The Green Dragon - XXX (Patreon)

Chapter XXX: Ruin

Jonothor Targaryen sat alone in his chambers, he had barred his door, shuttered his windows, isolating himself from the World, from this World that wanted to tear him apart. A single candle burned on the table beside the empty horn of ale. He stared at it as though it could give him answers.

He had hurt his son, his babe.

He had made him cry.

He had looked at the miracle Rhaenyra had bled to give him and felt only revulsion for the name that hung around the boy’s neck like a noose.

Joffrey.

The name tasted like poison, like the nightmare of a golden-haired boy-king laughing while Ned Stark’s head rolled across the marble. The Gods were not subtle. They had taken his joy and twisted it into a mockery, a punishment for breaking his promise of never siring a bastard. He han’t only broken it, he’d sired said bastard on his damn sister.

He should never have touched her.

He should never have let her touch him.

He should have turned away the night she brought him to her bed, whispering that she needed him, only him.

He should have been stronger. He should have remembered who he was, Jon Snow, the bastard who knew better than to sire bastards.

Now there was a child.

A bastard with a cursed name.

And Jon had already failed him.

He reached for the flagon again, but it was empty, as was the horn. He sighed in dismay.

Then… He felt his tongue getting thicker, his limbs heavier yet strangely hotter, as if a fever had struck his whole body.

He frowned, blinking slowly. He felt like he’d gotten sick, tried to get up but stumbled on his bed, his knees hit the ground while his face’s fall was cushioned by his mattress.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

And as if to confirm his fears, he heard the mechanism of the secret panel in the wall creak open.

Aegon stepped through, smiling a cruel, perverted smile only him could make.

Jon tried to stand, but his legs betrayed him and he only stumbled forward, Aegon greeted him with a punch to the face that sent him back to bed.

“Evening, brother.” Aegon said, his tone a mix between honey and venom. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost, or perhaps just your own reflection.”

Jon coughed, tried to push himself to stand, but found he had no strength. Aegon’s punch had made his eyes blurry. All he could hear were several footsteps, and a strange mix of multiple perfumes invaded his nostrils.

Hands seized him. Ropes bit into his wrists. He was turned over onto his own bed like a sack of grain.

He fought—or tried to. His body would not obey. Whatever he had drank coursed through him, turning his muscles to water and his blood to fire. He was awake, aware, helpless.

Aegon leaned over him, eyes shining with triumph.

Behind him, four women, faces painted, bodies perfumed, eyes already glazed with whatever Aegon had promised them, let their coats fall to their ankles revealing their nudity.

“I told you I’d get back at you.” The younger twin whispered to the older. “We’re the same, brother, it’s time to make it real."

The first whore climbed onto the bed.

Jon tried to scream but all he did was groan.

They took turns. Four of them. Slow, deliberate, practiced to milk him out of his seed. Aegon sat in Jon’s chair, wineskin in hand, commenting like a maester observing an experiment.

“Harder girls! That’s the perfect prince you’re riding! Mother’s golden boy! Bet he’s never spilled inside a woman without weeping about honor afterward. Well, now he’ll spill enough for an army. You gotta work hard if you want a dragon babe, and the gold that’ll come with it!”

Jon’s eyes stayed open the entire time. He could not close them. He felt everything; the heat, the fury, the shame, the violation, the helpless surge of his own body betraying him again and again. Tears slid silently into his hair, he felt so furious, he almost tore open his wrists.

When it was done, Aegon untied the ropes himself, smiling at the sight of his brother’s blood flowing down the latter’s wrists, patting Jon’s cheek with mock affection.

“Four new bastards on the way, brother.” He said cheerfully. “I hope you’ve made a few girls for me, at least one of them should have your pretty eyes. Won’t Mother be proud?”

The whores giggled as they left through the passage. Aegon followed, blowing a kiss.

"Sweet dreams in my skin, brother, yours is, I must say, quite confortable.

The panel clicked shut.

Leaving Jonothor Targaryen alone, drowning in his fury and shame.

Jon lay there, staring at the canopy above his bed. Seed and sweat cooled on his skin. His breath came in shallow, ragged pulls.

It wasn’t just Aegon, nor the whores, no… The drug. Whatever Aegon had put in his ale… He had felt it before… And it was the only thought that had occupied his mind when the whores had their way with him.

This heat, this loss of control, whatever surge and desire he’d felt, he’d felt it when Rhaenyra had brought him to her room the first time.
And the realization struck deeper than Aegon’s twisted torture.

While the whores had been riding him, while his twin was having his fun, Jon was replaying the cursed memory in his mind, again and again and again.

The way she had pressed the cup into his hands that night, smiling, saying it would help him relax, asking him not to let her drink alone. He had drunk without question. And then the heat, the need, the way his body had overpowered his mind, the way he had fallen into her like a starving man into a feast.

She had planned it, the same way Aegon had planned this.

She had needed a real child, a pure Valyrian child, and she hadn’t wanted it to be Laenor’s. So she had taken him. Her little brother. Her tool.

Everything after, the nights of whispered love, the promises, the child, had been built on that lie.

She had used him.

Something inside Jonothor Targaryen, something that had survived Winterfell, the Wall, death itself, betrayal after betrayal, finally snapped.

And Jon roared in his pillow, like a wounded vengeful dragon.

(-)(-)(-)

The next day, Aegon Targaryen strode through the corridors like a conqueror returning from war, still humming with triumph. The hour was early, but the Queen’s solar was already open, his mother was probably embroidering with his sister, perfect. Those were the two people he wanted to see the most.

He threw the door open without knocking.

“Mother.” He sang, smiling like he hadn’t done in years. “You’ll never guess what the servants are whispering tonight.”

Alicent looked up from her embroidery, green eyes narrowing. Helaena sat beside her, fingers brushing over her own embroidery, murmuring to something only she could understand.

“Whatever filth you’ve been rolling in, Aegon, I don’t wish to hear it.” Alicent said coldly, having no patience for her son’s antics so early in the morning.

Aegon grinned wider.

“Oh, but this is about our favorite Targaryen. Word is, our dear Jonothor has finally discovered what his cock is for. He fathered a whole litter of bastards in one night, they say. Quite the productive evening, though I’ve done better.”

Helaena’s fingers stilled. Her pale eyes flicked to Aegon, her face a mask of shock. The second twin rejoiced in the fact that he’d managed to pull his damn sister out of her daydreams. Usually, Helena was too deep in her own thoughts to ever pay attention to him.

Alicent’s needle froze mid-stitch, her green eyes turned furious. “You will not speak such vile lies about your brother.”

“Lies?” Aegon laughed, delighted. “Lies? Ask him yourself. Though he might be too embarrassed, loosing his precious virtue must have turned him into the shiest harlot in the Realm.”

His crude language left his mother lost for words.

He turned to Helaena, leaning forward with a devious smile.

“Better hurry, sweet sister. Your favorite brother’s seed is suddenly very popular. He might run out of it before you get your turn.”

Helaena flinched as though slapped. Alicent rose and actually slapped him, but the pain felt delicious on Aegon’s cheek.

“Enough. To your chambers. Now. And you will never use such language in front of me or your sister ever again! Do you hear me?”

Aegon stood, bowing with mocking flourish. “Of course, Mother. Wouldn’t want to upset poor Helaena for being ugly.” He left, laughter trailing behind him like smoke.

In his rooms, he kicked the door shut and poured Arbor gold with a flourish. The cup trembled slightly from pure satisfaction.

He had done it.

He had broken the unbreakable. He had finally gotten revenge for the humiliation Jon had inflicted upon him all those years ago.

And he felt marvelous!

Jon would never be Mother’s golden boy again. Not truly. The stain would always be there, beneath the perfect surface. Aegon raised his cup to his reflection in the window.

“To equality.” He toasted, and drank deeply.

He was still savoring the taste when the secret panel opened behind him.

The first blow took him across the temple. The goblet flew out of his hand and hit the mirror. Aegon crashed into the table, laughing even as pain exploded in his head.

Jonothor stepped from the shadows, eyes feral black.

“Hello, brother.” Aegon mock-greeted, spitting blood. “Took you long enough, I was afraid I had used too much potion last night.”

Jon hit him again. And again. Knuckles split on Aegon’s teeth, on his cheekbone, on the soft flesh beneath his eye. Each impact drove Aegon backward, into the wall, across the floor, until he lay sprawled in a puddle of his own wine.

But he kept laughing.

“You can’t do it.” He wheezed, blood bubbling at his lips. “You won’t. You’re too good, Jon. Too fucking honorable. You’d never kill your own brother. Never scar me where Mother could see. Go on, hit me again. It changes nothing. Nothing, you hear me? Because in the end, you’ll never be the same. I’ve fucking won! ”

Jon’s fist hovered, trembling.

Aegon grinned up at him, teeth red.

“Tell me, perfect Jonothor, who has the upper hand now?”

The final punch was surgical. Aegon’s head snapped back, shutting him up. He slumped, unconscious, beautiful face already swelling purple.

Jon stood over him, chest heaving. Blood dripped from his knuckles onto Aegon’s face, the latter’s silver hair were turning red from the wine.

Jon had wanted to kill him.

For one endless second, he had wanted it more than breathing.

And he hadn’t.

Aegon was right.

Jon backed away, through the secret passage, into the dark. The walls closed around him like a tomb.

Everything he’d believed in, everything he’d fought for, killed for, suffered for; honor, restraint, love, family, felt like ash in his mouth.

And Jon wanted to spit it at the face of every people he hated.

(-)(-)(-)

Jonothor slipped through the hidden door behind the tapestry in Rhaenyra’s chambers at the hour of the Wolf. His sister was already sleeping. He had spent his whole day torturing himself over everything that had happened to him. Yet, he hid his feelings, he buried them deep in his heart and pretended to be sick all day, refusing to allow anyone in. He didn’t want anyone to see his state.

Not Cole.
Not his mother.

Not his sister.

The only one who’d see it all would be Rhaenyra, her and nobody else.

He moved like a ghost as the panel clicked shut behind him. He picked a candle and stroke a flint.
The flame that bloomed illuminated his face like a demon’s.

Rhaenyra jolted awake with a sharp gasp, hand flying to the dagger beneath her pillow before her eyes found him in the flickering light.

Jon’s face was a nightmare of red. His knuckles were worse, split and raw.

Rhaenyra’s voice came out small. “Jon…?”

“Don’t be afraid.” He whispered, his voice was almost gentle. “It’s only Aegon’s blood, and he is not dead.”

The candle trembled in his grip, the flame casted a long shadow on the wall that resembled a wolf.

Rhaenyra sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to her chest.

“What has happened?”

He didn’t answer that. He stepped closer, first he threw a brief glance at their son, who was sleeping in his cradle next to the bed, eyes fixed on her, violet gone almost black in the dim.

“Tell me the truth.” He said. “That first night. The wine you pressed into my hand. You told me to drink, asked me not to let you drink alone. I remember now. I remember the heat that came after, how I couldn’t think, couldn’t stop myself. So I ask you, sister. Did you drug me, Rhaenyra? Manipulate me into breeding you?”

She opened her mouth. Closed it.

Jon’s gaze turned feral.

“Don’t. Don’t lie to me again. Not now. I’m really, really, not in the mood to tolerate horseshit.”

The silence stretched, and felt like it lasted a decade.

Rhaenyra trembled in her bed, so much so that she dropped her dagger.

Never in her life did she feel so afraid, never in her life did she feel so defenseless. There was no blade, no guard, no dragon that could protect her from this.

“I was desperate.” She whispered at last as the first tears started rolling down her cheeks. “I couldn’t bear another vial, another cold performance for the realm. I wanted a child who looked like us. Like you. I wanted…” Her voice cracked. “I wanted to be loved, I wanted it to be real, I needed you so badly. You’d always been there for me… I do love you, Jon. I always have. I was just… Afraid you’d refuse… But everything after was real. Please…”

“Was it?” His words cut like ice. “Or was everything after just gratitude for the stud who finally gave you what you needed?”

She flinched as if he’d struck her.

Jon looked at the cradle. Joffrey stirred in his sleep, unaware his father stood over him drenched in his uncle’s blood. Jon’s jaw worked. Something inside him tried to break, but he would not let it. Not here. Not in front of her. Nor in front of the boy he’d carelessly doomed.

He leaned close, voice barely louder than the candle’s hiss.

“I should have chosen a better mother for my son.” He said. “The cheapest whore on the Street of Silk would have asked for coin and been honest about it.”

Rhaenyra made a wounded sound, half-sob, half-gasp. She reached for him.

Jon blew the candle and stepped back into the dark.

The hidden door closed without a sound.

When Rhaenyra lit it again, the flame felt like a small, useless circle of light over the ruin of everything they had been. Leaving the Heir to the Iron Throne with everything she’d built since her father had chosen her: Despair.

Rhaenyra did not move for a long time, as if Jon had cut her legs of before disappearing in the dark like a merciless assassin.

She sat in the dark with Joffrey’s cries sawing at her heart, rocking him mechanically long after he had fallen back to sleep. Her arms ached. Her breasts ached. Her whole damn body ached.

She had destroyed the only real thing she’d ever had.

She saw it now with the cruelest of clarities.

She had been so proud of her cleverness. Throwing Laenor’s vial into the fire, turning to Jon with wine and lust and the truth that she could not bear another cold conception. She had told herself it was love. She had told herself he wanted it too. That the drug was only a nudge, that the fire in his eyes afterward had been real.

But she had taken his choice away, and manipulated him to do as she wanted, for her happiness alone.

And Jonothor, sweet, solemn Jonothor, who had always been here for her long before he could even grow a beard, who had held her while she retched over chamber pots, who had whispered lullabies against her belly, had seen her for what she was.

Ungrateful sister, unworthy mother, selfish woman.

She pressed her face into Joffrey’s soft hair and sobbed without sound.

She would never hear his voice again without hearing those words.

"I should have chosen a better mother for my son."

She had lost him.

Not to war, not to politics, not to Alicent’s scheming or Otto’s poison.

To her own lies.

And the worst part, the part that made her want to claw her own cheeks, was that she still loved him. Still wanted him. Still woke reaching for him in the dark.

But the foundations of what she had expected to last a lifetime had been a lie, and her dream had crumbled in less than a year.

Now, she was truly and utterly alone.

She laid Joffrey back in his cradle with trembling care, then curled on the cold floor beside it, arms wrapped around her knees as if she could prevent herself from shattering on the spot.

Tomorrow she would be the Realm’s Delight again. The Princess of Dragonstone. The mother of pure Valyrian princes.

But tonight, and every other night that’d follow, she’d be the woman who had tricked her brother into loving her and siring a son on her.

Jonothor, her greatest support for almost thirteen years, the one man in the whole Realm who had always been here for her, was gone.

And he would never come back.

(-)(-)(-)

Jonothor moved through the hidden passages like a drunk, his knuckles, eyes and mind still on fire.

He did not return to his chambers. He walked the hidden passages until his legs gave out, then sat on cold stone among rats, in some forgotten alcove between walls, knees drawn to his chest like the boy he had never truly stopped being.

He had meant to wound her.

He had wanted the words to cut deeper than any blade.

And they had.

But if that was to be called victory, Jon secretly hoped he’d loose every future battles he was meant to fight.

He kept seeing her face in the moment the candle went out, mouth open, eyes wide filled with tears.

He had called her worse than a whore.

The mother of his child, the one woman he had loved more than Ygritte.

Jon pressed his blood-crusted knuckles to his eyes until sparks burst behind the lids.

He had been raped.

Four times, by whores, while his brother laughed.

Once by his sister.

He understood that now. The drug, the manipulation, the way she had taken his choice away because her need had been greater than his consent. She had been thirty. Fifteen years older than he was. She had been the heir, he the spare, she had needed a pure dragon and he had been convenient.

He hated her for it.

But he hated himself more.

For even now, even after everything, part of him wanted to crawl back through the passage, fall to his knees, and beg her to lie to him again.

Tell him it had been real. Tell him the drug hadn’t mattered. Tell him he was still hers.

He was weak.

He had always been so fucking weak.

Ned Stark’s bastard. Robb’s shadow. The Night’s Watch’s wildling’s lover. And now, Aegon’s victim. Rhaenyra’s tool. Joffrey’s failure of a father.

He laughed once, a broken sound that echoed off stone.

The boy with the cursed name slept in a cradle fifty feet away and Jon could not even look at him without feeling disgusted by himself.

He had failed again.

(-)(-)(-)

Helaena Targaryen did not know where she was.

She was walking through the streets of a burnt city, buildings black as coal, there was so much fire and flames around her she felt like she had entered the Smoking Sea. But the people that ran past her, some carrying their children in their arms, told her that this was not Old Valyria.

She kept advancing, barefooted, her nightgown and hair slowly turned black due to the ash that was falling on her.

Yet she didn’t stop, no matter the heat, no matter the fear, the horror, the fire, the destruction. She couldn’t run away, because deep in the heart of this hellish storm, she felt someone needed her.

A dragon rose above the wreckage, Helaena had never seen this dragon. It was emerald green, covered in sooth and blood, with only one, furious eye. The other had been closed forever.

The beast opened its jaws, unleashing its sickly emerald flame ate stone and bone alike. Men, women and children burned, their eyes and skin melted, their blood vaporized in seconds, leaving only dark skeletons.

She knew that dragon.

Yet she’d never seen it before.

And when the green dragon closed its jaws around her small body, the pain she felt was not hers, but his.
She fell, yet she felt no air on her face, and landed in the throne room, where she found what was left of her brother’s dragon.

Ghost’s head had been ripped off, Death had imprisoned the terror he had felt at the moment of his passing, in his eyes. It would remain there until its prison rotted, leaving nothing but another skeleton.

With her heart in her mouth, Helaena gently closed the eyes of the first dragon she ever rode, allowing it to rest in peace with dignity.

But when the headless body started moving, her very own eyes widened in horror. Ghost’s body stood up, the stump at the end of its neck dripped with boiling blood. It moved forward, forcing Helaena back. The Princess fell backwards but her eyes never left the stump, for something was coming out of it.

And like a snake coming out of its hole, a black dragon’s head came out of the stump, its emerald green eyes the most feral Helaena had ever seen.
The beast then grabbed Ghost’s head with its massive jaws, and crushed it, splashing the Princess’ face with steaming blood and swallowing its snack in one go.

Helaena tried to reach it. Why? She didn’t know, she just felt the urge to touch it. But the beast spread its wings and took off, destroying the ceiling and roof.
Helaena rushed to the nearest window and gasped in horror.

Everywhere she looked, she saw dragons tearing each other apart, she saw people die by incineration, screaming.

Another dragon descended from the sky, tearing the red clouds apart.

It was crimson as blood, its ruby eyes set on a single target: a bronze-green dragon with both eyes burning with madness.

They tore at each other with claw and fang, locked in a spiral of death, and inexorably fell to the ground. The impact unleashed an earthquake that destroyed whatever was left of King’s Landing.

Everywhere Helaena looked, she saw nothing but misery.

She ran, not knowing where, the ground was covered in beetles crushed beneath unseen boots. Their shells cracked like children’s bones with each of her steps.

The white dragon with a black head reappeared and flew straight towards the crater, hasty to deal with the three-headed red dragon that had emerged from the ground.

Helaena screamed, cried and begged. Pleading for this madness to stop, for this suffering to end, for this war to never start.

But long, icy fingers settled on her shoulder, and her dread killed her pleas.

She turned, meeting the most terrifying pair of blue eyes she’d ever seen.

A blade of ice went through her heart.

The cold spread through her chest and froze the scream in her lungs.

She woke gasping, her sheets twisted around her like bindings. Her shift clung to her skin with sweat.

The room was silent, yet silence itself exacted so much pressure she felt herself being crushed like an insect.

She pressed both hands to her mouth to keep from crying out.

She did not know what the dream meant.

She only knew that something precious had broken while she slept, and the pieces were too sharp to ever fit back together.

And that her beloved brother the one whose hair she dreamed of rubbing, the one who smiled at her even when her hands were full of bugs, had been dragged into darkness.

Something inside Jon had died tonight.

And whatever had taken its place was colder than winter.

For the very, first time of her life, Helaena Targaryen was terrified of her favorite brother.