Alicent's heart raced. She held Helaena tightly, her eyes fixed intently on Aegon. Though everything had thrown her into a panic, the moment had come to prove which of them mattered more to him: her or Rhaenyra. Hope and anxiety filled her gaze.
Rhaenyra was watching Aegon too. Her hands tightened slightly, her nails digging deep into her palms.
Daemon set down his wine cup and straightened, watching with interest this eldest nephew whom he had never quite managed to understand, and had even grown somewhat fond of.
But just as everyone held their breath, just as the eyes of both the Blacks and the Greens turned involuntarily toward him, just as they waited to see whether the little prince so beloved by both sides would ultimately stand with his mother or his sister-
Aegon moved.
He went neither toward his mother Alicent farther away nor toward his sister Rhaenyra beside him.
He stepped onto the armrest at the edge of his chair and, step by steady step, climbed onto the long dining table.
A child still more than a month shy of his fourth birthday stood atop the towering table. It should have been a ridiculous sight. Yet no one could laugh.
The last rays of sunset fell through the stained-glass windows, landing squarely on him. He wore formal clothes in the traditional Targaryen black and red. His silver-gold hair gleamed in the sunlight, and his purple eyes held none of a child's immaturity, only a composure and authority far beyond his years.
Those were not the eyes of a four-year-old.
They were the eyes of a king.
"Alyn."
Aegon's voice was quiet, yet it carried clearly throughout the silent hall.
"Here!"
Alyn Celtigar reacted at once. Taking a cloak prepared in advance from the attendant behind him, he