Chapter 43
MYSARIA—The Lady Mysery
The city was in chaos, and the blame for it lay with her. For years Mysaria had ruled over the streets of Kingslanding as its proverbial Queen. She had been Daemon's eyes and ears, and yet somehow she had failed to notice the infilteration of that healer's assosciates into the city.
Those cloaked men had not come together by coincidence. No. This was all planned well. Even now, as she stared out the window of the Royal chambers she could see the riots in the streets, and there was little doubt in her heart that most of them were being orchestrated by the Healer and his men.
How he had managed to infilterate the city without alerting her was a failing that could destroy everything that she had built in these last decade. It could ruin everything, and she could not let that happen.
"Ahh," and the slight grunt broke her out of her trance as her head snapped to the bed behind her once more, as she saw Daemon stir in the bedding, as his eyes fluttered open.
"Don't move," she repeated, and rushed to his side and gently pushed him down.
"It took the maesters hours to stitch the cuts and bandage your wounds. They will open if you move too much," and she reached for the glass beside the bed and gently placed it on his lips, as Daemon's eyes opened fully and just as she had expected he slapped away the glass, and grabbed her neck.
"One reason," and his voice was a cold whisper, as those amethyst orbs narrowed.
"GUGH! GAGH!" and she could not breathe at all, as she tried to push away his hand but all her efforts were futile.
"Give me one reason why I shouldn't snap your neck right here and now," and she had feared this very thing, and perhaps it would have been wiser for her to simply flee the city or better yet the entire continent.
But Mysaria was not a whore. She was tired of that life, and the only way for her to fulfill her dream was through Daemon. But she also knew that no excuse or promise would be enough to soothe Daemon's rage, and so despite her body's protests she slowly pulled away her hands and let Daemon choke the life out of her.
"Kill...me...," she eeked out with the last of her breath, and without the air her eyes began to tear up, and the world began to spin and she could see Daemon grit his teeth, and just as she feared that he just might end her life, he pushed her back in rage and Mysaria fell to the floor and began to cough.
"GAHH! GUGH!" she gulped in as much as air as her lungs would take, as Daemon sat up showing no care for the bandages and the wounds he had taken.
"How?" he questioned as he looked down at her.
"How did this happen?" he asked, and this was not the usual fiery rage of the Dragon. No, this was a cold chilling rage which promised only death and destruction.
Those men had not just foiled his plans but they had humiliated him. That woman had humiliated him. That healer had humiliated him, and Daemon Targaryen was not a man to be humiliated.
He had spent all his life chasing power and respect, and just when he had thought it all within his grasp, all of it had been taken from him.
"I am afraid I have no answer for you yet," and she had been just as surprised as him by this entire affair.
"But I will have the answers. I promise," and he was not convinced but the simple truth was that he had few allies to rely on apart from her.
Still, he rose from the bed without any care for his bandages, and walked up to the window and looked out the at the riots in the city down below.
"This is not random," and she nodded her head, as she rubbed her bruised neck.
"All of this was planned," he added, and she knew that as well.
"That woman. The one who defe..." and his head snapped towards her rapidly, as she held her tongue.
"The one with the scar," she corrected herself in fear of his rage, though by now it was no secret that Daemon Targaryen had been defeated twice by a woman. She was a good fighter, and in normal circumstances it would not matter much.
But for a man like Daemon, whose pride was as fragile as glass itself the defeat carried great implications.
"She is one of the Healer's loyalists," and she had been in the stands when she had first unhorsed Daemon some five years ago, and later taken him down in the melee. It was a spectacle, and the stories had just begun to die down now, but with this they would be revived once more.
"Elsa Waters," Daemon gritted out his name with unbridled rage.
"She is that Healer's whore. I should have had her killed years ago," and perhaps that should have been the wiser choice.
"This is his doing. All of it," Daemon added, and she nodded.
"Of course. But he was not alone in this," and she was on her feet now, as she slowly walked forward and stood infront of Daemon himself.
"Someone hid the movements and activities of these men deliberately. Someone high up," she added, and Daemon's fists balled up, and she saw blood soak them as his wounds reopened.
"Father," Daemon guessed with a pained scoff, and she had thought so at first herself.
"No," she answered, surprising him.
"For King Baelon to do something like this he would have relied on his Hand," and doing so would have made it so that Larys would have known of this.
But he was just as surprised.
"Then who would dare do such a thing?" Daemon questioned and she wondered the same thing.
Few people had the power and the capacity to plot such a thing, and fewer still to do so in absolute secrecy. Whoever they were, they had great trust in the Healer, and his men along with a high enough reach within the court to push this through the royal court without anyone's notice.
"Still, we need to change our plans. Princess Gael and Rhaenyra have escaped to Riverlands, and the lords will be gathering there soon to pledge their allegiance to her. We need to act..." but before she could finish, there was a knock at the door, and she frowned.
"Come in," and much to her surprise it was Daemon who prompted the servant to come inside, much to her surprise.
"Your grace," the servant came in and bowed, and Daemon had a strange look on his face.
"Your grace, the dowager Queen seeks an audience with you," and she was taken aback by those words, and the Good Queen had pulled away from the court years ago, and her once loud name had become a whisper at court as her health deteriorated.
"So she finally showed herself," Daemon whispered, and it took her a second to realise the implication.
"You don't mean," and Daemon had a strange expression on her face.
"She used her silence and age to make us forget about her, but now she shows her true colors," and there was a cruel smile on his face as he talked of his grandmother.
And it made sense. The dowager Queen had helped the Conciliator bind the realm together for some forty years. If there was anyone who had the authority, the mind and the patience to carry out such a plot then it was her.
"Tell her I will be there...."
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ALYSSANE TARGARYEN—The Good Queen
A mother was supposed to love all her children equally. She was never to favor one over the other. This was ordained by the Seven, but few could ever fulfill this promise.
She could not.
Alyssane was a devout follower of the Seven, and yet she had failed in her duties as a mother for the entire realm that she had a favored child. Gael, born to her after years and years of pain, her daughter had been ray of hope in a world filled with pain and regret.
She had come to her in the winter of her child bearing years, and the maesters had long declared her barren but the Gods would bless her with one last miracle to help her live, and so she would cling to her in the years after.
She would only later learn how she had harmed her daughter with such behavior, but none would ever doubt her love for her little Winter Princess. But that did not mean that she did not love her other children any less.
She loved them all. Or at least she tried to love them all tot he best of her abilties. She loved Aegon, and Baelon. She had loved Daenerys, and Alyssa and Daella, and Saera.
She cared much for Vaegon, Saera and Viserra as well though they made it rather difficult to love them. She loved her little Viserion as well, and all those who were taken too soon from her.
She loved them all, and their sufferings and tribulations all pained her much. As a mother she would often do all she could to lessen their sufferings but the Gods were cruel, and wished to test them all.
Each of them faced their own troubles, yet few faced as many as her son Baelon. Her Spring Prince had once been the joy of these halls, always following after his elder brother.
Yet he would be forced to burn thousands just to avenge his death. He would have to bury his own wife, and son to disease. He would have to face the loss of his own father all alone, and in that suffering he would find himself betrayed by his own blood.
All these pains and sufferings had wilted her little Spring Prince, who was now gone from this world. Gone before his own mother. But it would not matter much, for she would be with him soon, and she could sense the Stranger's presence now and he would come for her soon, and she was thankful that the Gods had given her enough time to do one last thing for her wilted son, and winter child.
"Why?" Daemon questioned, as he looked down at her. His face reminded her much of Aegon, yet he lacked her son's kindness and virtue. Where Aegon had been kind and mellow, Daemon was fire and rage.
He was a stain on the Targaryen name. A powerhungry fool who refused to see anything beyond himself. He may be Baelon's son, but she had noticed the darkness inside him years ago.
It was why she had married him to that lovely girl from the Vale, hoping that a woman's touch would mellow him out but it had only fanned his rage, and turned him into the second coming of Maegor.
Alyssane was amongst the few people who had seen Maegor with her own eyes, and she knew well that the realm could not survive another monarch like that. And so, she had acted.
Galen had reached out to her two years after his departure, seeking her aide in planting his men throughout the city. It was a traitorous ask, but one she had accepted in anticipation of such a day.
"Why did you do this all?"
But this was not her only crime. She had been the one to propagate the rumors about Daemon's unsuitability. She had been the one to first whisper Gael's name as Baelon's heir.
One could argue that she was the very architect of the crisis they all faced today.
"You already know," and perhaps it was the nearing of death that gave her strength, and she felt more alive than she ever had in years. With Gael out of the capital her purpose was fulfilled, and soon enough Galen would join her in Riverlands, and with that she would have fulfilled her duties as a mother.
"No," Daemon raged.
"I do not!" Daemon's frustrations were obvious, as Alyssane lowered her gaze.
"I am your grandson! Your blood and yet you betray me! Why! What have I ever done to you! What wrong have I commited that you must rob me of my birthright!" and perhaps she was wrong to do this.
Perhaps he deserved a chance. But the deed was done.
"You ruined my son," and the words struck him, as Alyssane met his gaze once more.
"My Baelon," and she may love Gael the most, but Baelon she loved the most after her.
"He was the kindest of my children, and yet you ruined him with your lies and ambition," and his actions from five years ago had made Baelon a shell of his previous self. They had taken away his smile, his joy and his very dignity.
"I did no such thing," and she shook her head.
"You lie still," and the way those lips thinned was answer enough.
"I did nothing wrong!" he defended himself.
"I did only what every other lord in this castle does. What you did for forty years! I played the game. I offered him nothing but my advise and if he had taken it fully, the realm would have been in a far better position," and maybe he was right.
Maybe he really had just played the game, but it did not absolve him of his sins.
"You ruined my son. You tried to ruin my daughter. I could not let that go," and so she had acted, and she knew of his little witch, and his little cripple and how both of them thought so highly of themselves.
But in her eyes they were nothing but children. She had helped Jaehaerys win the throne and keep it for forty years. She had been his aide longer than Barth himself, and even while she was confined to this room she could play this game better than anyone alive.
"The lords will be rushing to Riverlands by now," and the letters had gone away already.
"The armies will gather, and even the Velaryons will lower their banners to Gael," and she saw his jaws clench, as she played her last gambit.
"You will never sit the Iron Throne. Never," she promised, and saw unadultered rage in those amethyst eyes as daemon looked down at her with sheer disgust and gate.
"Never you say," he repeated and challenged her once more.
"We will see about that," and with that the life of the Good Queen came to an end, and with her death she entrusted her two greatest treasures, to Galen the Healer.
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