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Alicent Hightower never thought she would be the queen. She always knew she would have children, but never in her daydreams had she realized those children would be princes and princesses. All to a king with a heart too small for all of them. In her dreams, the father of her children had a heart big enough for more than one. He would have kind eyes and even kinder hands. A radical in their world who would stay in the birthing room, hold her hand.
Her hand clawed at the empty space beside her.
Push.
Push.
More.
It was silent. Alicent stared at nothing, her body sore, as something built inside of her head and chest. A high-pitched noise like a kettle. Was Alicent a kettle now? Her insides felt like boiling water. Raw, chafed, her skin peeled back.
A queen in truth now.
Queen Aemma would have understood, would have held her hand while she labored.
.
.
.
No.
Alicent swallowed past tears. Queen Aemma wouldn’t have. Alicent had been just a daughter of the Hand, just a companion of Rhaenyra’s—not important enough to gain the attentions of the queen, let alone affections. It would have been inappropriate.
But it didn’t stop Alicent from imagining in this quiet chambers. That soft hand over her own, a voice gentle and encouraging, firm arms around her shoulders when reality struck.
It was a snake, that reality. That truth.
The maester had already fled, his legs taking him to the waiting king and princess. Alicent’s husband twice her age, Alicent’s friend.
They never entered the room.
One of the midwives remained, her hands steady and sure as she wrapped the small babe. She looked up at her queen. “Do you want to hold him before the Silent Sisters arrive?”
“You would allow me?” Alicent’s throat was sore, but she pushed the words through. She accepted the pain, the prickling of needles; it felt deserved somehow. A way to reveal what was done to her to someone. The midwife was someone. A witness.
“It can help, at times.” The midwife approached like a rock—her entire body steady, her eyes dry, no pity—but she handled the bundle with a gentleness that made Alicent sob. “Say goodbye, Your Grace, or goodnight. Whichever is easiest for you in the moment.”
The babe was a small thing. Pale and so still, and Alicent blinked past the illusion of an expanding chest. It had been a boy; the long-awaited Targaryen prince King Viserys had murdered one queen to get.
She only saw her boy.
And he had been beautiful. He was beautiful.
She forced herself to look at him. He was small, his chest so thin through the wrapped blanket, he resembled a deflated sack. Thin wisps of silver-gold dusted an otherwise perfectly formed head. There was a slit from his upper lip running to his fragile nose. His eyes were closed and she imagined they were her green.
Alicent never thought she would be the queen. She always knew she would have children, but never in her daydreams had she realized those children would be princes and princesses.
She thought her first babe would live.