the cost?” Tyland asks. “We have her son to barter, yes, and we may force a siege. But we have no one to put upon the throne, and word will soon spread of the King’s murder. We must concede.”
Alicent wonders if there would be any mourners in the streets, if the bells tolled for her son. It is a foolish thought, in truth, for they have all seen the riots and bloodshed the past year has wrought. The smallfolk despise them all, no matter who sits upon the throne.
Still, she finds herself imagining flowers in the streets.
“It needn’t be a Targaryen,” Ormund speaks, holding his chin up high.
Alicent has always thought her cousin rather foolish. A bit too proud, too audacious.
“Those who have rallied toward His Grace’s cause raise both Targaryen and Hightower banners alike. His Grace has no more brothers or sons, but he has loyal cousins and uncles who share his blood—”
“The realm knelt to the Targaryens and their dragons,” Tyland interrupts. “No sooner would you put yourself on that throne than each of the Seven Kingdoms would rebel.”
“The realm bowed to dragons they no longer have. Rhaenyra’s beast can no longer take flight,” Ormund counters. “Gods willing, it’ll be dead in a week’s time.”
“Whatever the case may be, the city will not survive a siege for longer than a moon,” Maester Orwyle says. “There must be a truce, if we do not wish to starve. I suggest we write the terms of our peace.”
Ormund sighs. “We still have the boy’s life yet to bargain.”
“A marriage alliance, perhaps,” Unwin says. “The boy is her last remaining heir. He should be wed to a house loyal to King Aegon.”
Alicent would laugh, if she were able to any longer. Lord Peake, she recalls, has four young daughters of his own. One is guaranteed to present suitably in due time, in accordance with whatever the boy’s own presentation may be.
“Why not have him wed to King Aegon’s own blood? I have a daughter of six summers,” Ormund says, suddenly more eager. “She will make a fine queen in time.”
“There is no way to predict the boy’s presentation. And lest it not be forgotten that Valyrians are well known for their unusual presentations,” Tyland points out. “Rhaenyra remains young enough still, she may yet remarry. If the boy is an omega, and Rhaenyra sires a new heir, then you will have bargained for nothing.”
“The False Queen herself, then,” Ormund says. “If she is to sit my nephew’s throne, let us force upon her the indignity of a bride of our choosing. A Hightower bride.”
His words echo.
Her cousin has no sisters, no young omega cousins. There are some distant relations, she supposes, those who bear their house name but have never even seen the highest floors of the Hightower.
But Alicent knows whom he suggests, and she feels all eyes fall upon her at last.
Truly the greatest indignity of them all, she thinks.
“You believe she will accept such terms?” Tyland asks quietly, after a moment of prolonged silence.
“If she wishes to see her son alive, not hanged from the walls of the Keep, or starved like the rest of us in a moon’s time,” Ormund declares. “We can demand, in exchange for bloodless surrender of the city and the return of her son, that she wed the Dowager Queen, and declare that her son, if presentations permit, shall be wed to my daughter in time. If the boy is an omega, any future heirs she sires shall still be of Hightower blood regardless. This war has not yet ended, and it will not be deemed a defeat so long as these terms prevail.”
But Alicent knows that it has already ended. It ended with that poisoned chalice. Two decades of strife, reduced to nothing with a single sip.
“Send our terms, Grand Maester,” she whispers. There is an ache of a memory, twisting inside her chest with long-forgotten shame. “And let us be done with it all. If she will have me, I will wed the Queen.”
Past
Rhaenyra finds her in the Godswood, her steps quiet as she approaches. But Alicent is well-trained to the sound, even if she has not heard it in many weeks. She doesn’t look up at first, worried if she does she might spook the princess, like a timid doe in an open field.
It is only when the footsteps come to a stop, the sun above her snuffed out by shadow, that she dares to glance up.
“Rhaenyra,” she greets, closing her book with shaking hands.
Alicent has hoped for this moment, prayed for it, but she knows not what to say.
Rhaenyra stands above her for a moment more, her face twisted into that pained look of betrayal she has worn since the announcement.
“I’ve had much time to think,” Rhaenyra eventually says— her first words to Alicent in weeks. She sits beside Alicent on the blanket, just as they’d done for so many years.
“You have,” Alicent repeats cautiously.
“I am angry with you still, more angry than I can even—” Rhaenyra exhales sharply, looking off into the distance. “But it needn’t be this way.”
Alicent knew her father’s schemes would likely cost her her most dearest friendship. She had cried over it, in the moons prior. And then she had made peace with it, as best she could.
A friendship with the princess is worth far less than a marriage to the king, her father had so wisely and callously reasoned.
She is frightened to let herself hope she may yet have both.
“What do you mean?” She whispers.
Rhaenyra turns to face her once more. Her eyes are softer now, her lips quivering. She reaches for Alicent’s hands.
“Come with me.”
“What?”
“Come with me, Alicent,” Rhaenyra urges softly, but her eyes flicker frantically around them. “Do not marry my father. We can take Syrax and fly to somewhere in Essos. We’ll take some of our jewels, and for it we’ll have enough gold that we shall want for nothing, all our lives.”
“You’re mad,” Alicent gasps, trying half-heartedly to tug her hands free. But Rhaenyra does not relent.
“Perhaps,” Rhaenyra concedes. “I— I should hate you, but I do not. I love you, Alicent.”
Her chest burns. Alicent shakes her head. How much has she dreamt of this? Dreaded it? “You do not mean—”
“I do. I am in love with you, and I want you to come with me. Please. I know I cannot give you children, or a marriage before the Seven, or even a crown or titles. But I love you, and I think… I think you love me as well,” Rhaenyra whispers, her eyes wet with tears. Intense and hopeful. “We can be happy.”
When Alicent was a girl not yet grown, still unburdened by the harsh truths of the world, she had longed to hear such words. She had imagined it, that Rhaenyra may present as an alpha, and she and omega— or even the other way round, if it needed to be so. In any event, they would be together.
But that is not the truth of things. Alicent is an omega, and she will wed Viserys in three moons’ time. Rhaenyra is a beta, and to wish for anything beyond friendship is a fantasy.
Rhaenyra, ever stubborn and selfish, still lives in that childish fantasy.
“No,” Alicent shakes her head. She bites the inside of her cheek, tasting blood. She cannot run off like a spoilt child, abandoning all duties and leaving her Father and Viserys to such scandal and humiliation.
Rhaenyra only tightens her grip. “Please, I know it is frightening,” she implores. Alicent looks away, so as not to see the hope still remaining upon the princess’s face. “It is for me as well, but I cannot bear the pain of what would happen if we stay. Please, Alicent. You feel the same for me, I know you do.”
Alicent thinks of all their years of friendship. She has always indulged Rhaenyra, giving in too easily to her wishes and her whims.
The closeness between them has long been more intimate than Alicent knows is natural. Never outright indecent, but she knows Rhaenyra’s foolish confidence in this moment is borne of shared breaths in the darkness of night, skirting fingers along collarbones. Lingering looks when bathing, tender embraces that last a beat too long.
Alicent had allowed it to be so, against all her better judgment, weakened by Rhaenyra’s intoxicating charm.
But this is the end.
Alicent has a duty, one that rises above her heart’s desires. She looks Rhaenyra in the eyes to deliver the piercing blow.
“I do not love you, Rhaenyra,” she says, quiet and firm. Her own conviction surprises her, but perhaps it shouldn’t. Alicent has always been the better liar between them.
Rhaenyra shakes her head stubbornly. “You do not mean that. You cannot.”
An anger overtakes her, then. Why must Rhaenyra make it so difficult for them both? Why must she utter what was always meant to stay a silent understanding between them? Why must she be so hopeful, so selfish and spoilt?
This is the way of the world, whether Rhaenyra accepts it or not.
“I do,” Alicent says. Her teeth grind together as her stomach turns unpleasantly. “I love His Grace. I’m afraid you’ve misread the friendship between us for something grossly depraved.”
Rhaenyra drops her hands. They feel cold almost immediately.
There is a blazing fire in Rhaenyra’s eyes, something more hateful than Alicent has ever seen. Not even when she stood across the room from her friend, watching the King announce their betrothal.
Rhaenyra has always had a bad temper to her when she believes herself wronged. She seldom forgives.
This is the end, and Alicent knows it.
Rhaenyra stands, looming large above her. Alicent cannot look up for what she knows will be the lance to her heart.
“You are either a coward and a liar, Alicent Hightower, or you have been the cruelest and most cunning snake of them all. Either way, there will come a day when you live to feel regret.”
Present
The reply comes just three days later.
The Queen’s armies will reach the city within the week. The gates will open upon their arrival, and all banners of golden dragons shall be stripped from the castle’s walls. There will be no fire, no blood.
Alicent is to wed the Queen.
The bells toll at last for the death of her son.
She sits in a tub on the morning of Rhaenyra’s expected arrival, allowing the tepid water to tickle the underside of her chin.
It is not as if she hasn’t thought about it before— simply lowering her head, and letting the water blur the world above her into swirls of indistinguishable light. Then nothing.
She thought about it most after the death of her sweet daughter. Alicent had never understood her, had never entirely enjoyed being her mother, in truth. But she had loved her with a fierceness that ripped away a piece of her with Helaena’s death.
The water reaches her lips, bitter from the scented oils.
Alicent never can bring herself to attempt such an end. She doesn’t know if it is a strength or a weakness.
She dresses herself, shooing away the scant few handmaidens that remain. The Red Keep is filled with soldiers, but devoid of those who once occupied its halls— not only courtiers, but handmaidens and serving boys as well. Many of them found their heads cleaved off when the castle changed its colors.
Those that remain, the clever few who held neutral through the changes, are hardly faces Alicent likes to trust.
So she dresses herself, a dress of plain black. Not for her new betrothed’s faction, but the color of mourning. The sight of green makes her stomach turn.
She combs her own hair, fastens her own laces as best she can with the aid of a mirror, and selects her own jewels.
She hardly looks like a queen when she finishes, but Alicent doesn’t know what she is, anymore. She has held many titles in the year past. Dowager Queen. Prisoner. The Queen in Chains. Traitor. Martyr.
Alicent thinks she’d like to be just a lady again.
Instead, she’ll be the Queen Consort once more.
She looks in on the boy before leaving the Holdfast, if only to make certain some rogue has not slipped past with a knife in the name of King Aegon II, to finish off Rhaenyra’s last son and doom them all.
The boy is alive and awake, settling into his new rooms in preparation for his mother’s arrival. He has two handmaidens to help him dress, one smoothing out the fabric of his cape, and the other dabbing powder anxiously at the dark circles beneath the boy’s haunted eyes.
Rhaenyra had named her only properly trueborn son Aegon, a slight that had added kindling to their ever-growing flames of mutual hatred.
Named after the Conqueror, Rhaenyra had declared, but Alicent had thought different. Her own Aegon, by then four-and-ten, was already pinching serving girls and drowning in wine. Rhaenyra was so clearly taunting her with it, Alicent was convinced, showing her that she would raise a more worthy son befitting the Conqueror’s name.
Rhaenyra’s Aegon is now a quiet little thing, pale as a ghost. Six summers by now, though timid and slight enough to be mistaken for younger. Hardly the image of the Conqueror, she thinks.
So unlike his two elder brothers, too, both tall and bronzed. Gallant, even in youth. Both dead, swallowed up by the seas in Velaryon farewells.
“She won’t like that,” Alicent finds herself saying aloud.
Both handmaidens freeze. Aegon hardly glances at her, turning his gaze to his feet.
“The powder,” Alicent elaborates. It does little to disguise the dark crescents of ill-sleep upon the boy’s alabaster skin, especially from the keen eyes of a mother. “She may think it an attempt to disguise mistreatment. Wipe it off at once."
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Rhaenyra rides in on a horse, flanked to her right by Lord Cregan Stark and to her left by the young Lord Kermit Tully.
The raven bringing word of Aemond and Prince Daemon’s death had been brief, but Alicent had gleaned that the Battle Above the God’s Eye had been a savage one. She expects Rhaenyra to bear some evidence of it, but she looks— she looks just as Alicent remembers, from before she left for the Riverlands.
Lilac eyes cold and dull. Silver hair braided tightly back. Armor as black as coal. The Conciliator’s crown gleaming gold, the only warmth of color upon her.
Unscathed in body, though not in spirit.
Alicent does wonder, for just a moment, if Rhaenyra will truly honor the terms of their peace. The city gates are open, Rhaenyra’s men flood the streets, and here they stand, the last of Aegon’s council, at the mercy of their new queen.
She could have them seized, if she so chooses. All the diplomacy and honor of war had ended swiftly in the skies above Storm’s End, then was made into a mockery within Helaena’s bedchambers.
And after all, Rhaenyra seldom forgives.
But Rhaenyra ignores them all.
She dismounts without ceremony and kneels before her last son, cradling him against the cold steel of her armor.
She looks like a woman sapped of strength, who knows the fighting has long since ended.
The war has ended, and peace has returned once more.
But there is still a heavy tension throughout the castle, one that Alicent is certain spreads throughout King’s Landing and the rest of the realm. Not a single soul dares to exhale too loudly, even as familiar red dragons on fields of black are hoisted up once more.
The peace is still tenuous, awaiting something more tangible to seal it. A marriage should do the trick, Alicent thinks.
She has not allowed herself to dwell on the matter.
She has remained within her chambers since Rhaenyra’s arrival, keeping to herself as the castle completes its change of guard. She lights five candles on the ledge of her window, watching them flicker with the breeze. She kneels before them at one point, but cannot bring herself to utter any words of prayer— just names.
Aegon, Helaena, and Aemond.
Jaehaerys and Jaehaera.
The wind snuffs them out half a dozen times. She could move them to somewhere safer, she knows, farther away from any errant breeze.
She relights them instead, watching and waiting.
A crisp knock sounds in the early evening hours.
Rhaenyra enters her chambers alone, brisk steps and averted eyes.
“My Hand advises that we should wed as soon as time will permit, whilst there remain many to bear witness. Envoys from the Stormlands will arrive by week’s end,” the Queen delivers succinctly. Their first shared words in over a moon, since before Rhaenyra left for the Riverlands and the castle fell once more to Aegon’s forces.
Rhaenyra stops by the window, her back to Alicent.
“Your Hand?” Alicent questions. “Lord Corlys, has he—”
“He is dead,” Rhaenyra interrupts, still facing the window. “Lord Stark has accepted the position for the time being.”
“The Sept was badly damaged in the riots,” Alicent replies, recalling the smoking ruins. “It will need time for repairs, as the Royal Sept is too small to host—”
“It will be done in the throne room,” Rhaenyra says.
Alicent shakes her head with a bitter smile. Even the Gods will not grace their union.
She studies her old friend’s profile, the tension in her sharp jaw and the shadows beneath her eyes, not unlike that of her remaining son. Rhaenyra does not look at her still.
It should not surprise her. Rhaenyra has always shied from her duties, refused to face them with the stoic resolve required of her station.
“You will need to look at me when we take our vows,” Alicent says, letting her bitterness bleed into her tone.
Rhaenyra turns to her abruptly, lip curled in disgust. “Do not patronize me. I am well aware of what is needed to see this peace through. I will carry out what is required of me, no matter how despicably you have schemed to grasp a personal victory from the throes of defeat.”
“You think this arrangement only unpleasant for yourself?” Alicent scoffs. “You think I would wish for this? Do you think this is a kindness for me, after what has come of my children?”
Did you kill him? She wishes to ask. They have all had a part to play in the deaths that burden them— Alicent will not deny that. But she needs to know if Aemond died by Rhaenyra’s hand.
Only, she isn’t certain she’ll be able to live with the answer.
She watches the candles flicker.
“This marriage is a mercy for you,” Rhaenyra says coldly. Where once she spoke with fire, both passion and rage, now it is frigid and defeated. “It was you who once begged me for this, did you not?”
Alicent bristles at the reminder. She had once all but prostrated herself before the then-princess, suffering humiliation and rejection.
“As if you did not once plead so desperately for the same,” she whispers, the heat of indignation and shame burning once more in her chest. Regret, perhaps.
There will come a day when you live to feel regret.
Rhaenyra clenches her jaw and looks away. “It was a different time.”
“It was,” Alicent echoes. A lifetime ago, in the Godswood.
It seems quite fitting, Alicent thinks, that it ends as it began.
Past
Her father looks visibly distraught when he enters her chambers, not long past first light.
“Alicent, you must listen to me carefully,” he begins without pleasantries or pretext. He holds her shoulders beneath the weight of his hands. “The princess presented this past night, during the hour of the nightingale,” he murmurs, sounding urgent. “She is an alpha.”
The fog of sleep lingers, and Alicent wonders if this might be a dream.
It cannot be true.
“I— What?”
“Unusually late presenting, and a woman still, but an alpha nonetheless,” Otto says, his brow creased with deep grooves. “The maesters have confirmed it.”
“Rhaenyra is an alpha?” Alicent echoes, finding that her own voice sounds as pained as her father’s. She feels sickened, an angry turning in her empty stomach.
It cannot be true, not after these past moons.
“You must go to her, Alicent.”
Alicent recognizes the tone her father uses. It is more panicked now, laced with a sense of urgency, but she has heard it before, not long after the death of Queen Aemma.
I thought you might go to him, offer him comfort.
Rhaenyra is an alpha, and no claim of later children would now supersede hers.
“Father, I— I cannot,” she denies, swallowing back unexpected tears. “The wedding has long been announced,” she whispers, dropping the pretense her father has long retained.
“It will be a scandal, that is unavoidable,” Otto agrees. He gives her a knowing look. “But you and Rhaenyra have always shared a fondness, have you not?”
Alicent looks to her feet. Shame burns hot up her neck. She had always feared her father would notice the depths of her affection. He had never said anything about the matter, though, perhaps assured Alicent would never act upon it.
“You’ve long seen how His Grace coddles his daughter,” Otto continues. “He will cede to the princess’s wishes, just as he always does, if she is the one to demand the match.”
“I do not think she will demand it,” Alicent shakes her head. “After the betrothal was announced, Rhaenyra, she—”
She has to bite her lip to keep her composure. She cannot share Rhaenyra’s confession, nor her plea. She’ll never tell a single soul of it.
“I hurt her,” is all she manages, though it feels a gross understatement of the truth. She maimed them both.
“Seek forgiveness, then, my daughter,” Otto urges. He strokes her cheek. “The princess may have a temper, but she now finds herself invigorated with unfamiliar emotions and urges.”
His eyes drift to the pendant resting high on her sternum.
“You might… satisfy them for her, if it earns her affection once more.” He gives her an encouraging smile. Both calculated and gentle. “Make her claim you.”
Alicent wonders if this is punishment for her sins.
Though which sins, she is uncertain. Her years of unnatural affections, or her recent months of deceits and callousness. Perhaps it is both.
“Yes, Father.”
Alicent knows her duty. Her father has always made certain of it.
She dons one of her sheerer gowns, a gauzy fabric that sits low on her chest. Powder blue in color, because Rhaenyra always liked it best on her.
“My lady,” Ser Harrold stops her at Rhaenyra’s door, his gaze slightly troubled. “I do not think… Perhaps you’ve yet to hear, but the princess has—”
“—I know, Ser Harrold. But I’d like to see my friend,” she says, though it’s been months since she could truly call Rhaenyra her friend. “If you would tell Princess Rhaenyra that I wish to see her.”
Rhaenyra permits her entry.
For a moment, Alicent lets herself hope that it might mean something. Perhaps Rhaenyra will prove her wrong, will prove to be forgiving when all Alicent has ever known is the stubbornness that comes along with her hurt.
Such hope is far-fetched.
Rhaenyra is in a dressing gown still, yet to have changed into a dress for the day. Though, perhaps she means to wear trousers and a tunic now, Alicent suddenly thinks, conjuring an image of her once-friend in attire more similar to her dragon-riding leathers.
“Rhaenyra,” she breathes, taking in the princess in all her presented glory. The scent of her new status, the intensity in her eyes.
Rhaenyra looks her up and down silently, lingering on the cut of her dress. Her nostrils flare.
“I wondered when you might come to visit.”
Alicent swallows thickly, but steps forward nonetheless. She pushes out her scent tentatively, trying for a gentle smile.
It hurts, how badly she wants this. How badly she’s wanted it for years, now, yet how rotten it now feels to act upon it. It’s already ruined.
“Did you?” She asks gently. “I would have come to you sooner, if I knew you’d let me in. I’ve missed y—”
“—I wondered how long it would take for you to come with your scheming.”
Rhaenyra has a temper when she thinks herself wronged, and she seldom forgives.
“Rhaenyra,” Alicent murmurs, pleading. It isn’t fair. Rhaenyra wanted her when she could not have her. She forced Alicent’s hand, truly, into delivering such a cruel rejection. “I am not here to scheme. I am here because of my— because of my fondness for you, and because I thought you might desire some comfort.”
“Your fondness,” Rhaenyra laughs bitterly. She crosses her arms. “That is why you visit my chambers dressed like so. You did the same with my father, did you not? How many nights did you give him comfort, my lady?”
Alicent blinks rapidly, looking away.
She thinks of Viserys in his chambers, how they still smelled of the late Queen —of Rhaenyra’s beloved mother— when Alicent began her visits.
“I did so on my father’s bidding,” she says. “What I feel for you comes from my own heart, Rhaenyra. I know you believe it possible to live outside the rules of this world, but when we spoke— when you asked me to come with you—” Alicent presses the back of her hand to her mouth, swallowing the threat of a sob. “I could not accept it, don’t you see?”
Rhaenyra’s eyes remain cold, though their glassiness betrays her turmoil.
“That was but a silly child’s dream, Rhaenyra. But if your feelings were true,” Alicent continues, pushing on through her friend’s coldness. She must do this, must at least attempt it. For her father, and for herself. “Then it needn’t be a dream any longer.”
Rhaenyra only glares. “Am I not depraved?”
“I did not mean it,” Alicent whispers.
“But you did!” Rhaenyra exclaims, throwing her hands in the air. “Still, you do your father’s bidding!” She shakes her head rapidly, her lips curled into a hateful snarl. “That is what this is, and you cannot deny it,” she gestures between them. “I see you as you are, now, Alicent. You are not here for me, nor any false affections you claim to hold. Your blackened heart knows only ambition.”
It helps, Alicent thinks, that she knew better than to hope in earnest for salvation.
She did wish for it, though.
Rhaenyra turns away. “It is over. Tell your father he lost, and then leave me be.”
This is the end.