Valyrian Blood Shards

The mother of kings.

That was the name by which Rhaenyra Targaryen went down in history in the books that told the history of the Targaryen house.

She was the spoiled child of King Viserys and Queen Aemma, their only child.

The most beloved maiden in the Kingdom

The Kingdom's Delight

Two marriages, eight children were born from her womb and another two that she raised as her own. Three kings arose from those children.

While it was true that the Kingdom's Delight was a lovely, loving and beloved young lady, no one believed that the girl had the characteristics to be a good mother. At least, not at the age where she ended up with her first child in her lap. At twelve years old, everyone thought that the Princess had years of being a girl left.

But Queen Aemma died in childbirth and King Viserys placed Prince Baelon in the arms of his daughter.

That was the moment when Rhaenyra became a mother.

Many books tell how her eyes lit up when she saw her brother and from that moment the rambunctious and adorable Princess became a calm creature who rarely left her brother's side for more than a few minutes.

The Princess took refuge in those moments with her friends, her ladies-in-waiting. But she quickly found herself missing one of them, the treacherous Alicent Hightower.

It was not until the seventh moon of Prince Baelon that Princess Rhaenyra arose with cries for the murder of the King.

The last person who had left the room was…. Alice Hightower

Otto Hightower and his children were locked up to await trial. Surprisingly the Princess kept a cool head. She sent for her uncle Daemon of hers and Rhaenys Targaryen. The three of them formed a council that would rule the Kingdom until Baelon was able to bear the Crown.

The Delight of the Kingdom, the Queen that Never Was and the Rebel Prince. Surprisingly they came to an equilibrium quite quickly

The Princess refused to participate in the trial of her friend and confidant. She locked herself in her bedroom with Baelon while Rhaenys and Daemon dealt with Alicent. The Princess cried bitterly upon learning that her best friend had seduced her father as soon as the Princess's beloved mother died. But Alicent affirmed that she had no reason to kill the King, that he had promised to marry her and that in her womb she carried the King's son.

But Alicent had been the last to leave the King's bedroom, and even if she was her lover, no one could say that it was true whether or not the King promised to marry the girl.

Alicent's brothers and her father were hanged. Alicent was expected to give birth to a boy with silver locks and purple eyes. After that she was imprisoned in the Sept, where the Septons carved her crimes on her back with a Valyrian steel blade after shaving her head and then poured salt water over her wounds.

They also made Alicent walk to the platform where she would be executed. She received stones and rotten fruit as she advanced. Leading the crowd by the gallows was Princess Rhaenyra, King Baelon's sister.

It is said that Alicent Hightower pleaded for mercy on her knees and proclaimed her innocence. After being gagged, Princess Rhaenyra is said to have embraced her friend one last time before parting ways with her and asking the executioner to be quick with his work.

The Princess left in tears, the crowd parting from her as she passed, and not many saw Alicent Hightower thrash like a demon before she was brought to her knees. Prince Daemon arrived and took his niece after nodding to the executioner and seeing the sword lowered.

The crowd roared and the Princess kept crying

The Princess took Alicent's son as she had taken Baelon and became his mother.

After a few years Rhaenyra married Harwin Strong. Her reasoning was that she could not marry her uncle or Rhaenys' son for fear of destabilizing the union of her country. For fourteen years three children were born from her marriage to Hardwin until Harwin died in a fire.

King Baelon had already been crowned by this time and the Council of Three had disbanded. Princess Rhaenyra married her uncle and King Baelon granted them Dragonstone so they could live in peace.

For ten years they were happy until Baelon's death in a terrible accident. Rhaenyra's eldest son was betrothed to Baelon's eldest daughter, the man having had only four daughters. It was decided that Jacaerys Strong would change her last name to Targaryen and be the next King.

Rhaenyra wept for her brother along with her bastard brother, Aerys, of the Kingsguard.

In the end Jacaerys could not have a son either and after the King's death the younger brother, Aegon, married to another daughter of Baelon, took the throne. King Aegon was the first child of the marriage between Rhaenyra and Daemon.

Princess Rhaenyra was remembered as a great mother who protected her children and served her Kingdom with pride and devotion.

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When she was younger Rhaenyra had heard Alicent's mother say that women were weak, but mothers were stronger than any man. Rhaenyra misunderstood, looking at her frail and delicate mother.

But she understood when her father left his brother in his arms and went to cry over the corpse of the woman whose womb he had ordered to open.

Rhaenyra looked into purple eyes, lighter than her own, and she knew it. She would kill for Baelon, cheat, steal, betray,…. There was nothing she wouldn't do to protect her little brother anymore.

That was confirmed in the weeks after the Queen's death, when the Princess did not abandon her brother's side, often substituting for the maids to attend to the young Prince herself. Rhaenyra found much peace in meeting with her ladies-in-waiting, most of whom adored the young prince and took every opportunity to caress his silver hair and flushed cheeks.

It was in those moments that Rhaenyra noticed that Alicent was behaving strangely. She and other of her ladies-in-waiting

Alicent yawned a lot and the girls laughed covering their mouths with their hands. They whispered things on the sly and smirked as they looked at the other girls. Rhaenyra soon identified the ladies who now followed Alicent.

They all had lovers and were no longer virgins, but their lovers were powerful men and nothing was said.

Rhaenyra didn't understand why Alicent hung out with them, when the seventeen-year-old girl had scorned them and badmouthed them behind the girls' backs. Using religion to tell Rhaenyra what would happen to them in the end.

The suspicions left a bad taste in Rhaenyra's mouth.

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In the Red Keep there are hidden passages that only the royal family knows about. Rhaenyra watched her father's door from behind a tapestry while Baelon slept on her chest. She watched and her betrayal washed over her as she saw Alicent enter the King's bedroom.

She wore her hair provocatively pulled back exposing her neck and cleavage, makeup that she would have called whore paint before, and the dress that her mother wore when she wanted to sleep with her husband. Alicent's mother had told Rhaenyra as much when she had asked why she didn't wear that dress more often.

-Men are fools dear, they don't know when their wife wants to fulfill the duty of the meat. That's why I wear this dress that leaves my shoulders bare and has a deep neckline. To tempt my husband. No man can resist this dress for long.

Rhaenyra made her way through the corridors that led to the secret entrance to the King's room. She didn't have to get very close to hear what Alicent and her father were doing.

Baelon had six moons. Her mother had died six moons ago and her father had already replaced her with another woman. But this was not the first time. Alicent had started behaving strangely shortly after the Queen's death.

Rhaenyra wasn't stupid, she listened to Uncle Daemon and she thought she knew who she thought was her best friend. Alicent had not gone alone into a widowed man's room with the intention of seducing him. Her father had taken her there.

Rhaenyra knew full well that many of her friends were jealous of her position as Princess, Alicent included but more discreet than others. That was why she hadn't resisted so much when her father had ordered her to go to the King's bedroom.

Wearing down the gentle Viserys little by little until she managed to reach his bed and put on the Queen's crown.

What would happen to Rhaenyra and Baelon if Alicent was Queen?

Surely they would marry Rhaenyra away from King's Landing. But what would happen to Baelon, the heir to the throne?

Vipers, he would be in a nest of vipers, far from the protection of his sister. With her father who was gentle but blind to the intrigues of the Court. And if Alicent gave birth to a son and not a daughter….

Baelon began to whimper at the force with which Rhaenyra was squeezing him. She loosened her grip and forced a smile as she comforted her brother to keep her from crying.

She would protect Baelon above all else. She would do that because she was Baelon's mother.

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Getting Otto Hightower's dagger was not difficult. The man was not a warrior and he would not notice the disappearance of the dagger that Viserys gave him when his first child was born and that he had been at the bottom of his trunk ever since.

Alicent's dress was even easier to come by. Rhaenyra would often come down with the laundresses to ask them to scent her sheets as the laundresses washed them with certain flowers. No one noticed that among the blankets with which the Princess covered Baelon from the cold there was one more lump.

Rhaenyra waited an entire moon to gather her courage.

She watched as within a week Alicent began to come across as smug and arrogant as she paced in front of Rhaenyra as if she were superior to her. That triggered the alarms of the young Princess and she decided to act that night.

Rhaenyra waited in the cold corridor. She waited as she watched Alicent enter the King's room. She waited, while the members of the Royal Guard did not say anything. She waited until Alicent came out clad only in a robe that belonged to Viserys and her dress in her arms.

She acted

She walked through the secret corridors with Alicent's dress on and reached the King's chamber.

She had already talked to her father before. He had told her privately that he had dishonored Alicent but that he intended to make it right by marrying her. She told him her doubts and her fears. He didn't listen to her and dismissed her concerns

Because Otto was a friend and a faithful servant to the Crown, they would never do anything against the Targaryens. Rhaenyra sometimes wondered how her father could be so foolish.

Rhaenyra took a pillow and put it over her father's face as she stabbed her father's body with the dagger over and over again. She left the dagger stuck in her father's chest and ran down the secret corridor. She had prepared a bucket with water to clean herself and her own nightgown.

Rhaenyra broke down and began to cry as she stared at her hands stained with her father's blood.

She had had to.

If it wasn't Alicent it would be someone else who would occupy the position of Queen and Baelon would be in danger. And Otto would kill Baelon as soon as he had a grandson from Alicent.

She had to do it for Baelon

But that had been her father. The man she had loved the most. The man who had loved her the most. Rhaenyra forced herself not to cry, she must not have tear marks the next morning.

Women are weak, mothers are stronger than any man.

Rhaenyra left the dress hidden in a pile of trash near Alicent's room. She returned to her bedroom and placed her hand on Baelon's chest, feeling for the baby's breath. She looked at the ladies of hers who had accompanied her for the night, all of whom had been drugged with a sleeping tonic.

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The screams woke the Princess and she ran with Baelon in her arms and in her nightgown to her father's room. She howled and Baelon began to cry as she looked at her father. Otto was in shock until someone recognized the dagger from him and he was stopped by the Royal Guard.

Rhaenyra ran to the Maester and asked that he send a message to Rhaenys and Daemon. She then ordered Otto and his sons to be detained while the Red Keep was inspected.

Rhaenys arrived first and took over a thorough search of the Keep with Corlys's men. They found the dress quite late and took the Hightowers to the prison. Rhaenyra hid when her uncle came from her so he wouldn't see her guilt in her eyes and cried for her as she cradled Baelon to her chest.

Baelon was made King in name only due to his young age. He was the Crown Prince anyway.

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The young woman took her new brother, Aenys, into her arms and she again felt the same way she felt with Baelon. This was her child and she had to protect him. Alicent's punishment had been decided by Daemon. But Rhaenyra put on her cloak and ran away from the castle.

Alicent looked dirty and battered as she walked to the place where she was to be executed, but seeing Rhaenyra, hope flashed across her face.

- I was not, I was not Rhaenyra! He promised to marry me! I had no reason to kill him! I was not the murderer!

One of the men gagged Alicent and Rhaenyra walked over to her friend and hugged her.

-I know it wasn't you, Alicent. It was me. - Alicent's body froze. – You should not have seduced my father and endangered my brother

Rhaenyra stepped away from her and Alicent tried to attack her, causing one of her guards to strike Alicent with the hilt of her sword, knocking her to the ground. Rhaenyra began to cry, and the crowd parted to let her through until her uncle's horse appeared before her.

Daemon took his niece into his arms and spat in Alicent's direction in disgust. She nodded and turned her horse around as she saw the blade make contact with flesh.

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No one but Rhaenyra ever knew what she went to to protect her son. She was never recorded for her crime in any book, she never told anyone either. But she transmitted the words that would mark her life to as many women as she could.

Women are weak, but mothers are stronger than men