Chapter 2
Any conversation happening in the halls came to an abrupt halt when they saw Prince Lucerys, pale and shaking with a babe carefully wrapped in a white cloak as blood dripped onto the floor behind him, walked past while being supported by Ser Erryk and Ser Arryk with Princess Helaena leading the way with another babe, this one wrapped in a dark red blanket, carefully tucked in her arms as Queen Alicent's maid, Talia tried to ease the child out of her grasp.
Helaena shot the woman a terrifying glare that had her scuttling back when she heard the distressed whimper from Lucerys. He may feel only emptiness and pain when it came to his children, but he would not have either of them in the grasp of a green woman.
Everyone stared before remembering to hastily bow as Lucerys made his way slowly toward the stairs.
Each step was torture and sent more blood spilling down his legs as he struggled not to drop his daughter.
Lucerys let out a sharp groan when they reached the first landing as his stomach tightened,
"Luke?"
"M'fine. I'm-" He nodded to Helaena and resumed putting one foot in front of the other with the guards supporting him tightened their hold as a lord who was walking toward them stopped in his tracks to bow,
"Prince Lucerys. I am privileged to be among the first to congratulate you," Lucerys gave a tight nod but did not say anything for fear of screaming in pain,
"My nephew thanks you, Lord Caswell," Helaena answered for him as they continued walking up the stairs,
"If I may be of any assistance..?" Lucerys shook his head, but Helaena looked over her shoulder and said,
"Actually, my lord, if you could walk with us for a moment?" The beta lord quickly approached to walk at Helaena's side, concern evident in his expression as he glanced between the prince, princess, knights, and newborn babes,
"Princess?"
"I need a letter sent on my behalf to Dragonstone addressed to my sister, Princess Rhaenyra,"
"Princess, I would be more than happy to-"
"I am asking Lord Caswell, Talia, not you!" Helaena snapped at the maid, "If you wish to be of service, return to my nephew's chambers and ensure that his belongings are packed so that he may go to Dragonstone at the earliest convenience! Now, Lord Caswell," His aunt turned back to the lord,
"My sister is to be told that she and Prince Daemon should come to King's Landing at the earliest convenience to celebrate the birth of their grandchildren. My father will most likely want a celebration and they should be present. My Lord," She then lowered her voice so that any passersby, and most importantly Talia, would not hear the last part, "And that it is imperative they arrive on dragon back before the day is over. With their maester from Dragonstone. As Mellos cannot be trusted with my nephew or his children,"
Lord Caswell nodded, a look of understanding on his face as he bowed, "It will be done, my prince and princess. It will be done immediately,"
Lucerys found his voice and managed to call over his shoulder,
"Th-thank you, Lord Caswell," He turned to Helaena, "Thank you,"
She gave him a smile that did not reach her eyes,
"Come. We are almost at this journey's end. Another will start for us after,"
When they finally reached the top of the stairs, Lucerys was shaking so violently that Ser Arryk asked if they should turn back,
"You may go back, Ser, but I, did not bleed over half of the keep for nothing," Luke said as sweat dripped down his cheeks.
Or maybe he was crying?
It was most likely both intermixing on his face.
He felt his daughter shift in his arms and looked down. Her eyes were open.
Her left eye was a dark violet that matched her alpha sire's remaining one while the right was a replica of his own hazel eyes.
His youngest cooed while waving her fist, but Lucerys did not react, he did not smile or tell Helaena that his daughter's eyes were open. All he did was ask why he felt nothing as he looked at his pup.
When the queen's door came into view, Talia scurried past them and opened the door to step inside.
As voices floated through the crack, Helaena gently squeezed Luke's elbow and he nodded. They began walking toward the door, and the voices became clearer, with one in particular sticking out with a scent Lucerys had found comfort in during the first months of pregnancy.
Sandalwood and leather.
But there was also a thick, ashy smell that came with it. The same one that had been present when he had found his destroyed nest,
"My prince?"
No, no, no! This was not safe!
He couldn't be here this is not safe!
"Lucerys! Lucerys, you need to breathe!" He shook his head and gasped out,
"No- Not safe! It's not-"
"It is, Lucerys! I swear-" "
"No! He-"
"Breathe,"
Helaena was now fully supporting Lucerys and his daughters as she angled his nose against the scent gland in her neck.
His aunt had the soft scent of a garden covered in flowers, lilac being the most prominent. It wasn't like the perfumes that most of the lady betas doused themselves in that made the Omega's nose itch. Her's reminded him of the gardens on Dragonstone, of sitting beside his mother in the sun when Joffrey was still a small babe and sucking on his fingers.
It was also just undoubtedly Helaena, who had been his only friend these past months, who had tried everything to make the Red Keep safe for him.
Lucerys breathed in his aunt's scent, forcing himself to focus on it instead of the ash in the room he was about to enter.
When his tremors had begun to subside, Helaena leaned back as the twin guards resumed their position of supporting Lucerys as the princess said,
"We shall go in there, show the queen her new grandchildren, and then leave after. Alright?" He managed a nod as Helaena readjusted his arms around his daughter, "Alright. And sers? Both of you will stay close,"
The two kingsguard nodded and began following the prince and princess into the queen's rooms.
There was a conversation happening between the queen and Talia when they entered,
"-Mean 'both babes'? Neither maester said anything about multiple children!"
"The maesters were wrong, mother. You now have two new grandchildren," The people in the room all turned to face Helaena and Lucerys, and their faces went pale.
Talia turned away and quickly searched for something to busy herself with as she did not want to see the gruesome sight again.
The Hand, who normally had a stoic expression, felt his jaw drop and his eyes go wide.
Criston Cole couldn't disguise his shock either.
Aegon jolted up from his seat at the table and looked as if he were about to be sick.
Lucerys purposefully turned his head away from the window where Aemond was standing. He did not want to see the one-eyed Alpha's reaction.
The queen's hands covered her mouth as she whispered,
"By the gods! What... What happened? You both... The blood!"
Lucerys glanced down and saw that his robe was open to reveal the shift he had been wearing when he gave birth. He knew the back had to be soaked, but Lucerys was not expecting the front to be red as well. He could see that the front was stained with blood and the crimson liquid had begun to dry across his legs as bloodied footsteps trailed behind him. He also saw the white cloak his second daughter was wrapped in had red handprints staining the sides,
"I've gotten your cloak dirty, ser,"
"There is no need to apologize, my prince. It can be washed or a new one can be made," Ser Erryk told Lucerys as his brother said,
"We should help the prince sit,"
"Wait! Aegon! Pillow!"
The prince was still in his stupor so he did not complain or make any unsavory remarks as he handed a pillow from the queen's bed to his sister-wife.
When Helaena handed the pillow to Ser Arryk, Lucerys saw that his aunt had blood on her hands, arms, and the front of her dress,
"Helaena-"
"I need no apologies from you, Lucerys," She said as he was slowly lowered onto the now cushioned chair.
A groan followed by a pain-filled whimper escaped the Omega and he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.
Footsteps quickly approached Lucerys from the window as the smell of sandalwood and leather became stronger,
"No! No!" He tried pushing himself out of the chair but fell back as a sharp pain raced up his spine.
Helaena now stood between him and the approaching Alpha as she ran a bloodied hand through his hair. Lucerys slowly began to lean against his aunt as he focused on her and not Aemond who he knew was now far closer than he had been when Lucerys first entered,
"Oh, Lucerys! Look!" Helaena knelt at his side and held the child toward him, "Her eyes have opened!"
His oldest child had the same different colored eyes as her sister except they were opposite. Her violet eye was on her right while her hazel eye was on the left,
"They're different," He murmured while looking down at his oldest as she peered up at him with a yawn.
With them side by side, Lucerys could see the youngest had thick, white curls atop her head while the oldest had thin, pale strands that lay flat against her scalp. Both of them had slim noses and facial structures like Aemond, but the oldest seemed to have a slight upturn at the end of her nose as he did.
Lucerys could not find it in him to smile at his daughters.
A throat cleared and the queen stepped forward to ask,
"Her eyes are different colors?" Lucerys found himself nodding as he kept looking at his children, "May I?"
The queen's arms were open as she walked toward Helaena, her eyes on the babe in the princess' arms. But Helaena angled herself so that the babe was out of the queen's reach,
"I'm afraid Lucerys and his children should rest now, mother. The three of them are exhausted after such a traumatic endeavor,"
Lucerys chanced a glance at Aemond and saw that the Alpha's eye was fixated on the pups, but his gaze snapped to the Omega when he heard the word 'traumatic,'
"What do you mean, Helaena?" His voice had Lucerys curling closer to his aunt as he tried to hide as the Omegan Princess' normally soft and pleasant scent curdled and soured as she looked at her brother,
"It means, brother, that the midwives Lucerys knew and was familiar with were kept out of the room by Mellos and a group of strangers who said they were instructed by the queen to assist in Lucerys' labors. If it were not for their uniform, Lucerys may not have known who they were or why they had forced their way into his chambers!"
The Hand tried to say something after finally finding his voice but Helaena continued,
"And when Mellos heard that the queen demanded to see the child you had sired, he all but pushed Lucerys out into the hall without so much as checking the afterbirth. If he had, Lucerys would not have had to give birth to your second child on the ground in the middle of the hall!"
Silence fell over the room.
Aegon, who had been prepared to witness an amusing back and forth between Aemond and Lucerys when he heard the Omega had gone into labor, was now ashen face and throwing back cup after cup of wine and was reaching to refill his goblet again.
Cole did nothing to stop him as he said,
"Perhaps, the maester and midwives misunderstood-"
"Without checking for the afterbirth? Are you insinuating that Mellos and the midwives my mother selected are incompetent, Ser Cole? If you are, I completely agree," The queen's shield sputtered as Helaena squeezed Lucerys' shoulder and motioned for the brothers who had been standing at attention, "Sers, if you could help my nephew, please,"
"Shouldn't Aemond hold the children? If he is their sire, wouldn't that help to put them and the prince at ease?" Lucerys flinched at the insinuation in Otto Hightower's words and how he said them.
If Lucerys refused, it would be seen as an admission of guilt, that the rumors were right and his daughters were not Aemond's. And the look on Helaena's face said she knew it too.
But he did not want Aemond to hold the children. For all he knew, the Alpha could take this as a final chance at revenge for his eye and say that they were not his. That fear left an acrid taste in his mouth.
Lucerys did not see the slight twitch of Otto Hightower's mouth when the smell of fear rolled off of the Omega, but Helaena did. She quickly knelt and began speaking to Lucerys, but he did not hear a word she said and only nodded when her mouth stopped moving before staring straight ahead.
His ears were ringing and there were dark spots on the edges of his vision by the time he felt his daughter being carefully lifted from his arms. And then his sight went completely black.
The next thing he remembers is being carried through the halls of The Red Keep as Helaena kept repeating,
"A seahorse alights the horizon as the red beasts' rage burns but the gold's anger is brighter than them all," As she continued repeating her riddle, another voice broke through the fog of Lucerys' mind,
"My prince? Can you hear me? My prince?"
Lucerys tried to answer but felt his head loll back as his eyes closed again and he welcomed darkness a second time.
Arrax let out a roar from the Dragon Pit that shook the ground.
He continued his call for almost two hours as the Dragon Keepers tried to calm him, but the dragon snarled at all of them before resuming.
Vhagar must have heard Arrax's destressed cries, and she lumbered toward the pit as she called for the smaller dragon. But, her calls and presence only seemed to agitate him to the point of spitting flames.
It seemed like it would never stop.
Until Arrax's roars were answered, not by Vhagar, but by three new dragons who were now circling over King's Landing.
One was a giant crimson beast with horns that almost formed a crown around her head. The second resembled a red snake with wings. And the third was a blur of gold light as her roars drowned out the calls of the other two dragons.
And on the horizon of Blackwater Bay, four ships were sighted with each of their sails bearing the sigil of House Velaryon.
The doors to the Red Keep burst open and in marched the Crown Princess Rhaenyra Targaryen.
Standing at her side with his hands resting on the pommel of Dark Sister, was Daemon Targaryen.
Behind them was the Queen Who Never Was, Rhaenys Targaryen with Maester Geradys of Dragonstone.
And the last to enter was Lord Corlys Velaryon with a dozen armed soldiers standing at attention.
Everyone immediately bowed and backed away before scurrying out of sight. Everyone knew that there were dragons in the Keep, and they were seconds away from burning it all to the ground,
"Princess. We were not expecting you so soon," The Hand stood before them, being wise and standing a good distance away, "I imagine you heard about the trouble caused by your son's labors-"
"Rhaenyra," The Queen Consort, who was either brave or foolish, appeared behind her father and approached the group with Criston Cole, who was a fool, following her shadow,
"Alicent!" She ignored the Hand and continued forward as Cole began to slowly pull out his sword,
"Rhaenyra, I do not know what or how much you have heard, but I promise I will explain everything,"
The Crown Princess did not give her a chance to explain.
She was a dragon in human flesh at that moment and it was surprising sparks did not fly from her mouth when she asked, in a deadly tone that seemed to stop the air from moving,
"Where is my son?"