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She sees Vaemond fall and reaches for Helaena before anything else, moving her body to shield her daughter.
Blood of my blood, she thinks, her face still turned away. Kin to my children. She thinks of Jacaerys and Lucerys and Joffrey, thinks of how many will die to shield Strong’s bastard sons from the consequences of their birth. Born from lust, from sin. It sickens her to think of it, to think of somebody subjecting themselves to—to—
Then Viserys collapses. “My love,” she calls him, as she always does. It does not feel false as she says it, but it always does after, once she is alone. He is led away, carried more than walking under his own power, and she stands on the steps of the Iron Throne and watches him go. It has been a long and slow decline, but…quick, too, somehow, as though she awoke one day to him bedridden and her regent in all but name. If Rhaenyra did not hide from the accusing eyes in King’s Landing, she would be regent, as would be proper for a king’s heir. Once, her father had turned to her and said, “It is like she does not wish to be queen. Does she think that if she cuts out enough tongues when she is queen, no one will say what they need only eyes to know? If she wishes the succession to run smooth, she should be here now, sitting the Iron Throne, so people may grow used to seeing a woman sit upon it.” She had said nothing in response, but she had known why. Even now, Rhaenyra was treated by Viserys as though she is his only surviving child, beloved to him above all others, as though all the love he still feels for he and Aemma’s dead children had been given to Rhaenyra and now he looks upon his other living children and does not recognise them. Once, he had called Rhaenyra his only daughter and Helaena had asked, confused, what that made her and Viserys had yelled and Helaena had cried, which had only made Viserys yell more until Helaena had fled the room. Aemond had clutched his knife like it was a dagger and, fearful that Viserys would see, she had told him that Helaena meant nothing by it, that she never did, and he had turned on her, as she had hoped he would.
She motions sharply to Aemond and he herds Helaena from the throne room, placing his body between her and Vaemond, cut in two on the throne room floor. Aegon follows them and she him. Otto stays. Otto will do whatever needs doing—if Viserys does not love his children, their grandfather does. He will know why she goes.
Helaena she leaves with Aemond, who always calms her, but she keeps Aegon with her. If she must, she will keep him with her or her father or Aemond until this—until this sickness abates. She has tried and tried and tried and failed every time, just as her father and Ser Criston have tried and tried and tried and failed every time. (Viserys simply turned away until he was too sick to try, as though he had preferred himself to sicken than look his eldest son in the face.) All she can do is pray that it will abate and so she prays and prays and prays, prays to the Father, the Mother, the Smith, the Maid, the Crone—to any who might change Aegon’s heart.
She adjusts Aemond’s cuffs, then how his tunic sits before standing back and nodding with approval. She is lucky. Not all children are blessings, but most of hers are. When Aegon had been born, she had looked at the babe held to the wet nurse's breast and thought, I could hate him. I could hate every one of them I bring into this world. She had decided, then, to love them, for she did not think she could live with looking upon her children with hate. They had not chosen to be born. Viserys had done that, and her father too.
Smiling at Aemond as best she can, she taps her collarbones gently to try and calm herself. It’s alright, she thinks. It’s alright. Aemond is strong now, sent to them by the Warrior himself. When the Stranger takes the king, it will not be Aegon they will look to for protection from the blacks and their allies, but Aemond. For a moment, she sees the body in the throne room in her mind's eyes, except it is not brave Vaemond, but Aemond laying there.
Do not turn your back on your uncle, she almost says to him, though Aemond rarely turns his back on anyone anymore, not without someone there to guard it. Ser Criston has taught him well, honed him to a fine point. Men had tsked that he would never be a swordsman, after Lucerys took his eye. (After the Strong boy took his eye, she thinks. She could not speak the truth aloud, not even in a whisper, but she could think it. Stranger take Viserys, and Rhaenyra too, she could think it.) Ser Criston had scoffed at such things. “If he wishes to be a warrior still,” Ser Criston had said to her. “I will not rest until it is so.” And he had not. No, he had not.
“I will protect you, mother,” Aemond says. He is young still, but he does not have the look of youth. He left childhood behind a long time ago. Perhaps he had even left it behind on Driftmark, where he looked at the world with only one eye and saw it all the clearer for it.
“I know you will, my love.” She cups his face in his hands. She means the words this time.
She is moved by Viserys’s speech, except in the ways that she is not. He does not seek unity or peace for peace’s sake. His claim to love will not move Aegon or Aemond, may in truth only make their resentment burn hotter. What is a father’s love worth if the child does not feel it? Even with all her father has done, she loves him and has never doubted that he loves her. His love, his ambition—these are not separate things. He had wanted her to be queen, because he has always wanted the best for her and he could see no better future for his daughter than to be Viserys’ queen. She is not sure what Viserys wants from their children, only that she and they have not provided it.
She considers reminding him that their youngest is not here, but that would perhaps be unwise. Even when he was not half so sick as now, he had sometimes forgotten about Daeron, so far away in Oldtown. Daeron is a wonderful and dedicated correspondent but when she reads Viserys his letters, he often complains that he does not know or care about this boy she speaks of. Mostly, she does not resent it, especially now, as the Stranger grows ever closer.
It is Rhaenyra’s speech that truly moves her. These years have been harder than she had once believed it possible for life to be. In spite of everything, she cares for Viserys as best she can. Nobody but Rhaenyra herself could have done better and even that was only by virtue of what she was to Viserys, not through any fault of Alicent’s own.
She tells Rhaenyra that she will be a good queen and she means it as she says it, but she knows the feeling will not last. Good, bad, she is not sure it will matter. Once, she had heard a stable hand say that a woman sitting upon the Iron Throne will be like watching a pig try to sit astride a horse. A farce or a tragedy, she had wondered and then known the truth—both, it would be both. Men would laugh and then they would die. “What if she bleeds on it?” The other man had said and they had laughed and laughed.
“All who have ever sat the Iron Throne have bleed upon it, my sons,” Alicent’s septa had told them. The men had jumped and blushed and stammered and then fled. Alicent and Septa Ilna were of an age, the other woman a third daughter of the Lannisters of Lannisport. If Alicent had not known Rhaenyra, she would think Ilna the most beautiful woman she has ever had the grace to look upon. Her hair had been golden in her youth, but years under a habit had turned it a dark blonde.
She likes Ilna very much. She thinks of her sometimes when she lays in bed at night as she squeezes her thighs together and feels—feels—
It does not matter what she feels. She will not give it a name. She will not give it that power.
She thinks of Ilna now and of Rhaenyra and for a moment it is the same feeling. If they were closer, she would reach out and take Rhaenyra’s hand in hers, just as she does with Ilna, but Viserys is between them.
They all smile and they all laugh and it is easy, but it cannot last. It does not last. Did you not see what happened to Vaemond? she wants to scream, but all she says is Aemond’s name and it is usually enough.
The Strong boys are not their father’s sons and this surprises her, a little. They are not warriors. Aegon is no warrior either, but he is a brawler and Lucerys still only 14. Aemond and Jacaerys are of an age and yet Jacaerys looks a boy next to Aemond and his punch does not even spill Aemond’s drink. It takes no more than a shove to send the boy, and he has here revealed himself a boy, to the floor. Daemon steps between them and Aemond walks away.
After, she takes Rhaenyra’s hand in her own and grasps her arm. Is this the one with the old scar? she thinks. It is, it must be. She has not felt this close to Rhaenyra since before they stood under a heart tree and Rhaenyra swore upon Aemma and then lied.
“I’ll return on dragonback,” Rhaenyra says.
She wants to ask Rhaenyra if she remembers the plans Rhaenyra had once shared with her—that they would ride on dragonback together and explore the free cities and eat only cake. She has rode on dragonback only once in her life, at the behest of Aemond only weeks after he had lost his eye. He had pleaded and begged and she had expected Vhager to reject her, this oldest living dragon and his new rider, but the old dragon had flown gently for her and when she had climbed off, the ground spinning beneath her, Vhager had nudged her gently with her snout, as though to reassure her. She was the oldest and largest dragon still living, Aemond had told her this many times by that point, but Alicent had thought it would be hard to look into Vhager’s eyes and not know she has seen things you do not and cannot know.
If Rhaenyra asks her now, she would go flying with her. She does not think she would enjoy it any more than she had the first time, but Rhaenyra would not know it. Pretending was something she is good at. Viserys had never noticed whether she smiled true or false. Rhaenyra would not either, she is sure of it.