High Tide, Chapter 60: Truth Sets You Free

Eighth Moon, 120 AC

Jacaerys

A few days after the Triunification ceremony, Jace sat down with his family for a meeting. Just the six of them, Corlys and Viserra Velaryon and their four children and the plots they engaged in to shape the world as they desired.

“We are quite fortunate that it seems everything has gone according to plan,” Jace began. “The Triarchy has been established exactly according to the borders that I drew out and the Targaryens did not interfere. I hear that Daemon, Gael, and Jaehaerys are still busy pacifying Dorne and likely will be for many years to come. Rhaenys and her son were busy with the Iron Islands right up until the Triunification ceremony itself. It must have been quite the surprise for them to return to King’s Landing to hear about it.”

“And you’re absolutely certain that our Conches’ activities were not detected in the Iron Islands?” his father asked.

“Positive,” Jace reassured. “Lady Mysaria reported to me personally when she returned a few months ago. Their getaway was clean and their activities were all masked by the extent of the violence that followed. Some may suspect our involvement, but there is no evidence, I have ordered that all our official documents in relation to that incident be destroyed. Without evidence, it did not happen effectively.”

His mother nodded. “The next few years will be of vital importance. Now that the Triarchy has been established, if the Dance wasn’t certain before, it is now. My elder siblings are angry with me, as always, but I do not believe they will move against us any more than they have already. We have been forbidden under threat of the severest of penalties from expanding again without permission. Seeing as we have no plans to do so until after the Dance at least, I don’t think that’s a problem.”

Jace shook his head.

“That being said, my siblings are not young and once they die, the new power in House Targaryen will be Rhaenys. Any rationality or reason she once had with regards to us appears to have gone. She hasn’t fully grasped the notion of war or started properly planning for it, but she now seems to believe that the threat of force is a necessity to make us fall in line and we all know that would be a prelude to war. The Dance comes closer I’m afraid. We have ten, maybe fifteen years at most before Rhaenys is Queen and throws us into war. We should pray for Aemon’s health because if anything unexpected happens, war may come even sooner than that.”

Jace balled his fingers up into a fist on his armrests. He had always had a neutral view of Uncle Aemon but he’d respected him a lot. It was ominous to hear he and to a lesser extent Uncle Baelon and Aunt Alyssa were all that stood between his house and the start of the deadliest war they would ever face.

He decided to bring up something that had been bothering him for a while. “Mother, Father, I’m worried about my son, Corlys.”

“What’s wrong with my namesake?” his father said curiously.

“Nothing wrong with him, he’s perfectly healthy and happy it’s just… he doesn’t have a dragon Father. He’s more than four years old and the egg that was laid in his cradle still hasn’t hatched, it probably won’t at this point. He’s been complaining to me about it, especially after Rhaelle’s Krythax hatched earlier this year. Of course he’s just upset that all his siblings and cousins have dragons and he doesn’t, he feels left out.”

“But you’re worried for other reasons,” his mother noted.

“Yes. Corlys is the oldest and the heir. He will almost certainly take part in the Dance on the frontlines. He needs a large dragon that can protect him in the midst of all that carnage and he can only get a large dragon if his egg hatches soon. I’m thinking of maybe just giving him an egg from storage until one hatches if I have to but Corlys must have a dragon,” Jace said.

His father shook his head. “That’s likely to stress out the eggs and upset your son if they still don’t hatch. I also don’t think we actually have that many eggs from Dreamfyre at the moment but rather from the other dragons like Tessarion or Moondancer and we don’t know if their offspring would grow as fast as Dreamfyre’s have been observed to be. I have another suggestion. Why not Sheepstealer?”

Jace raised an eyebrow. “Sheepstealer?”

“You are aware I am sure that there are three dragons who roam freely on Dragonstone? The Cannibal, Sheepstealer, and Grey Ghost. The Cannibal would be suicide to try and claim but I have been pondering for the past few years if Sheepstealer and Grey Ghost are not good options for us if any of the children’s eggs don’t hatch. They often hunt in our lands and I’ve been increasing the amount of sheep-rearing and fishing in our lands to try and lure them to spend more time in our lands and it has been working. Sightings of both dragons on Driftmark and in the Hook have increased drastically, especially for Sheepstealer as Grey Ghost remains elusive.”

Jace held up his hands to stop his father. “I’m sorry, but are you suggesting my son try and claim Sheepstealer or Grey Ghost? They’re wild dragons. They have killed would be riders before!”

“Technically Grey Ghost hasn’t but Grey Ghost is so elusive it’s unlikely we’ll be able to get him anyway. In any case Jace, none of Sheepstealer’s attempted riders had the purity of blood or training that Corlys does. They were peasants on Dragonstone. Trust me, if your son follows the method I’ve come up with, it’s very likely he will be able to claim Sheepstealer for his own. Even your mother agrees.”

Jace turned to his mother and she nodded. “Your father’s plan is quite ingenious. Sheepstealer already spends a lot of time on Driftmark so once Corlys is old enough, he can come and feed him a sheep every day for a few weeks until Sheepstealer becomes comfortable enough with him to let him ride. I can have Dreamfyre nearby to supervise the entire time.”

Jace didn’t want to admit it but the idea did have merit. Still the idea of his tiny four-year-old son taming a massive dragon gave him a heart attack just to even imagine. He said as much to his parents.

“Obviously I’m not suggesting he tries now Jace,” his father reassured him. “But maybe when he’s ten or more he can give it a try. Think about it logically Jace. Sheepstealer is massive, the dragon would be larger than any we have in the family except your mother’s Dreamfyre. Your son would go from being dragonless to having a dragon larger than everyone else in the family except his grandmother. It would be an enormous long-term asset and benefit not just for the family as a whole but for your son and his position as your heir.”

Jace nodded reluctantly. “I’ll still hatch some dragons once the pit in Myr is built though. In case Corlys wants an easier dragon to tame or in case any of the younger ones need spare dragons or dragons that started growing before they were born.”

“That’s a good idea Jace,” his mother said.

“I know Sheepstealer would help our family enormously in the Dance though. We need as many large dragons as we can get frankly. We’re still massively outnumbered and the Targaryens have larger and stronger dragons. The idea of facing Vhagar or Vermithor and Caraxes on the battlefield is terrifying but my son claiming a large dragon and facing them himself is even more terrifying even though I know that he’ll likely be old enough to fight, he will want to fight and I won’t be able to stop him if I want to give our family the best chance to survive. I just hate that I have to raise him for war,” Jace confessed.

His father looked grim. “With what your mother has reported about the health and age of her siblings and Rhaenys’ desire to rein us in, we should probably double our preparations. Intensify our training and planning, continue our research into magic and the glass candles. I’ll speak to our engineers and see if they can’t refine the armor and wingsuits further. Once Corlys and the others are old enough, we’ll bring them in on the plan and start training them intensively as well. We will get through this Jace.”

“Is our life only to be training and preparing for the Dance?” Laena said bitterly.

The rest of them turned to look at her. Beside her, Daeron looked nervous. “Father,” Daeron began. “Laena and I were hoping that we might take… a break so to speak. Take our girls and go see the world. The Dawn Treader is still moored in the harbor of Tyrosh and she’s never truly had a maiden voyage.”

Father sighed. “You just heard that the Dance approaches closer and we need to step up our preparations and now the two of you are asking for a break? Daeron I thought we all agreed that it was too risky for you to go on your voyages.”

“I know Father but –“ Daeron’s response was cut off by Laena.

“I asked him to ask Father,” she interjected. “Because this isn’t living. Yes, the Dance approaches and yes we need to prepare, we need to intensify our training and planning but if that’s all we are doing with our lives, there’s no point in our surviving the Dance to begin with.

“We all know that some of us are not going to live to see the other side of the Dance whether we win or lose. I don’t want my last memories, our last memories of each other dominated by these endless strategy meetings and tireless training and preparation. Life is about so much more than just preparing for war and we need to remember what it is we’re fighting for.”

Their father looked thoughtful. He and their mother shared a look before his father turned to him. “What do you think Jace?”

He looked at his younger siblings, saw the tiredness in their eyes and the fatigue in their bodies and he knew that they had a point. They had been running themselves ragged preparing and planning but life was so much more than those things and there was little point in winning the war if there was no joy left in their lives. What were they even fighting for at that point?

“I think they have a point. But we have to make sure to balance our own desires to dream and live with the importance of the preparations for our family to even live into the next decade. Are voyages themselves a necessity?” he asked Laena.

She shook her head. “Nay that is just Daeron’s dream. I simply desire more to our lives than endless preparation and planning.”

Jace nodded, an idea coming to mind. “We can do more, as a family. Things that will remind us to live and not just survive. And I will need you and Daeron in the Triarchy a little longer to help us stabilize it but once that is done, I don’t see why you can’t take some time off to do some voyages.”

At Daeron’s excited glance, Jace took care to impose his conditions. “You have to bring glass candles with you and you have to check back in with me on a daily basis. And you can’t go too far either. The Sunset Sea is off limits obviously and unless you’re going to the North or Braavos, the Shivering Sea is too. In the Summer Sea you may go as far east as Viserria, no further. There are some matters you can see too in Corlantis, Velos, and Viserria on behalf of the family while you’re in the region to help oversee and develop the colonies and you can also increase our influence in the Summer Islands if you visit. That acceptable to you Daeron?”

“It is,” his younger brother said with an eager nod.

“You’re not the only ones who have come to this realization. I’ve come to my own. It’s time to tell Baela and Rhaena the truth, maybe we should have from the start.”

There was alarm on Luke’s face and their parents’ when he said that. Jace just smiled wryly. “Baela’s all but weaseled it out of me already. She’s a smart woman and everything surrounding the Triunification made her seem to clue in on it all. I’ve already promised to tell her the truth, and I will be, no matter the consequences it has for my relationship with her. It can’t be hidden anymore and it’s not strategic to hide something so important from one of our key dragonriders anyway.”

“Jace… are you sure about this? What if they leak it to the Targaryens?” his mother asked him.

He shook his head. “They kept the secrets of Gogossos. They’ll keep this one too, no matter how much they might come to hate us. It’s just too much in their own interests and that of the children.”

Jace turned to his twin who had become deathly pale and nervous. He knew that he was scared to tell Rhaena, as he was to tell Baela, but it felt oddly freeing and liberating to finally endeavor to tell them. “You should join me when I tell Baela. Bring Rhaena as well. We’ll do it together.”

His brother nodded mutely.

________________________________________

Baela

It was afternoon when Jace and Luke sat them down in a private room, with grim and serious looks on their faces. They had had a hearty luncheon together with the whole family and after that their husbands had taken them aside for this private conversation.

Rhaena looked uncertain, intermingling the fingers of her hands together on the table. Baela knew she had had her suspicions just as she herself had but Rhaena had preferred not to dwell on them, thinking it would only complicate everything and ruin the peaceful life she desired.

Baela couldn’t do that, she had obsessed and pondered and driven herself half mad wondering what Jace and the other Velaryons were planning, what they were hiding from her. It had hurt her more than she was willing to admit. She was a member of House Velaryon too wasn’t she? Hadn’t she proved her loyalty and service in Gogossos or this latest Triunification War? She shook the thoughts away. Jace was finally going to tell her and she’d hear him out at least. But the despondent and heavy look on his face almost made her regret making him tell her. Almost.

Jace nervously tapped his fingers on the desk. “Where to even begin?”

“The convenient other problems the Targaryens had that distracted them while we took the Triarchy,” Baela answered for him. “Did you plan those?”

Jace exhaled heavily. “Dorne no. That was all the Targaryens’ doing. All we did was anticipate and predict the timing of the Targaryens’ invasion of Dorne and make our own plans accordingly, but we have had zero involvement in Dorne.”

“And the Iron Islands?” Baela pressed.

Rhaena remained suspiciously silent while Luke’s nervous eyes flicked between the three other people at the table.

Jace sighed. “They were a wildfire barrel ready to blow at any moment. We just had the Conches ensure they blew exactly when we wanted them to.”

Baela had suspected of course but having it confirmed was a whole other level of unsettling horror. “And you used glass candles to coordinate it across such vast distances. Of course. Objectively it was a masterful stroke of intrigue and deception that allowed House Velaryon to take the Triarchy. My question is… why?”

“You know why,” Jace said simply.

“No I don’t Jace. Was it because of your ambitions? Your lust for power? Your never ceasing hunger for more and more that the Targaryens fear so much? Why? It’s an act of treason Jace. It’s an act of war. If it ever gets out even Uncle Aemon wouldn’t hesitate to attack us so why? Why would you do something so stupid and endanger our children, endanger all of us!?” Baela’s voice was cracking with desperation by the last sentence.

Luke spoke up for the first time then, answering in his brother’s place as Jace sank deeper into stone-faced melancholy. “It is the opinion of House Velaryon that war with the Targaryens is an imminent inevitability anyway so we should not restrain ourselves from taking steps that will strengthen and secure us as we prepare for said war. Taking the Triarchy was all part of the plan to secure our borders from any Essosi threats and strengthen our conventional power immensely so we are no longer so drastically outnumbered by the sheer amount of men and materiel Westeros has, which might overwhelm us if all the dragons on both sides are neutralized or otherwise occupied.”

Rhaena’s grip on her fingers tightened almost to the point they began to visibly shake. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But what do you mean; war with the Targaryens is inevitable?”

“House Velaryon and House Targaryen are caught in a Thucydides Trap,” Jace answered. “It’s a scenario in which the dominant power will seek to crush the rising power before it is surpassed, out of fear that the rising power will supplant and destroy them as soon as they are able.

“Ever since we took Gogossos, no honestly ever since our parents took Tyrosh, our two houses have been on a collision course as our interests diverged dramatically. House Velaryon became the rising power, growing stronger and no matter what was done, House Targaryen’s fear would only grow. With our failure to reconcile our diverging interests, eventually the time would come that not even ties of kinship could restrain their natural interests to rein us in any longer. When that time comes to pass, the most natural conclusion to our rivalry is war.”

“This all seems like a very pessimistic long-term prediction. What convinced you so strongly that war was inevitable and imminent?” Baela demanded.

“You remember what Aegon did don’t you? The ludicrous plan he gave to Daeron and Laena?” Jace asked.

Baela nodded darkly. Aegon was a dear and beloved cousin once but what he had done then had been unacceptable to her. He had tried to steal away a part of the inheritance of her son. She had never forgiven him for it.

“The very same day he did that, that Daeron and Laena fell out with him, our mother had a dragon dream where dragons of countless colors fought in the skies and a pale fortress with silver towers burned and fell into the sea. She had had a vision of dragons fighting dragons, of High Tide burning. It was very clear to us then that war was inevitable when Aegon came to the throne, at least. And in the years since we’ve realized it may come even sooner than that, when Rhaenys takes the throne. Inciting the rebellion in the Iron Islands, taking the Triarchy, it’s all just a tiny part of the planning and training we have been doing to prepare for when Rhaenys or Aegon take the throne and go to war with us,” Jace explained.

Baela nodded but she wasn’t sure what to even say or think. “So you’re telling us, that you have known or at the very least believed for five years that war with House Targaryen is inevitable?”

“That’s right,” Jace confirmed.

“And you’re only telling us this now?”

His expression fell. Rhaena snapped then, unable to take it any longer. She stormed out of the room, with Luke on her tail, desperately calling after her. Baela turned her attention back on her husband.

“When exactly did you find out about all this Jace?” she demanded.

His expression was downcast. “Since shortly after we returned from the Basilisk Isles. My parents and younger siblings came to Tyrosh to greet us unexpectedly remember? We were supposed to go to High Tide and report to them but they came to see us early. Ostensibly they wanted to make sure we were well after the chaos in Gogossos and they certainly did do that, but it was also because they needed us to know the stakes of the situation as soon as possible. I still remember it like it was yesterday, the day after our glorious return from the Basilisk Isles and Luke and I were being told that it was all for nothing, our actions might very well have sped up the approach of the next great crisis facing our family.”

“And whose idea was it to keep this from Rhaena and I Jace? Was it yours? Tell me!”

He shook his head. “Luke and I hated that we had to keep it from you both. We were sworn to secrecy by our parents. It was on their orders that we kept it from you.”

“Why!?” Baela demanded. “What is wrong with your parents? I kept the secrets of Gogossos didn’t I? I deflected all my family’s questions on what really happened there and what we really got from that cursed city. I fought and I risked my life for you and for our house and I still wasn’t trusted enough!? And you didn’t stand up for me against your parents? How much of a pedestal will you put them on Jace? You need to grow up and learn just like Rhaena and I did that our parents are not perfect and we have to live our own lives free of their biases and prejudices!

“There was a fear that it would leak Baela! You are close to your parents and your younger siblings, and five years ago our position was much worse than it is today. We were so badly outnumbered by the Targaryens and reeling from the realization that war was inevitable, we feared that if the slightest hint reached the Targaryens that we thought war was inevitable and were preparing for it, it would be our end.”

“And were you ever going to tell me? Or was I always going to be a potential leak that couldn’t be trusted?” Baela mocked.

“Eventually yes. We knew you had to learn about it eventually for the war plans to succeed. It wouldn’t be right to keep it from you forever anyway. Nonetheless our parents forbade us from actually telling you until…” Jace hesitated.

“Until what Jace?” Baela demanded.

Jace gulped. “Until you and Rhaena were bound to our house tangibly, by blood, and would keep the secret out of self-interest. The same way our mother had been. The same way all who marry into another house are inevitably.”

A horrible realization dawned on Baela then. “When I told you that I was pregnant with Corlys, you were crying. Was it because of this?”

Jace struggled to answer. “I… it was all so raw and fresh for me. You were so happy and I just felt guilty that I had gotten you involved in all of this. That I had dragged you into a future where you had to choose between your parents and siblings and your children. Exactly as you had told me you had always feared. I’m sorry Baela.”

Baela took a deep breath to calm herself down but found herself struggling with the task. “Did you know then? When Corlys was conceived? About any of this?”

A look of panic and fear appeared on Jace’s face. “No, no Baela I didn’t. I promise you, if my word still means anything to you at all, believe me when I say I didn’t. We only found out about Corlys, about everything, after we returned to Tyrosh. There’s no way we could have before. Those months we spent together after Gogossos before we returned here, they were some of the happiest in my life. I was with you, and we were together and on the same page, no secrets, no guilt tainting it. Our children were made from love, and only love, no matter what my parents wanted. Please believe that, if nothing else.”

“And yet you still kept this secret from me. You weaponized my love for you, my love for our children, to draw me onto your side in a war against my own family!”

“A defensive war Baela! We’re not going to attack the Targaryens tomorrow or burn King’s Landing or anything! For five years Luke and I have made sure to veto any kind of surprise attack or assassination plot that would directly harm House Targaryen, and there have been so many of those proposed that have strategic value and could end the war before it even begins. We did all that because of you and Rhaena, because we cared for you, because we knew that you would be hurt if we were responsible for the deaths of your family members.

“We even joined you in all the meetings you arranged with your family, tried eagerly to make it work. I agreed to name our son for your father, to try and make peace between us both. I spoke cordially with your parents and younger siblings even though we all hate each other. Everything that you have asked to try and make peace between us and the Targaryens, I have done, because deep down I hoped that it would work.”

Baela shook her head. “Not everything. Some things I asked you for you wouldn’t do. Like the plan to give my brother a Valyrian steel sword, what happened to that? It could have changed so much if it went through and yet it didn’t. No doubt because your parents thought it would be a waste to give Valyrian steel to a future enemy.

“Then there’s this whole nonsense with the Triarchy. It’s such an inane and blatant provocation to the Targaryens. And Luke already admitted why you did it. Because all along, deep down, your heart wasn’t really in it whenever I or Rhaena tried to fix things. You all believed war was inevitable and you were just humoring us while you continued with your plans to prepare for it. Don’t you see Jace that in the steps you take to prepare for war you make it inevitable through your own actions? You provoke the Targaryens on the path you take to prepare for their attack, it’s just a vicious and self-destructive cycle you are engaging in.”

“Baela,” Jace said seriously. “That is where our opinions diverge markedly. And I don’t blame you because even now you are trying to find a way to come out from this with everyone you love alive and well. The threshold was reached a long time ago and it took us decades to realize it. We’re only lucky because we realized it long before the Targaryens did. Aegon’s own actions and his every word proved that war was inevitable after what happened in Gogososs. We were too successful for our own good and no matter what we did the Targaryens’ anger and fear could no longer be placated from that point on.

“War is inevitable no matter what happens now. Perhaps in the steps we take to prepare for it, we may provoke it into happening sooner but it won’t change that it will happen. Everything that we have done, that I have done, it’s all to prepare our house, our children, for the worst-case scenario. Do you think I like knowing that I have to raise Corlys and Daemon for war so they even stand a chance to make it to twenty? That’s no kind of childhood for anyone and yet it’s the childhood I have no choice but to give them if I want them to live.”

She couldn’t truly blame Jace for what he had done, not when she thought about it rationally. But humans were not rational beings and Baela had always been one driven by her emotions. To her shock, she wasn’t as angry as she thought she would be. The anger was muted, deafened almost, because what she felt instead was a crippling feeling of betrayal and loss. Everything she thought was true wasn’t, and her worldview had been shattered forever.

“Do you know what hurts most Jace? It’s knowing that you didn’t trust me enough to tell me all of this years ago, that you believed in your parents and their stupid plan that you needed to ‘secure’ my allegiance to your house by binding me with our children. That you didn’t think that I’d follow you and fight with you after everything we went through together in Gogossos without a reassurance. It hurts that you didn’t believe in me, that you lied to me for five years,” Baela said, her voice full of pain and uncontrolled emotions.

Jace’s voice was full of anguish as he tried to reach out to her. “Baela…”

“No,” Baela denied him, holding up her hands. “I can’t. You might have had your reasons and logically I can understand them but it doesn’t change that you lied to me. You betrayed me, you kept something so important from me, you didn’t trust me to stay by your side, after everything we endured together, so you took steps to make sure I did. I know neither of us chose this marriage, but I thought that we had both chosen to accept it and find happiness in it of our own volition. You took my choice away from me. You forced me to stay instead of letting me choose to stay and no amount of rational logic or strategic reasoning is going to make me forgive that no matter how justified you think you may be.”

Jace was simply resigned. “It was never justified. My parents thought it was. I always knew it wasn’t. I knew years ago that I would lose you for this, for all that you might remain at my side for the sake of our children. It might be strategically logical and perfectly rational but there isn’t supposed to be logic and rationality in love, there’s supposed to be trust and I broke yours. And I’m sorry Baela. There’s nothing I can do that will make up for it but I will try, for the rest of our lives, if you’ll have me, I’ll try.”

Her head screamed at her to not let him hurt her again but her wounded and broken heart saw the despondent look on Jace’s face and took control instead. “You haven’t lost me Jace. But what’s broken can’t be truly restored to what it once was. We can try healing it nonetheless, but not now, not anytime soon. Right now I need time, to process the enormity of what you have revealed to me, the future that you seem to think is so inevitable.”

Jace nodded tightly. “Take all the time you need.”

Baela got up from the table and made to leave the room. As she was leaving however, Jace called out to her again. “Baela, I wish that things could have been simpler for us. That we could have had a marriage untroubled by all these complicated family rivalries and dark futures.”

She turned back to him and replied, “So do I,” before she walked away.

Baela walked aimlessly for a while, her mind full of regret and pain as she scanned through her memories, finding every moment she had thought Jace looked strangely sad and guilty, moments she had let him reassure her that there was nothing wrong, yet more lies. After five years, she finally knew why. She wished he had told her long ago, that he had trusted her. But he hadn’t and there was no use wishing for things that hadn’t happened.

Eventually she found herself at the door of Rhaena’s chambers. Her husband had betrayed and lied to her. Her goodparents and goodsiblings had been accomplices in that. Her children were young toddlers and it wasn’t right to burden them with her problems anyway. And her own parents and younger siblings were poised to be a grave threat to her children. The only person Baela had left that she could truly trust unreservedly, the one person in the world who could understand everything she was feeling right now, was the twin that had been with her since she was in her mother’s womb, Rhaena.

She knocked on the door. Rhaena shouted through the door. “Go away Luke! I thought I told you I didn’t want to see you!” Her voice was hoarse and scratched, like she had been sobbing.

“I’m not Luke,” Baela replied.

It was not long before Rhaena opened the door. Her eyes were bloodshot and her hair was messy. She was desperately trying to dry the tears from her eyes and failing miserably.

“Oh Rhaena,” Baela said in pity before she embraced her distraught twin in a much needed hug and closed the door behind them.

Rhaena was taking all of this much worse than she was but then Baela supposed, unlike herself, Rhaena had never let herself truly comprehend what had happened when she had married into House Velaryon. Unlike Baela who had spent months after her wedding agonizing over her divided loyalties and trying to come to terms with the fact that she’d have to choose, Rhaena had convinced herself that she never had to choose and now that she had heard that war was believed to be inevitable by the Velaryons, the worldview that Rhaena had constructed for herself had crumbled away.

“He lied to me,” she whispered, haunted as they sat on the bed.

“I know,” Baela consoled her twin. “Did you let him tell you why?”

She shook her head. “I told him to fuck off and locked myself in the room.”

Baela couldn’t help but chuckle a little before she related to her twin everything Jace had told her. When she had finished, Rhaena’s hands were gripping tightly on her bedsheets.

“Damn it,” she said. “Has it occurred to you yet what this means Baela? If they’re right, we and our children will be forced to go to war with our parents, our younger siblings, and all our nieces and nephews. And in a war between dragonriders, it isn’t as easy as us just giving the order to armies of faceless soldiers to kill each other on our behalf. We will be actively taking part in the fighting personally, riding dragons to lay waste to targets and one of the most important targets of all are enemy dragons. We could end up fighting, killing, and dying to our own family, to Mother and Father, to Jaehaerys or Helaena or even our cousins Aegon and Rhaenyra, or cousin Rhaenys and Uncle Viserys, we will be going to war with family. And they hid it from us!”

Baela nodded mutely. Rhaena groaned in turmoil. “What do you plan to do?”

“Jace is on a guilt trip so I’ll squeeze it as much as I can. I’ll get every piece of information about how House Velaryon intends to wage this war out of him. I’m done with being left uninformed. Once I have the knowledge I need, I’ll have the power to hold him to his promise that these war plans are defensive in nature. I will not abide by preemptive or unprovoked attacks on our family members but… if the Velaryons’ predictions are right, if Rhaenys or Aegon move to attack us or infringe on our rights and territories, then I will protect my children and their inheritance.”

Rhaena snorted. “Exactly as the Velaryons planned.”

Baela shook her head. “I’m not doing this for House Velaryon or House Targaryen. I’m doing this for my own sake and that of my children. Our survival and success is of paramount importance to me.”

“And your husband?” her twin asked.

Baela hesitated. “Is it wrong to admit that I still love him? I’m angry with him but I’m more sad than anything. I’m sad that he didn’t trust me, that such a gulf has emerged in our relationship. Perhaps one day we can repair our relationship, but for now I don’t fight for Jace. Our interests are simply aligned for the most part.”

Rhaena seemed to consider her words so Baela continued. “I’m not saying you should forgive Luke or anything. Certainly I don’t feel like forgiving Jace anytime soon either. But at least talk to him. Let him explain himself. At the very least your interests are aligned in protecting and securing your children’s future.”

Rhaena shook her head. “Why does everything have to be so complicated and messy? Why couldn’t we have just had a simple and happy life with all of our family? A blissful and peaceful married life with simple, normal challenges?”

“I wish I knew Rhaena, Baela consoled her sister in commiseration. “I keep asking myself why? Why us? Why did we have to be the ones that were doomed to this fate, forced to make such a cruel choice?”

She shook her head and sighed. “It seems complexity is an inescapable companion of power. And House Velaryon and House Targaryen represent the pinnacle of it, for what are dragons but the ultimate form of power? Perhaps it was always inevitable that we would have a complicated life.”

“It’s not fair,” Rhaena complained.

Baela agreed with her twin. “No. It’s not. But those are the hands that we have been dealt. And the only thing we can do now is decide how we act on them.”

_______________________________________

Author’s Note: Apologies for the delay as I was dealing with a strange writer’s block and lack of motivation ever since I was sick. I hope you guys liked this chapter. I actually have mixed feelings about it cause it felt like I was in a tired haze while writing some parts so lmk if there’s anything I should refine or rewrite.

Lmk your thoughts in the comments below or over on the patron channels in the Discord! https://discord.com/invite/NSEwuzpcWm