The tide had turned by the time the Lady of Driftmark was in her chambers.
After dismissing her maids, she walked around the steaming tub to face the mirror where a pale, naked skin reflected in ember tint.
Rhaneys frowned neutrally at her reflection. She knew she was getting old. Even the scar along her ribs she acquired from a Dothraki arakh twenty years ago was gone.
The door of her chambers opened without a knock.
When she looked, she saw Maegon, recognizing him quickly from his frame. He wore breeches and a lose shirt with gold links and he reeked even from afar.
"Sister," Maegon said, shutting the door with his heel, "you smell of fire."
Rhaneys didn't reply him. Acting like he wasn't there, she turned back to her bath preparations.
The chamber was uncomfortably stuffy, but Maegon was fine with it since it wasn't his first outing here. Still, he often found pleasure in roaming through the relics and engravings along the wall.
Rhaneys took her bath peacefully and emerged from the water moments later.
Cold, calloused hands slid around her waist impatiently, Maegon's fingers grappling the lines childbirth had left on her belly.
"Three days," he exhaled. "and you ride in reeking of cinders and other men's screams. I should be jealous."
"Be jealous of the wind, then," Rhaneys answered, tilting her head to give her brother a better purchase of her neck. "It had me longer."
Maegon laughed, kissing her with fun and hugging her tight. She twisted in his arms, water dripping from her dark hair and damping his shirt.
But as he thought things will get better, Rhaenys cupped his jaw. "Later, my dearest. First, a talk."
"Must we?" the young man groaned.
"We must."
With a sigh, Maegon released his sister and helped himself to her rocking chair.
Rhaneys on the other hand, wrapped herself in a robe of red silk, perched on the tub's edge, and began combing wet strands with her fingers.
"Viserys is dead."
"...."
Rhaneys looked at Maegon.
She knew her brother was an unemotional bastard, but Viserys was their cousin and they had the most shared memories than any other relative.
"You have nothing to say, brother?"
Maegon rolled his eyes as though he had heard of the news before now. But he hadn't.
"Wasn't it expected?" he asked. "The king looked like he had the Sweet Rot and the Great Spring altogether."
He wanted to say more about how Viserys' illness was very ugly, but Rhaenys's silence made him stop. Smiling, he asked, "When does Nyra ascend the throne? There'll be a tourney, right? I'm ready to be knighted—"
"Rhaenyra isn't ascending any throne. The Greens butcher Baelon, Baela, the babe Aekar, throats opened in the royal apartments while the city slept. Aegon the Younger was crowned in the Dragonpit at dawn. I crashed the coronation. Meleys took the new king, Alicent Hightower, and Criston Cole. But Aemond lives. Vhagar nearly had me over Blackwater Rush."
Maegon's lazy smile faded with every information he heard.
"Children of incest, the Faith calls them. Abomination. The High Septon anointed Aegon with one hand and held the knife with the other," Rhaenys continued. "Rhaenyra holds Dragonstone. Her second son still lives, but Aemond will be king within a moon if the Greens have their way. The realm will not stomach another child-king off Jaehaerys."
"Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait," Maegon hissed in confusion, shaking his head.
He tried his best to imagine all Rhaenys had narrated, but it seemed to far-fetched for this age and era.
He had never seen two dragons sharing the same sky, but now his sister was telling him Meleys danced with the Queen of all dragons?
Innocent children slain?
Baelon and his son were Rhaenyra's heirs to the throne, much as she were herself, Viserys had made that clear a thousand times over even with his teeth rot.
"This... this is treason," Maegon revealed.
"Are you realizing that now, my love?"
"So, the Crown is at war?"
Stroking her hair with a comb, Rhaenys admired Maegon's innocence that bordered at stupidity at the same time.
The realm was at war. A war was to be fought against such treachery. And it would be a bloody war if either side refuses to bend the knee... as Rhaenys was confident they wouldn't.
Maegon thinks it ought to be a one-sided war since Aegon the younger was dead already, but he still had his son, Jaehaerys, his wife, Helaena who rode Dreamfyre, and his brother Aemond, who needed no introduction.
Compared to the Blacks, the Greens were short on numbers, but Dreamfyre and Vhagar were large. Helaena and Aemond could conquer a new continent with that fire power.
"The Greens also have the Faith Militant at their side," Rhaenys resumed. "They have King's Landing, the gold cloaks, the treasury. Don't forget little Daeron and his dragon, Tessarion."
Maegon didn't expect Daeron to mount any significant power for the Greens.
He was very eager to see the only Targaryen in the Reach. Just to think the boy was knighted at 12 and he himself was yet to be knighted, pissed him off.
It was his fault though.
"And where does the Wandering Prince fit in this pretty mess?" he asked carefreely. "Someone will bend the knee sooner or later. Aemond has no true warfare experience, and he's the Green's powerhouse. When he meets his uncle, Daemon will take another eye."
"Don't be infantile, brother. You have a role to play here."
"Give Nyra a third bastard for more claim?"
"This is no laughing matter, Maegon! You know you are meant to sit the Iron Throne. I've told you countless times!"
The chamber went silent and so did Maegon.
Rhaenys felt bad for yelling, so she rose to her feet, the silk of her dress whispering as she kissed him on the cheek.
"My dearest, Aemon was heir. You are Aemon's son. The Great Council stole your birthright because you pissed in swaddling clothes."
Maegon had heard this story more times than the Conquest.
"The Baratheons remember that their blood was supposed to sit on the throne, and they'll do anything for it. They still remember you. Half of Kings Landing remember 'The Prince They Never Crowned.' The Faith Militant arms in the septs; they will crown Aemond to spite dragon incest. But they cannot crown him over you since you are fully legitimate under the Seven."
Maegon looked at his sister to be sure if she hadn't ran mad.
"You'd have me raise my claim to a chair of swords?" he asked her for clarity.
It was absurd to suggest that he was heir to the Iron Throne when the realm was already split in two sides with strong claims already.
"I ride west of Westeros, Rhaenys. I fight sellswords in Braavos for the thrill..."
When Rhaneys didn't answer him, he began listing why they call him the Wandering Prince.
"I have no wish to rule the fucking seven kingdoms!" he laughed.
Rhaneys sighed at the window before walking over to him. As usual, her touch made the difference.
From the day he could see his own feet till the day she dies, Maegon would always be manipulated by his sister since she was the only person he had.
"The Greens will hunt every drop of dragonblood that threatens them, and Rhaenyra will search for all dragonblood to support her. My love, don't think they'll forget you in this time of upheaval."
"How do you expect me to stand alone and raise my own banner? Rhaenyra will name us traitors within the fortnight and Daemon will have my tongue."
Rhaneys seemed to answer by removing her robe, and climbing onto Maegon's lap, her knees bracketing them and her arms wilding around his neck.
"When the hour is ripe. If the hour never ripens, we bend the knee to Rhaenyra and Valarr and call it loyalty. Either way, we survive."
Maegon's hands rose, caressed her back, before kneading the firm curve of her arse as if to anchor himself.
"Why are you so certain?" he asked, "This is treason, sister."
Drawing back, Rhaenys sat on Maegon like he was her steed, her brown nipples pointing to his neck.
They had uncanny facial similarities, making them look like twin ghosts with violet eyes. The only difference was their hair, and that was starkly opposite to the other.
"Because you have Cerigax," Rhaenys said with conviction. "Third largest dragon alive, wilder than the Cannibal if I'm not mistaken? And isn't that right, my love? The son of Aemon, the blood of the Conqueror and the storm kings, astride a beast that could swallow Sunfyre whole?"
Maegon's fingers tightened her arse, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them. "You'll ruin me," he whispered against her mouth.