Death was not a clean cut, nor a graceful withering; it was loud, jagged, full of screams. In his old world, he had met it suddenly—flames, broken steel, shouts lost to the uproar. Pain had been his last companion, and then silence.
And then he opened his eyes… to wet linen and blood.
The sounds came first—women shouting in a strange tongue that, to his mind, translated effortlessly into meaning. Then the touch of hands upon him, small as a sparrow's breath. He inhaled, and the air was heavy with the smell of smoke, sweat, and iron.
A woman's face swam into view above him—silver hair plastered to her sweat-shined temples, violet eyes blazing even in her weakness.
"Baelon," she whispered, her lips brushing the name like a prayer.
Queen Aemma Arryn, wife of King Viserys Targaryen, mother of Rhaenyra. And now, mother of him.
But she was wrong about one truth. She wasn't the mother of Baelon alone. She was the mother of death's second chance.
So they really did it, he thought, newborn lips unable to form words though his mind was older than the walls enclosing him. The gods, or fate, or someone—dropped me into House of the Dragon. The cursed board of pieces and fire. And I… I am her son. The one she dies birthing.
The realization coiled cold in his gut. He had begged for the strength of a warrior, for a body in its prime, for the resilience to survive war. The gods gave him regeneration and a body closer to the legends of Baelon the Brave. He had not asked to be reborn a murderer of mothers.
Shouts suddenly shook the chamber.
"Her Grace is fading!" cried a maester.
"More blood, gods preserve her!" shouted another.
A scream tore Aemma's body. Blood painted the bed red as banners. King Viserys rushed to her side, his face a mask carved in terror. His hands clutched hers, trembling as if he could hold her to this world by will alone.
"Stay with me, Aemma," he pleaded. A king turned to begging, stripped of dignity, of rule. "Please… stay."
Aemma's violet eyes fluttered. She looked not at him, but down at her son… at Baelon.
"You'll… live for me," she whispered weakly, the sound cracking. "You'll… live…"
Her hand fell.
Her voice fell.
Her flame went out.
-------------------------------------------------------
By the next morning, bells tolled slow and low across King's Landing. Queen Aemma was dead, and whispers already began: her son had taken her life.
Baelon lay swaddled, a babe too innocent for blame, yet marked already as the dragon who had devoured his own mother.
The king did not eat. Did not speak. He stared for hours at the cradle where his son rested, torn between grief and the fragile flame of duty.
"Your Grace," Otto Hightower murmured like a carrion crow, "the Seven have taken your queen… but they left you a prince. A gift. A sign."
Viserys did not answer.
But Baelon heard it, and though his body was a child's, his thoughts were a man's. Yes, a gift—but not from the gods Otto worships. A gift from crueler hands, for crueler ends.
Rhaenyra came that same day, rushed from her lessons by Ser Harrold himself. She had her mother's hair, her mother's stubborn set jaw, though still rounded by childish softness. She climbed onto the stool near the cradle, her violet eyes red-rimmed from crying.
The babe lay quietly, awake but not crying, gaze fixed on her.
"You took her from me," Rhaenyra whispered, fingers trembling as they brushed the boy's cheek. "But… you're all I have left."
Tears dripped onto his blanket. For the first time, a pang split Baelon's chest. He had prepared himself for the game of thrones, for dragons and blood, but no preparation shielded him from the innocence of her grief.
She leaned closer until her forehead touched his. "I'll never let you go. Never."
Baelon—grown man in a child's body, cursed with knowledge—closed his eyes. He wanted to turn away, but something in her touch anchored him.
So it begins, he thought bitterly. My sister clings to me, thinking me her comfort. She doesn't know I am a grave marker in her life, a reminder of the cost of birth. Yet she clings still.
And though he promised himself to keep distance, he did not cry. He endured her warmth, her desperate hold, and let her believe.
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Help and show support I am a new author this is my first story hope you appreciate
She will be a bit younger than her cannon self around 12