Chapter 30.2- The Seadragon's Roar

“Then it’s settled, I guess” I said, wanting the meeting to be over so I could get about plotting in my own ways. The Capital. I wasn’t ashamed to say that I was wary. It was a den of snakes that ate even royalty alive if they weren’t careful. And I wasn’t royalty. I was someone who had aimed for the king, and I had missed. Now his brother was dead, and we were going to tell him that it had happened under or watch but we weren’t responsible.

Needless to say, I would have to be completely insane to not see the potential things had to go wrong— very wrong. Left to me, I would only ever the capital with a crown on my brow and a Kingdom at my back. Instead, we would enter on dragons, yes. But dragons that would definitely be stabled in the Dragonpit. If Viserys or anyone else wanted to get rid of the threat House Velaryon could pose in the future, then that would be the time.

And there was no point mentioning it, because Mother had already thought about it most definitely. It was possible that her entire plan hinged on us essentially delivering ourselves into Visery’s hands, and trusting that his mercy— or would it be cowardice in this case— would see us leave unscathed. Then the capitulation would be taken as a sign of innocence on our part. Surely if we had killed a Prince of the blood then we wouldn’t have delivered our entire dragon riding population into his hands.

But then again, it was possible that we did it and were doing this to shift suspicion to someone else. Sure we could stay away, but that did nothing but ensure that everyone suspected us. By doing this now, we could hope to stave off any suspicions before they could take flight and mutate beyond control (and reason). It was a headache and a half thinking about it, so I just nodded and about turned to go get Ser Ben.

—

“So the story, just to be completely sure, is that we were having planning session, you, I, and Daemon, and that was when he was poisoned. Laenor had been exhausted from an earlier patrol and so went to bed earlier. When he was poisoned, we rushed for help, but there was sadly nothing anyone could do. The poison did its work, the Prince died, and that was it?” Laena summarized after Rhaenys spent close to an hour explaining to everyone what we had been doing in the story.

“Perfect Laena. Now, Laenor you assure me that Maester Bernard will cooperate with this story. It would be highly perverse for us to be telling a story before the realm while our Maester reports another”

“Yes, Mother. Bernard and I have come to an…arrangement” I said, and Ben snorted from the side. Perhaps making the man watch Igneel roast and eat a goat had been a tad bit much, but it had driven the message home at the very least.