The Hand of the King, stood as the sovereign's foremost counselor and the living instrument of his will. The office was no mere ornament. The Hand commanded the royal armies, drafted decrees in the king's name, enforced the laws of the realm, and oversaw the burdensome machinery of daily governance.
When a king proved too ill, too young, or too indifferent to rule in person, it was the Hand who mounted the steps of the Iron Throne and dispensed justice beneath its shadow.
In rank, the Hand stood second only to the king himself. All others, lords and princes alike, must yield before that authority.
Such was the common understanding.
Yet within House Targaryen, the office bore a subtler and more perilous meaning.
In the later years of King Jaehaerys the First, the Old King began to contemplate an innovation that few fully grasped at the time. In 92 AC, Prince Aemon perished upon Tarth, and the succession passed to his brother, Prince Baelon. Baelon became Prince of Dragonstone, heir to the Iron Throne. Eight years later, in 100 AC, Jaehaerys named that same Prince Baelon as Hand of the King.
The intent was plain to any who cared to see it. Jaehaerys sought to bind the titles of heir and Hand together, as though forging two links of the same chain.
The king, wise in his long years, may already have discerned the latent danger coiled within the office. A Hand commanded armies. A Hand shaped law. A Hand might rule for years in a monarch's name. Given ambition enough, such power could harden into tyranny or slip quietly into usurpation.
Otto Hightower stood as proof of that danger.
When Queen Aemma died, grief hollowed King Viserys and left the court unmoored. Otto did not hesitate. He guided his daughter Alicent into the king's presence with careful patience, soft words, and studied humility. In time, she shared Viserys's bed and bore him sons of undeniable royal blood. Through her, the blood of Oldtown twined itself with that of the dragonlords.
Many houses had coveted the blood of the dragon. Only Otto succeeded in grafting his own line so securely upon it.
Perhaps that was why Jaehaerys, in his final decades, resolved that the heir must serve as Hand. If the Prince of Dragonstone held the office, no rival lord could entrench himself so deeply in the machinery of rule. The precedent, had it endured, might have ensured that every successor first learned to govern before he wore the crown.
History, however, did not bend so easily to design.
Few Targaryens ever served as Hand. More often the chain of office passed to great lords beyond the royal line: Baratheons fierce in battle, Tullys prudent in counsel, Velaryons rich in ships and silver.
Across the centuries, only three Targaryens bore the title.
The first was Prince Maegor. He served three years as Hand before his exile for taking a second wife. In later days he would return in fire and blood to claim the Iron Throne, remembered ever after as Maegor the Cruel.
The second was Prince Baelon, father to Viserys and Daemon, a warrior of renown and the very image of a conquering prince.
The third was Prince Viserys, who in later years would be called a veteran of three reigns. He served as Hand under Aegon the Third, Daeron the First, and Baelor the First before ascending the throne himself as King Viserys the Second, the tenth king of the Seven Kingdoms.
That chapter of history had yet to unfold.
Even so, the pattern was unmistakable.
Every Targaryen who had served as Hand had, in time, become king. Though Prince Baelon died before he could inherit, none doubted that he had been shaped, in life, for the crown.
King Viserys understood this truth as well.
Else he would not have summoned Princess Rhaenyra to council sessions while she was yet young. He allowed her to sit quietly at the long table, to listen as lords debated coin, fleets, and grain. At times he would turn toward her, fingers resting upon the carved arm of his chair, and ask, "What say you, daughter?" His voice was mild, but his gaze searched her face.
Rhaenyra would lift her chin before answering, pride flickering in her lilac eyes. She spoke boldly, sometimes too boldly.
Viserys listened, hands folded over his belly, nodding as though weighing her every word. He had meant to prepare her, perhaps even to see her serve as Hand one day.
In the end, he abandoned that hope.
Whether from disappointment or doubt, none could say. Only that the design, like so many careful plans in the Red Keep, faded into silence before it could be fulfilled.
*
This time, however, King Viserys meant to name Prince Baelon as Hand of the King.
The words hung in the air like the tolling of a distant bell.
Baelon felt it at once. Something was amiss.
In all his memories, his uncle had been immovable in certain matters. On his sickbed, wasted and fevered, Viserys had still clung to the belief that Princess Rhaenyra was his true and lawful heir. He had endured whispers, defied lords, and quarreled with his own council for her sake.
And now this.
"Hand of the King?" Baelon's lips curved in a faint, almost careless smile, though his fingers tightened against the carved arm of his chair. "I would sooner decline. The office would suit Rhaenyra far better. She is your heir, is she not? The very thought of it unsettles me."
He did not refuse outright. Instead, he watched his uncle closely, testing the waters as a sailor tests uncertain ice. His tone was light, but the question beneath it was sharp.
If a Targaryen must serve as Hand, then surely the Princess of Dragonstone should be first considered.
"Rhaenyra is not suitable."
Viserys answered without hesitation.
He had caught Baelon's meaning at once, yet he did not retreat from his own. His expression remained composed, though a shadow lingered behind his tired eyes. Troubling accounts had reached him of late. Reports whispered from trusted lips. Unbecoming Conduct, rash Judgments and carelessly formed alliances.
Seven save us, he thought.
"Good," the king said, drawing a slow breath. "Aemond and Helaena are present as well. There is something I would have all of you hear."
If the question of succession was to be stirred again, better that witnesses stand in the room.
The doors opened before he could continue. Queen Alicent entered swiftly, her green skirts whispering across the stone. A faint flush colored her cheeks, and her breath had not yet steadied.
"What is this?" she demanded, her gaze passing from Viserys to Baelon and back again. "What matter requires discussion without me?"
"It is nothing," Viserys replied evenly, though his fingers drummed once upon the armrest before stilling. "We were speaking only of Rhaenyra and Baelon."
"Rhaenyra and me?" Baelon straightened abruptly and pointed to himself as though accused of treason. "Absolutely not."
The words escaped him before he could temper them.
He was soon to wed Laena Velaryon. The match had been settled, and though his heart was not aflame with passion, he respected her. Two years prior he had even proposed that they wed at Harrenhal, beneath its vast black towers. Viserys had refused, insisting his nephew deserved the grandest celebration in all the Seven Kingdoms.
Now, in this moment, Baelon wondered whether there had been more behind that refusal.
Viserys shot him a sharp look.
"What are you flinching for?" the king asked coolly. "I have not finished speaking."
Realization dawned. This was not some scheme to bind him to Rhaenyra in marriage.
A breath he had not known he held slipped quietly from his lungs.
It was not that he disliked her. Far from it. He and Rhaenyra had shared laughter as children, raced along the terraces of the Red Keep, and quarreled over trifles as siblings often did. There was affection between them, real and enduring.
But affection was not love.
And Rhaenyra, for all her fire, was reckless. Headstrong. Too swift to anger, too slow to yield. Baelon could not help but think of the line that would spring from her and Prince Daemon. Kings such as Aegon the Third, Viserys the Second, and Baelor the First.
He knew enough of the story to feel a chill.
If ever he had a son, he would not name him Aegon. The name bore too much ill fortune. Too many princes so called had been frail, haunted, or doomed before their time.
Baelor the First most of all. A king more septon than sovereign, lost in fasting and visions. Some whispered he had lacked something essential, as though the gods had shaped him imperfectly.
Only later, with Daeron the First, the Young Dragon, did the line reclaim a measure of vigor.
Since Rhaenyra's day, Baelon reflected grimly, there had been precious few rulers of unquestioned strength.
Across the chamber, Viserys inhaled slowly. His shoulders rose, then fell, as though the weight of years pressed more heavily upon him than ever before.
"I intend," he said at last, his voice low but steady, "to revoke Rhaenyra's status as heir."
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