Divide and Conquer, Chapter 12: Gifts

Sixth Moon, 102 AD (1 AC)

The Red Lion

Robert did not think he would ever forget how Casterly Rock had fallen. In seven days, Aegon Targaryen had brought the mighty and impregnable fortress to its knees with a legendary feat of dominance and deceit the likes of which the world had not seen since the Age of Heroes. Some of his loyalists were already likening his achievement to that of Lann the Clever and his trickery, justifying his rule over the Westerlands by declaring that it was only right and proper since he had usurped the Lannisters the same way that Lann had usurped the Casterlys, with not a single casualty.

Yet some of Targaryen’s decriers and enemies were already murmuring to each other about his brutality and cruelty. His executions of the innocent families of some of the garrisons as well as his army’s sack of the septs in Lannisport and their massacre of the Faith Militant and the people within had only given fuel to the fire and many in the Westerlands and beyond were left nervous at what he planned to do next.

Robert wasn’t fully sure what he thought himself. He recalled how Casterly Rock’s surrender had played out within the fortress itself. For months he had been ruminating on what the Ranger had told him, about what he stood to gain if he joined the Targaryens and what had not been directly spoken, what he would lose if he didn’t.

When Aegon Targaryen had conquered Lannisport and laid siege to Casterly Rock with the Lannisters able to do nothing to stop him, he had already been wavering. When he had made clear his threats were real on the second day, burning that Lannister cadet branch in open view of the Lion’s Mouth, his decision had been made.

In his mind’s eye he had seen the same thing happening to his own family left at home in Castamere and his heart had broken and recoiled in fear to even imagine it. Aegon had not been subtle at all that that would be the fate of those that defied him and every day that had passed where he had killed yet another defender’s family had only reinforced that point.

All the while Loren Lannister and his family had stubbornly refused to yield even as the garrison of their castle had started murmuring mutiny and treason. Robert had spent those dark days trying to gather up enough support for his mutiny, acting as fast as he could in secrecy for Loren Lannister’s paranoia and fear had grown enough that even the slightest whisper would have seen Robert executed before he could get anything done.

The worst had been yet to come though, and when Aegon Targaryen had destroyed the Lion’s Mouth on the sixth day, making it clear that not even the Rock would keep them safe from the dragons, Robert had finally gotten the support he had needed.

Lords Farman, Crakehall, and all the other major nobles in the castle had thrown their support behind him and with the garrison all but united, they had led a mutiny that had slain what few Lannister loyalists had remained and taken the entire family in chains and thrown them before Aegon Targaryen at dawn the next morning, praying to any god that would listen that he would keep his word and spare them for yielding.

To their surprise and relief, he had kept his word and in the months since they had watched with bated breath as the rest of the Westerlands had slowly submitted to Aegon, their will to resist shattered by the fall of Casterly Rock and their fears somewhat put to rest by the good treatment Robert and his fellow lords, Farman and Crakehall had received for kneeling to Targaryen. Meanwhile, the Iron Islands had been fully cleaned up all the way to Lonely Light by Aegon’s sister-wife, Queen Rhaenys.

Now at long last, it was time for the reckoning. For the spoils of war to be given out, the winners rewarded, and the losers punished.

“All hail His Grace, Aegon of House Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Rivers and Hills, King of the Isles and Rock, Lord of Summerhall and Dragonstone, Protector of the Realm, and Shield of His People!”

The herald announcing the King’s arrival was none other than Queen Rhaenys and Robert noticed that she had a great beaming smile as she proclaimed the titles, giving special emphasis to the new additions. It seemed personally pleasing to her that her husband’s titles had become even longer and grander than before.

He also noted that ‘the Rivers and Hills’ had taken primacy over ‘the Isles’ and ‘the Rock’ and no new title such as ‘the Rivers and Rock’ had been created to refer to the realm, instead the titles had simply been stacked on top of each other. In a way it made sense he supposed because the ‘Hills’ in question had always referred to the hills of the Westerlands contested between the Lannisters and the various River Kings since time immemorial but it also indicated to Robert that the Targaryens were still favoring their loyal heartlands in the Riverlands and the realm would likely continue to be known officially as the Kingdom of the Rivers and Hills on the maps and on the lips of the people.

King Aegon walked into the throne room then with a sword in hand then and took his seat on the Golden Throne of House Lannister. The glittering chair was adorned with rubies and cushioned with red velvet and its legs, backrest, and armrests had, according to legend, been forged and shaped directly from the vast vein of gold in the cavern wall behind the throne. The rest of the throne room was crisscrossed by similar veins of gold ore, left exposed and gleaming against the dark rock surrounding them but yet untouched. Such was a statement of wealth greater than any ostentatious golden statue or gilded room ever could have been and the Rock had plenty of those to go around as well, enough to put even his beloved home of Castamere to shame.

The sword the King held in his hands as his scepter was not Blackfyre as Robert had expected, his breath catching in his throat as he looked closer and realized what it was. Red Rain. Once the ancestral sword of Robert’s own family, it had been stolen from them by the Ironmen savages of House Drumm before the Lannisters had retrieved it in their invasion of the Iron Islands and then refused to return it to them, blatantly seizing it for themselves in their arrogance as the replacement for their own lost sword, Brightroar.

The slight had enraged Robert and his whole family and yet there had been naught they could do. That is until one mysterious Ranger had promised him that the Targaryens might return the sword to them among other rewards should they join their side. Robert’s hopes had been growing ever since the fall of Casterly Rock but he had never quite mustered up the courage to ask if the sword or the Wardenship would be granted to him. He would never forget the sight of the Black Dread destroying the Lion’s Mouth, the way its roars shook the mountain itself and echoed through every corridor and cavern.

With Red Rain in hand, King Aegon pronounced his judgement. The disgraced former King of the Rock, Loren, and a great many of his loyal family members, knights, guards, and vassals were all sentenced to take the black and serve in the Night’s Watch for the rest of their lives, including Loren’s only surviving brother Tybolt and all of his infant bastard sons with his Ironwomen concubines. Loren’s queen and bastard daughters and many other Lannister and noble women whose fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons were sentenced to the Night’s Watch were also sentenced to join the silent sisters.

Altogether, the Night’s Watch would be receiving almost a thousand new recruits and the silent sisters, three hundred. Among those recruits was the entire main branch of House Lannister and countless many of their cadet branches even if countless more would remain in Lannisport, too distant and obscure to ever be a threat to the Targaryens.

Loren himself and a few of the most prominent men and women being sentenced were present in the throne room that had once been theirs to hear the verdict and they were too defeated to even protest anymore as they were escorted from the room in silence. The unspoken meaning was clear, this was the punishment for defiance, and what the dragon giveth the dragon can taketh away.

After Loren and the others had been sentenced, the rest of the Westerlander lords knelt to swear their fealty to Aegon, Farman, Crakehall, and Banefort among them. They rose as Defenders, Keepers, and Masters of Aegon’s kingdom and accepted the unrefusable invitation for their kin and themselves to alternate their attendance of his court in Summerhall to ‘represent’ their houses, something all houses of Warden rank were already subject to by default.

When Robert had made to join them in swearing his fealty however, the Dragonguard had stopped him and informed him to wait as he would be called out personally later in the ceremony. His nervousness and fear had soared because of that yet there was also the slightest tinge of excitement and hope stirring in his heart.

Once his fellow Westermen had finished swearing fealty, Aegon Targaryen rose from the throne, Red Rain still in hand, and began speaking.

“House Lannister has been defeated and by right of conquest I claim the entirety of their realm for myself, adding the Kingship of the Isles and Rock to my titles. From this day onwards, the lands of Casterly Rock, Lannisport, Crakehall, Kayce, Feastfires, and Fair Isle are to be a direct part of the royal fiefdom, organized as the Crown Province of Casterly Rock and ruled by an Archon of my choice who shall be appointed to govern the lands on my behalf and serve as the direct steward and overseer of Casterly Rock and Lannisport. The remainder of the Westerlands and the Iron Islands shall be divided into four principal Wards.”

His queen then summoned forth their cousin Jacaerys Velaryon, and three loyal loyalists, Gaemon Gryvetheon, Alyn Celtigar and Irrano Ormollen, in turn and they knelt before the King, swearing their fealty to him and rising greater than they had been before they had knelt.

Respectively, Jacaerys Velaryon was named the Warden of the Iron Islands, Gaemon Gryvetheon the Warden of the Golden Tooth, and Alyn Celtigar the Warden of the Western Hills, with his seat in Silverhill. The houses that had once ruled the Iron Islands, Golden Tooth, and Silverhill were gone now, wiped away by the Lannisters or the Targaryens with slaughter and exile to the Night’s Watch and the Faith. Meanwhile Irrano Ormollen was named the Archon of Casterly Rock and charged with holding the seat on behalf of the Crown, though his position was at the King’s pleasure and not hereditary.

The lower nobles, the Defenders, Keepers, and Masters, had all already been given their rank in the Targaryen kingdom before this ceremony. Many of them were Westermen who had submitted to King Aegon during his conquest but no small portion of them had been dragonseeds, landed knights, and the younger sons of Riverlords, all of whom hailed from the Riverlands and the Blackwater Bay region and had been granted the spoils of war as the reward for their loyalty.

There was still one more Ward to be granted however and only one man still remained that had not yet been summoned. The anticipation almost had Robert choking as he was finally called forth by Queen Rhaenys.

“Lord Robert Reyne of Castamere! Step forth!” she commanded and he obeyed. He stepped before the Golden Throne and knelt before the King and Queen.

“Lord Reyne, your courage and honor should be respected and honored. Alone of all the souls in Casterly Rock, you knew from the start that surrender was the wiser and more honorable choice and you worked tirelessly to save the lives of countless innocents when you imprisoned the Lannisters and surrendered them and this castle to me. Such loyalty and virtue shall not go unrewarded in my realm,” Aegon Targaryen declared.

“I hereby name you the Warden of the Pendric Hills, and to have under your domain the fealty of Houses Tarbeck, Westerling, and Banefort among others, and to have a rank of the highest honor in my kingdom.”

Robert was almost speechless. “Thank you, Your Grace. I humbly accept,” he said before swearing his oath of fealty.

When he finished, the King told him to rise and he obeyed, watching nervously as he stepped down the stairs of the dais and personally placing Red Rain in his hands. “My thanks for letting me borrow this fine blade for the last few months Lord Reyne, but I think it is long past time that I returned it to its rightful owners.”

Robert held the blade reverently before remembering his manners. “You humble me with your great gift Your Grace,” he said as he bowed.

“You are most welcome, but it is no gift my lord. Simply a wrong made right, as it should have been from the start,” the King said before he turned and climbed back up the dais to the throne.

As he watched the Targaryen ascend to the Golden Throne House Lannister had held for thousands of years, Robert Reyne swore to himself that this man, this king and his family, would have the loyalty of him and his house for as long as they lived. The Lannisters had grown arrogant and brazen, mistreating their vassals, but the Targaryens treated those who served them loyally with honor and graciousness.

The roars of the golden lions of the Rock might have been silenced forever but the red lions would not die with them Robert swore. From now on, they would roar with the red dragons.

__________________________

Visenya

Her siblings were returning today. It should have made her happy, and a part of her was, happy that her dear brother and sister, her beloved husband and best friend were returning home. Yet an even greater part felt discontent.

For so many months she had worried what might befall her siblings, fearing the worst might happen or that their campaign might be negatively affected or slowed in some way by her absence. But nothing had happened, and Visenya hated that she felt this way but that made her feel even worse.

Did her siblings even really need her? If they could do their conquests without her, if even Rhaenys whom Aegon and her had long coddled out of fear she would suffer her counterpart’s fate could prove so capable and ruthless a general, one that made even Visenya proud, what role did she have?

She had never been as charismatic and wise as Aegon nor as adorable and charming as Rhaenys. She was a capable administrator and ruler but so were they. What Visenya had always prided herself in most was her skills as a general, as a warrior. If Rhaenys could do that as good as her in addition to all of her other existing skills in diplomacy and managing the court, what place was there for her?

Darkly her thoughts wandered briefly, wondering if this was how it had started for their counterparts. Was this how Aegon started favoring Rhaenys over her? Was it how the rift between them began to form and grow until she cared naught that her son was murdering Rhaenys’ grandchildren?

No that was stupid, she thought, trying to shake the thought away. Her children were betrothed to Rhaenys’, two sons and one daughter to two daughters and one son, a perfect lineup of matches. If any gods did exist, perhaps this blessedly simple resolution to her and Rhaenys’ separate lines was their repayment for what had befallen their family in that other world. Yet what if something went wrong? What if things really did deteriorate until it reached that point and this was how it all started?

Visenya wasn’t even sure where her thoughts were going anymore. They swirled and mixed and contradicted each other. Dark ideas and thoughts twirling and weaving in and out. Yet one thing remained constant. She couldn’t shake the feeling of discontentment, of uselessness.

She did her best to push the thoughts away as they finally espied two specks in the sky, one black and the other silver. The children cheered in excitement as they heard the familiar roars of Balerion and Meraxes.

When they finally landed on the roof of Dragonsreach, it was all Visenya could do to restrain them and keep them from running straight to her siblings. Once the Dragonkeepers had seen to the dragons however and Aegon and Rhaenys had dismounted, not even Visenya’s will could hold them back any longer. As she saw her siblings happily reuniting with their children for the first time in six months, she felt the dark thoughts go away for a little while as a genuine smile came to her at the sight.

It wasn’t long before Aegon detached from their children, leaving Rhaenys to see to them as he walked over to her and before Visenya could even say anything he kissed her firmly on the lips, desperately entwining his tongue with hers. Visenya melted into the kiss, feeling a fire she hadn’t even remembered she had as she realized just how much she truly missed Aegon.

“How’s the little one?” he asked when they finally broke the kiss, placing his hand on her belly tenderly. With a start she realized that the last time they had seen each other she hadn’t even been showing yet.

“Doing well the healers tell me. I can feel him kicking,” Visenya told him.

“What makes you so certain it’s a boy?” Aegon asked, amused.

“Intuition. That and experience. This little one feels a lot more similar to how Aerion and Aegor felt than Daena did.”

“And you?” There was an unasked question in Aegon’s eyes.

Before Visenya could try to figure out how to answer that, Rhaenys came running to her excitedly in a way that she hadn’t in many, many years before giving her a tight hug. For a moment Visenya struggled to reconcile the excited and squealing girl in her arms with the reports of the ruthless and proud woman that had laid waste to the Iron Islands but she put that confusion aside in favor of wrapping her arms around her little sister.

“I missed you,” she said.

“I missed you too little sister,” Visenya replied as she tightened the embrace.

When they eventually broke their embrace, the children eagerly led her siblings into the tower while Balerion and Meraxes flew off to the Dragonwood where Vhagar roared in greeting.

Dinner that night was a great feast in the Hall of a Hundred Hearths thrown to celebrate their victory and honor the heroes of the campaign. Their Wardens, generals, and other commanders were all honored and toasted, as were the four recently created Wardens whose lands were in the new territories.

Eventually Lord Edmyn Tully stepped up to propose another toast. “My lords and ladies, I hereby propose a toast, to House Targaryen, to our great King and Queens without whom none of these victories and accomplishments would be possible. Fire and Blood! To House Targaryen! May the light of their glory never dim!”

“To House Targaryen!” the hall chorused.

Aegon rose from his seat then to speak. “Thank you all for the honor you have bestowed upon my family and me. I graciously accept your praise and swear that we will endeavor to continue to be worthy of it!”

“All Hail Targaryen!” her brother Orys chanted in response and the room chorused him once again. The minstrels even tried to start playing the anthem before Aegon told them there would be time for that later with a disarming smile.

“I would like to make one final toast for the night myself before I release you all from the tedium of hearing my voice,” Aegon japed and the crowd chuckled before he rose his glass up. “To my wonderful family, to my adorable children who are the reason why I do all of this, and to my lovely queens who have been beside me every step of the way. Without their love and support, their aid in liberating and governing this great realm, none of this would have been possible.”

“To the royal family!” her old mentor Quenton cheered then and the crowd followed.

It should have touched her and made her feel proud but the accolades rang hollow for Visenya. What had she done but sit in Summerhall for the whole war? All of these glories and celebrations, they weren’t for her, they were for her siblings. She had just been awkwardly included out of propriety. Everyone else thought the same, she could sense it.

Her dark mood had returned in full force and it did not abate for the rest of the night, even as the feast continued. Songs were sung, tales were told, and Visenya remained brooding all the while.

She should have known better than to think she could hide it from those who knew her best however. As soon as they had put the children to bed, Aegon and Rhaenys dragged her away to one of the rooms in their apartments and sat her down on the couch to interrogate her, and she meant that quite literally.

There was kindness and love in their eyes, but she knew full well they were not letting her leave the room until she told them what was bothering her. So she did. Aegon had always told her that honesty and communication were critical in any relationship, that they made almost anything better. Time to see if his theory was right.

She spilled her guts out to her younger siblings, telling them all of her dark thoughts, the fears and worries that had been brewing within her ever since she had been sent back from the campaign. How she had worried for their safety and then did her best not to resent them when they had seemed to succeed so easily without her and make her question what her place was in the family. Just how useless and weak she felt.

She hated this. She hated feeling so raw and vulnerable. She just sat there waiting for what felt like an eternity for her siblings to judge her, to lambast her for being so weak, but the condemnation never came. Instead, before she knew it, she found herself almost suffocating in an extremely tight hug from both of them while Aegon pressed a kiss to her forehead.

“Neither of us knew you were feeling this way Visenya. Thank you for telling us,” Aegon began but she cut him off.

“It’s stupid I know. I shouldn’t feel like this. It’s pointless and there’s no reason to,” but it was her turn to be cut off now.

“It is not stupid,” Rhaenys insisted, grabbing her hands and forcing her to look at her.

“It’s perfectly natural for you to feel this way and it’s alright that you do Visenya. What we can tell you though, is that we’ve never valued you just because you were a capable general or ruler. Just because I found my own strength and ability in that field that does not mean that you are obsolete or that you don’t have meaning to us or to our kingdom beyond that. You’re so much more than that Visenya, you always have been.”

“What am I then?” Visenya asked her younger sister but it was their brother who answered.

“My wife. One of the great loves of my life. The mother of more than half of my children, one of whom you carry even now and sacrificed so much to protect and care for. A beloved and capable queen who has kept the realm in order while we were away,” Aegon said.

“And before you were any of those things, you were our older sister. You looked out for us when we were young, when Father was reeling from our mother’s death. When he passed away and we were left adrift. You were a source of strength for us Visenya just because you were there and that’s all we ever truly needed from you,” Rhaenys interjected.

Visenya was lost for words. Could it really have been so simple?

“You know, Valaena told me something interesting earlier,” Aegon said with a musing smile. “She told me that while she had missed Rhaenys and I, things weren’t so bad with her Aunt Visenya around. She said that you were there for all of them when they needed someone, even going so far as to ask me if we might be able to leave someone behind again the next time we go to war.”

“Why don’t we then? The two of you seemed to do well enough without my help in the campaign,” she asked, trying to keep as much bitterness as she could out of her tone and was pleasantly surprised to find that it was easier to do than it had been for months.

Aegon simply sighed. “That was just the appearance that we gave to maintain our image of strength. It seemed it worked too well if even you could not see through it Visenya. Aye, Rhaenys and I were able to complete our campaigns but it took so much longer and it was so much more tedious than it could have been had you been there to help us speed it up.

“And because of that, we lost time that we can never get back. It’s only been six months and yet the children have already grown so much in that time and they have so many stories to tell us that we weren’t here to see happen. You were Visenya. And I can’t help but feel jealous of you for it, and I think Rhaenys does too.”

Visenya turned to her sister for confirmation and she nodded. “It was nice to finally prove myself, to prove that I wasn’t her. That I could lead my own campaign and succeed without either of you coddling me. Yet sometimes I could not help but dwell on the price I had to pay for that, how much time with the children that had been taken away from me.”

“Do not resent your time with our children Visenya. They loved that you were here and you were blessed to be able to stay with them. If it is glory and battle that you seek to prove yourself once again and redeem this supposed failure you hold against yourself… there will be many more wars to be fought by all of us before our dream is realized, and I fear that not many more of them will be so kind as to end within six months as this one had,” Aegon said.

Visenya nodded, understanding what Aegon was getting at. “I heard the reports of what happened at Lannisport. You think the Faith will intervene then?”

“I know they will. We have done too much to anger them and the timeline of events that other world showed supports this. Whether it is in our next campaign or any of the ones after it, the Faith will act. That is inevitable. And when they do, it will embroil the continent in a war that lasts years, a war that is necessary for us to realize our dream but one that I think will be so long and brutal it will more than sate our appetites for glory and conquest by the end of it.

“Maybe this time that you were forced to stay at home wasn’t a humiliation or a curse Visenya. Maybe it was a gift, one that gave you some extra days of peace before the great war starts. A gift that is giving us both our fourth child.”

“And our last child,” Visenya said. “We have more than enough already, and if you are right that this great war against the Faith is coming sooner rather than later, it will be best if we do not have too many young children that we will have to be away from to wage it.” She shuddered to even imagine being with child and unable to fight if and when that war broke out.

Aegon shared a brief look with Rhaenys before he nodded. “Maybe Rhaenys and I can have one more, a spouse to marry this little one hopefully, but yes you are right. Seven or eight children will be more than enough for our family. And it will be for them that we wage this war, that we take the hard way and cover ourselves in blood so that they might have lives of peace and never have to fear rebellion or assassination.”

Visenya would give the world to her children if she could, she knew exactly how Aegon felt. Everything they did, they did ultimately for them. They would be their dynasty, their legacy, and what they and their children and their children’s children would be up to them. All Visenya and her siblings were responsible for was giving them the most solid and stable foundation they could and she’d be damned if they didn’t after knowing just how much of a bad job their counterparts had done.

At times she wondered why they could not have just spent their lives on Dragonstone, never conquering. Idling it away in a hedonistic and domestic bliss fucking each other silly and raising their children together, but she knew deep down none of them would have truly enjoyed that mundane life. They would have inevitably become restless, lost and adrift with no purpose, and feeling like they had wasted their lives. Especially when they knew that they could be so much more, that their children could have so much more.

It was those thoughts that lingered in Visenya’s mind as she cradled her youngest and last child in her arms a few months later. The birth had not been difficult but she was still resolute that it would be the last she would ever endure. Despite that however, she could not find it in herself to regret it one bit nor the discontent and shame she had felt being forced to leave the campaign for all those months when she finally had her youngest child in her arms.

It was a boy, just like she had told Aegon it would be. Her lovely perfect little boy. Her third son. All around her, her son’s older siblings crowded, trying to get a look at him as Aegon and Rhaenys tried and failed to restrain their exuberant excitement.

Despite the discomfort of having so many young children climbing over her tired body, Visenya could not help but smile. Maybe Aegon had been right after all. She could not say the months she had been forced away from the campaign in the Iron Islands were not a gift when it had given her the wonderful child in her arms.

“Welcome to the family, Aemon Targaryen.”

Her eyes drifted slowly over her sister’s not yet showing pregnant belly, where the eighth and last child of their husband grew in quiet peace and contentment. For Aemon and his siblings, both older and younger, Visenya and her siblings would wager war on all of Westeros. To give them the inheritance that they deserved, they would face down kings and septons and armies alike. And if Westeros would not submit, then it would burn.

Such was the way of the dragon, and unlike her more charming and diplomatic siblings, Visenya had never been one to pretend that she was anything less than she was.

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Author’s Note: So sorry that it’s late! I was really busy with university stuff. I’m also extremely busy with no less than four assignments over the coming weeks that have to all be submitted within a 16-day period of each other in early December so I’m a bit uncertain if Chapter 13 will be coming out this month.

Still, it is fully planned out and it’s gonna be a banger I think. Definitely stay tuned for it as we will see how the other kingdoms of Westeros and the Faith react to the Targaryen conquests! Will Aegon’s prediction be proven right? Stay tuned to find out!

And I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter as well! Please let me know your thoughts, suggestions, and any questions in the comments below or over on Discord! https://discord.com/invite/NSEwuzpcWm

Also do check out the maps enclosed below! Jordan Redstark worked really hard on them! Y’all will not believe the amount of effort he puts into making these wonderful maps!