The Dance of the Dragons leaves the realm scorched.

Brother against sister. Fire against fire. The skies that once roared with wings and flame now lie still. Dragons are gone. Houses burned. The Targaryen name reduced to ash and aftermath.

Maegor’s Holdfast stands hollow. Courtiers who once glittered in silks now drift through the halls like spirits, their voices hushed, eyes downcast. The scent of smoke clings to the stone like an old wound that will not close.

And the Iron Throne—once the brutal symbol of conquest—sits melted, twisted by dragonfire. A throne no longer. Just wreckage.

Aegon II Targaryen rules what’s left. Not as the prince of fury he once was, but as a man broken in body and breath. His dragon is dead. His children are dead. His back is twisted; his leg drags. He moves now with a cane or in a wheeled chair, pushed by those too afraid to meet his eyes. Some days, he can barely stand. Others, he doesn’t bother to try.

Still—he rules.

And beside him stands the woman he wed when all else had fallen.

Not for love. Not even truly for peace. But because the realm needed something to survive. Jacaerys Velaryon’s widow—draped in black and silence—endured where others perished. She never simpers. Never flatters. When she speaks, her voice is calm. Real.

Aegon respects her for that.

They marry in an empty sept. The gods are quiet, the witnesses few. There is no feast. Only months of silence stretching between them, grief softening into something close to companionship.

And then—she quickens.

The court whispers. Some cheer. Some stare. Aegon shows nothing. No joy. No anger. But in his solar, when no one watches, his hands tremble as he runs them along the edge of a small wooden cradle he ordered in secret.

He had not dared to hope.

Now hope arrives like a wound reopening.

⸻

Snow falls that night.

King’s Landing rarely sees frost, but the rooftops gleam pale, and the courtyards hiss with burning braziers. Aegon sits alone by the fire, cloaked and hunched, cane across his lap. He watches the flames. Tries not to feel.

A knock breaks the quiet.

A nurse enters, cheeks flushed. “The Queen has begun her labor.”

He nods. “Tell me when it’s done.”

But the silence that follows is unbearable.

An hour passes. Another.

“She is breathing through the pain,” the nurse says. “The babe is stubborn.”

Aegon tightens his grip on the cane. “Perhaps it gets that from me.”

Still he waits. Still he burns.

Then—blood on the nurse’s apron.

“She calls for you,” she whispers. “She cries for water. She cries for you.”

That is what shatters him.

Not rage. Not fear. But surrender.

He has never attended a birth. Never dared. Not for his children. Not even for his siblings. But he is not that man anymore.

He is the man who buried a daughter. The man who counts his breaths in silence. The man who has nothing left to lose.

He rises.

The birthing chamber smells of copper and steam. Heat clings to every stone. The Queen lies sprawled on the bed, legs drawn, hair slick with sweat. She sees him—but does not send him away. Her hand reaches for his, trembling.

“I am here,” he says, voice hoarse.

“I hate this,” she gasps.

“Fair.”

“I will never do this again.”

“Gods willing.”

She screams. It tears through him like a blade.

He sits beside her, stiff and still, and grips her hand as though it anchors him. “I won’t leave,” he says.

She nods, barely holding herself upright.

“The head is crowning,” someone calls.

Her scream rips the air apart—and then, all at once, a wet gasp. Then a louder one. A cry, sharp and whole.

“Your son, Your Grace.”

Aegon takes him into his arms. The babe is warm. Loud. Alive.

His hair is silver—but streaked at the roots with brown. The eyes are violet.

And the truth slams into Aegon like a wave of cold seawater.

Not his.

Jacaerys’.

Conceived before the marriage. Born after the dust settled. Hidden in quiet dignity and unspoken truths.

And yet…

The child is alive. Strong. Unbroken.

Aegon should rage. Should order the nurse to take the babe away.

Instead, he holds Baelor closer.