SEE HOW IT SHINES

ix

Alicent holds her hands tightly together in her lap, so tightly that her knuckles turn snow-pale and the bones threaten to burst through her skin. Better than picking, she tells herself, barely resisting the urge to tear open the still-raw flesh around her nails. She's been trying to overcome the habit for decades, but with Rhaenyra here–Rhaenyra, who knows her ticks and tells better than anyone else, even despite the distance between them–the need to pick pick pick is stronger than ever.

She looks up from her hands, surveying the group of women gathered at the table in her solar. Rhaenyra, seated directly across from her, silver head bent to listen to whatever gossip her lady-in-waiting Alestra Strong is currently whispering into her ear. Alicent's own handmaid, Sylvis Fossoway, is too occupied with her plate of berry tarts and orange cakes to provide her with any distraction from this painfully awkward gathering. For the ninth–or ninetieth–time today, the queen regrets calling this luncheon. But she did it for–

The girls. Genna Wylde, an almost-pretty thing with her father's stern face and stringy hair, has been a presence at court since her tenth nameday, when the Master of Laws brought her from the Rain House to serve Helaena. A power grab, and a cheap one at that; one Alicent recognized well, as a move of her own father's. But Genna is well-mannered, and Helaena is fond of her, so she's allowed the friendship. Next to her is Helaena herself, and as she watches her daughter poke a grape around her plate, the queen sighs. I'll never understand you, my dragon girl. Almost twenty namedays old, and Alicent has never quite grasped her daughter's true nature. She stopped trying years ago, in truth, finding comfort in the knowledge that she was never meant to be a mother to girls, only boys, and that Helaena is well-adjusted enough (and godly, thankfully so, unlike her elder sons) that it doesn't really matter if they're close or not.

She sees a similarity in Rhaenyra's relationship with her own daughter, though she'd never admit it. Even from the earliest days of motherhood, the princess never seemed quite settled, quite comfortable, in raising a child–a girl child. Perhaps the gods saw their mistake, and gave her only boys since as a consolation. Viserra Velaryon sits on Helaena's other side, and much to Alicent's chagrin, the girls seem to be fast friends. She'd tried to dissuade the bond when they were younger, but she learned quickly that dragons cannot be forced apart. In their years apart, she'd hoped that they'd forget one another–but Viserra's feet had hardly reached the Red Keep's steps before Helaena was caught in the thrall of the rotten little sunlight girl. Not just Helaena, she thinks bitterly, but squeezes her hands even tighter to stop her thoughts from chasing after Aegon and his shameful behavior. She winces when a joint pops somewhere in her thumb and looks at the Stark girl instead. Arya? No, Lyra. Raya! Raya, of course. She should know this. Father would berate her fiercely if he knew she'd forgotten the girl's name. Any girls' names, really; now more than ever, it's imperative that she knows every detail of every highborn maiden in the Seven Kingdoms. They're all potential brides for her sons, after all, and potential queens after her.

Again she finds herself drawn to Rhaenyra's daughter. She must be glaring at the girl. She can feel her lips pulled down in a scowl, but she can't quite help it. She's never liked her. Of course, she knows why. But it strikes her as strange that even after all these years, she still can't shake a deep sense of mistrust for the girl who's only sin was being born to a snake on the same day as her own son. It's that she has her mother's deceptive heart and dragon's blood, even if it's hidden by a seahorse's body. Gods, but she looks just like her father. His eyes, his smile, his calm poise–the only evidence that Rhaenyra was even in the room at the girl's conception is the way their faces both contort with petulance at the smallest perceived slight. And their–their voices, so hauntingly similar that if she were to close her eyes now, Alicent may mistake Viserra's sweet words to Helaena as ones Rhaenyra once spoke to her in the shade of a heart tree. Her chest clenches, heart hardening against old memories that should remain in their graves, and she sits up a bit straighter.