Chapter 72: New Regime - Part 1
HELAENA
Whatever lay on the bed wasn't her husband.
It was melted flesh and shattered bone under linen. The bandages had been changed twice since midnight and were due again; red came through them first and then yellow. His face, what remained of it, was burn and scar and one closed eye.
Grand Maester Orwyle had done what he could. Milk of the poppy for the pain. Salves for the burns. Splints for the broken bones. He had worked from the third hour of the night until the window went grey, and a novice had to take his elbow when he straightened.
"He may recover consciousness," Orwyle said. "Or he may not. The injuries are... extensive."
"Say it plainly."
"I have, Your Grace. Plain is all that's left of it."
He was never kind to me. Never loved me. Never saw me as anything more than a duty.
But he was her children's father. Their protection. Their legitimacy.
She sat by his bedside anyway. Someone brought a chair without being asked and she used it without thanking them, and she stayed while two fingers of candle burned away.
The door opened.
Ulf.
His face was drawn. Exhausted. Still in the bloodstained leathers from the field, with pit sand dried into the creases of his elbows.
"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I could have tried to save him. When he fell." He stayed where he was, one step inside the door. "But Aemond was outnumbered. I made a choice."
She looked at Aegon's ruined form. Then back at Ulf.
"You made the right choice."
"Did I?"
"Aemond would have died without support. Then we'd have lost two dragons, two riders, and the battle." She stood. The chair legs barked on the floor. She crossed to him. "You saved the realm's best general. My husband chose to fight drunk and unprepared. That's not your fault."
"He was still strapped in when I got to him. Under Sunfyre's shoulder, buckled tight." His voice went flat. "I set those buckles myself. Four mornings ago, in the pit yard. They did exactly what I built them to do."
"They held."
"They held the whole way down."
"And a loose strap would have thrown him at four hundred feet instead of forty." She stopped in front of him. "You'd have brought me a bag."
"It feels like my fault."
"Feelings lie." She took his hands and turned them over. The palms were sliced shallow in three places where the leather had gone stiff against the knife. "I dreamed this. Saw him burning. Saw the golden scales breaking. I couldn't stop it. Neither could you."
He pulled her close. She let him. His chin came down on the top of her head and stayed there.
"The children?"
"Frightened. They know something's wrong. Jaehaera has stopped arranging her shells."
"I should see them."
"You should rest first. Clean up. You smell like death."
A ghost of a smile crossed his face.
"You keep saying that."
"You keep coming back covered in it."
Behind them, in the bed, Aegon went on breathing.
AEMOND
Three days, and the chair already fit him.
Not the Iron Throne. That was still Aegon's for as long as Aegon kept drawing breath, and Aemond hadn't gone near the hall since the field. This was the regent's seat at the head of the small council table, and he had taken it on the first morning without waiting to be shown to it.
Otto had been given his chamber. Candles, precedence, the old man's voice first and longest. Aemond let every word of it happen. He had taken the hour at Maidenpool with a thousand men watching; his grandsire could have the ceremony.
Lord Jasper Wylde had the laws now. The man he replaced had been his brother's drinking companion, useless, and had gone home with a letter of thanks and an escort. Ser Tyland Lannister kept the treasury, because he counted well. Orwyle kept his chain, because the king would need him alive.
The rest of the seats held new men. Chosen for skill, not connection. Two had never stood inside the Red Keep before that week, and one kept his hands flat on the table so they wouldn't shake.
"The war effort suffers from inefficiency," Aemond told them. "My brother's reign prioritized... personal pleasures over military necessity. That ends now."
No one objected. No one dared.
"Food distribution will be centralized. Corrupt merchants will be executed. Dragon patrols will burn any Black forces that approach within fifty miles of the city."
Tyland's quill stopped. It started again.
"The smallfolk are already suffering, my prince." Otto's voice carried warning. "Grain seized is grain hidden. Too much ruthlessness—"
"Too little ruthlessness is why we're losing. The Blacks control more territory, more dragons, more allies. We cannot win by being gentle." Aemond stood. "I will not be my brother. I will be effective."
"And what will the septons preach on, when the first merchant hangs?"
Nobody answered him. Aemond was already reaching for the next report.
The council dispersed. Chairs went back under the table, and one of the new men bowed twice.
One figure remained.
"You wanted to see me, my prince?"
Ulf the White. The queen's protector. The rider who had been in the sky over Maidenpool with two men falling and one dragon under him.
"You let my brother burn."
"I made the choice that won the battle."
"Yes." Aemond came down the length of the table without hurrying. "You made a choice at Maidenpool. You let him crash to support me. Tactically sound. I approve."
"I'm glad you approve."
"Don't mistake approval for trust." Aemond walked closer. "You're useful. Your skills, your dragon, your connection to Helaena—all useful. But I know what you are."
"What am I?"
"A man who serves himself first. Your loyalty is to her, not the crown. Not to me."
"Is that a problem?"
"Only if her interests and mine diverge." Aemond smiled. Cold. Controlled. "Keep her happy. Keep her children safe. Stay useful. We'll have no conflicts."
"And if we do have conflicts?"
"Then one of us will die." Simple. Direct. "I suspect it would be you, but I'd rather not find out."
He walked away.
Ulf remained in the council chamber, face unreadable.
ULF
Jaehaerys was trying not to cry.
I could see the whole cost of it. The jaw locked shut, the fast blinking, the six-year-old decision to be brave in front of a man he thought was brave.
"Is Father going to die?"
The question cut straight through everything I had prepared on the walk up.
"I don't know." I knelt so we were eye to eye. "He's very hurt. The maesters are doing everything they can."
"Mother says he might not wake up."
"Your mother speaks truth. She always does."
"What happens if he dies?"
Aemond becomes king. Your mother becomes a dowager queen, which is the title they hand a woman so she'll stop being asked her opinion. Your position becomes precarious the same hour.
"Nothing changes for you. You're still the heir. Your sisters are still princesses. And I'll still protect all of you."
"Promise?"
"I've never broken a promise to you."
He nodded slowly. Turning it over, checking it for holes. He checked everything I told him now.
Jaehaera sat in the corner with a book open on her knees and both hands flat on the page. Those violet eyes too old for her four years.
"You're scared too," she said. Not accusation. Observation.
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because the world is changing. And I don't know what it's becoming."
She considered this longer than most grown men would have.
"Mother says you always know what to do."
"Your mother has too much faith in me."
"Maybe." Jaehaera went back to her book. "Or maybe you just need to figure it out."
Four years old, and sharper than half the men I'd just left standing around that table.
Maelor toddled over and grabbed my leg.
"Uff. Sad?"
"A little."
"Hug?"
The arms went around my knee. Small. Warm. Trusting.
I picked him up and held him against my shoulder, and out in the corridor two sets of boots went past the nursery door, unhurried, on a round nobody had walked a week ago.
These children. Whatever else happens, I protect these children.