At that moment, Rhaenys's gaze passed over the beach, over the disheveled Daemon, over the livid Corlys, and finally settled on Aegon.
She looked at the eight-year-old boy riding the coal-black Cannibal, at his deep purple eyes so much like her own, and at the composure and authority that belied his age and stature.
Then her gaze softened a little.
First, she looked toward Rhaenyra, hovering in the air nearby. Syrax was still trembling slightly. The little golden she-dragon clearly had not quite recovered from her earlier fright.
Rhaenyra sat in her saddle, her hands still shaking a little around the grips, but fire had rekindled in her purple eyes-not from fear, but because Aegon had arrived.
As Rhaenys looked at her niece, a barely perceptible trace of apology flickered in her eyes.
Then she looked away, first glancing at Daemon, who hovered in the air with his shoulders raised and an innocent expression, then at the livid Corlys in a corner of the crowd.
How disgraceful. Two grown men, and her elders at that.
Ganging up on Rhaenyra, a girl who had only just come of age. They really had no shame. Utterly brazen.
She knew better than anyone what sort of man that wastrel Daemon was, yet her bastard of a husband, Corlys, had actually joined in.
And what about that fool of a son of mine, Laenor? It was bad enough that his father, Corlys, had goaded him into putting Viserys in his place, but he just had to target Rhaenyra-did he forget that his own mother was a Targaryen too?
And after bullying her and getting crushed in retaliation, he still had the nerve to cry? Serves him right. He had disgraced his own mother.
*She, Rhaenys Targaryen, was a Targaryen first and a Velaryon second,