107 AC, Westeros, King's Landing.
The queen's bedchamber in Maegor's Holdfast was thick with the mingled smells of rust and herbs.
Queen Alicent Hightower lay quietly on bloodstained sheets, her chestnut curls soaked with sweat and clinging to her pale cheeks.
Her fingers clutched the bedpost, her knuckles white. Every contraction twisted her beautiful face.
"Push, Your Grace, he's almost out!" The midwife pressed her rough hands against the queen's swollen belly.
Candlelight cast wavering shadows across the walls. Outside the window, night shrouded the Red Keep, and the distant wash of waves in Blackwater Bay was faintly audible.
It was a sweltering summer night, yet far too many braziers burned in the room. The queen's father, Ser Otto Hightower, Hand of the King, had personally ordered it, saying they would keep her from catching a chill during childbirth.
Alicent bit down on her lower lip, forcing a scream back into her throat. This was her first child, but that did nothing to ease the pain. Fragmented thoughts flashed through her mind:
Her father Otto waiting outside the chamber, her husband Viserys probably laughing with a fool on the gallery, and that girl-
Rhaenyra, her ten-year-old stepdaughter, who must have been in her own room, nursing resentment toward the brother or sister about to be born.
"The head is out! I can see the head!"
The pain peaked, and Alicent's vision went black. She felt her body tearing apart, something breaking free of her flesh to enter the world. At the edges of her consciousness, she heard only the maids' hurried footsteps, the soft clink of porcelain bottles as the maester prepared moon tea, and the beastlike growls rising from her own throat, sounds no noblewoman should have made.
Then came a piercing rush of relief.
An infant's cry cut through the stifling room.
"It's a boy! The Seven be praised, a healthy boy!"
Alicent collapsed against the pillows, her chest heaving. Through her blurred vision, she saw the midwife lift the small, blood-covered life. In the candlelight, the baby's skin was pale purple, rapidly turning pink. His cries were loud and strong, his tiny hands flailing in the air.
"Let me see him." Alicent's voice was faint.
Wrapped in a soft woolen blanket, the baby was brought before her. Alicent gazed at his wrinkled little face, first noticing the sparse silver hair. Then, as she leaned closer, the infant slowly opened his eyes for a moment-
Purple.
Pure violet eyes, the hallmark of House Targaryen, watched her with an astonishing lucidity.
An inexplicable flutter passed through Alicent's heart.
Just moments earlier, outside the birthing chamber, Otto Hightower had stood before a stone-framed window, his hands clasped behind his back.
Though the Hand of the King was past forty, he still stood straight as a spear, his gray hair neatly combed back. He gazed down at the scattered lights of King's Landing, his ears catching every sound from the birthing chamber.
Footsteps came down the corridor. Otto knew who it was without turning-
Those familiar, light steps, touched with a hint of hesitation, belonged to only one person.
"Lord Hand," Alicent's personal maid, Talla, called softly. "The queen is still struggling, but the maester says it should be soon."
Otto turned, his sharp gaze sweeping over his daughter's most trusted maid. "Where is the king?"
"In the Godswood. His Grace said...
"That after praying to the Seven, he would pray to the Old Gods for the safety of the queen and her child." Talla lowered her head, her voice growing quieter. "With Princess Rhaenyra."
A faint sneer crossed Otto's lips.
Praying to the Old Gods? Since when had his friend Viserys Targaryen become so devout?
He was plainly finding an excuse to avoid this awkward occasion-
Otto's daughter was bearing him a child, while his daughter by the previous queen was drawing ever closer to marriageable age. That "kindhearted" king understood the delicate implications perfectly well.
"How has Princess Rhaenyra been lately?" Otto walked toward the hearth, its flames dancing in his gray eyes.
Talla chose her words carefully. "Her Highness studies history and the stars in the Library Tower every morning, then practices riding and the harp in the afternoon. She... she rarely mentions the queen's approaching delivery."
"But several weeks ago, she asked the king to place a Dragon Egg in the newborn's cradle." Otto's tone was flat, yet it sent a shiver through Talla.
"Yes, His Grace granted permission. The egg came from Dreamfyre, and its shell is golden yellow. It's the very one you led a party to demand from Prince Daemon, which the princess finally brought back..."
Otto fell silent for a moment. It was a clever move-
If the newborn was a girl, it was merely a sister's kindly gift;
If it was a boy, it was the future queen's "mark" upon a potential rival to her succession, a quiet declaration:
Look, even your gift came thanks to me. My position cannot be shaken.
Of course, the truth was that Otto was overthinking it. However lively and sensitive Rhaenyra's mind might have been, that "silly girl" would never have devised such a motive.
The ten-year-old "silly girl" had only made the suggestion because her father Viserys had asked her to, after discussing it that day with another of his friends, the Master of Laws, Earl Lyonel Strong.
Of course, our equally "meticulous" Ser Otto might never think of that in his entire life.
While Otto was still pondering, the hall door suddenly burst open. A young attendant rushed in, panting, and even forgot to bow.
"M-my lord! News from the Narrow Sea!"
Otto frowned. "Speak."
"Prince Daemon-he's stirring up trouble in the Stepstones again!" The attendant swallowed. "After taking Gallowsgrey, he declared that he would establish a kingdom of his own!
"And the Velaryon Fleet from Driftmark is still helping him fight the Kingdom of the Three Daughters."
The shadows on the wall swayed with the candlelight. Otto raised a hand to dismiss the attendant. Only after the hall door had closed again did he slowly release a breath.
"Daemon, Daemon Targaryen, my dear friend Viserys's brother," he murmured, his voice steeped in sarcasm. "You will never understand the meaning of caution."
Talla dared not respond. All of King's Landing knew that Daemon Targaryen-
The king's brother, former commander of the City Watch, briefly Master of Coin and Master of Laws-
Was trouble on two legs.
Two years earlier, the previous queen had delivered the king's heir, Prince Baelon, after a difficult labor, but the prince had tragically died in infancy. Yet Daemon, the king's own brother, had celebrated in a brothel, openly mocking the king's dead son Baelon as the "heir for a day."
King Viserys had immediately announced his intention to name his daughter Rhaenyra "Princess of Dragonstone," establishing her as his heir. Though she had yet to be formally invested, Daemon, who had always considered himself the heir because his brother had no son, had resented the decision. He had taken his mistress to Dragonstone and "given" her a Dragon Egg. The egg had later been recovered, and the king had ordered Daemon back to his lawful wife in Runestone.
But the "rogue prince" had still refused to behave. Just last year, with the support of the Earl of Driftmark, Corlys Velaryon, the "Sea Snake," he had attacked the Stepstones without permission and gone to war with the Kingdom of the Three Daughters, forcing the Iron Throne to intervene.
"Any other news?" Otto asked.
Talla hesitated. "Word from the Riverlands says Lord Tully's eldest son has grown more seriously ill, and his eldest grandson has already begun summoning the bannermen.
"Lady Jeyne Arryn of the Vale has refused another proposal of marriage, and the Vale's nobles are growing increasingly unruly.
"The North..."
"Enough." Otto raised a hand to stop her. The nobles of the Seven Kingdoms were forever scheming, arranging marriages, and fighting, but tonight, nothing mattered more than what was about to happen in the birthing chamber.
If it was a boy.
If it was a healthy boy with Targaryen features.
Then King Viserys's decision several years ago to name Rhaenyra his heir would face its most direct challenge.
The precedent established by the Great Council favored men, yet the king had placed his personal will above tradition.
Otto, too, had chosen to support Rhaenyra over Daemon Targaryen, but things were different now-
If his daughter Alicent bore a son, the entire kingdom would be watching:
Would the king cling to that willful decision, or follow centuries of law and precedent?
A sudden commotion rose from the birthing chamber, followed by an infant's loud cry.
Otto spun around.
The door opened, and the midwife poked her head out, her face beaming. "It's a prince! Mother and child are safe!"
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