IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THE NIGHT, a maid had knocked at Visenya's door. "Your grace, the Queen calls for you."

The princess sighed, "It is still early." She grumbled, running her hands through her face tiredly. "She insists upon it, princess."
"Help me dress." Visenya spoke begrudgingly.

Clad in her usual color scheme of Emerald and gold. Visenya entered the meeting quarters. "It is early, what reason is there to bring me from my slumber at such hour!" She yawned towards her grandsire and mother, taking a seat at one of the chairs in the Tower of the Hand.

"Your father has died, Visenya." Alicent spoke bluntly, her eyes reddened from crying moments ago.
"what?" Visenya scoffed, as if the idea was unbelievable.

"Who knows?" Otto asked from the fireplace and Visenya soon realized her mother did not suddenly develop the humor for jests.
Her heart plummeted from her chest as the memories of reading with the king as a child came to mind. At how she had rejected his touch just yesterday before the petition, she had rejected her poor ill father's embrace for the last time; and now the Stranger had come for his soul.

Yet Visenya could not cry. Not in front of her grandsire, nor her mother. She had to remain strong, hardheaded and practical as they taught her.

"My handmaiden, Talya. Some of the servants. I saw him...last night, before he—He told me he wished for Aegon to be king." Alicent smiled weakly.
"It is the truth. Uttered from his own lips. His last words to me and I was the only one to hear it. And now he's dead." The queen spoke with conviction. Yet it was hard to believe Viserys had chosen Aegon over Rhaenyra.

Still, this meant the crown would follow down the Hightower bloodline. It meant Visenya

would be queen, yet it was not gonna be enough until it was she who sat the Iron Throne. Being queen was not her wish, she had no desire for taking care of minimal tasks in the Red Keep. No desire to become her mother so subservient and docile.

She wanted absolute power. She wanted her word to come last, not her husband's.

"We have postponed your marriage with Aegon for far too long, Visenya." Otto stared at his granddaughter, a cunning smirk doning his wrinkled face.

𓆰𓆪

Empty.

Devoid of any emotion.

That was what Visenya felt as she stumbled through the steps of the Keep into the Small Council Meeting from the Tower of the Hand. Life came crashing down at her, mayhaps this curse had only been biding its time for the last seven years or so. Her father lay dead, the preparations for her wedding with Aegon had commenced once more. And what was worse is that she could feel a war breaking once Rhaenyra finds that Aegon shall be crowned.
She would not abdicate the throne, why should she? Visenya wouldn't either.

The whispers of the servants were drowned out as she moved past them. Each and every bowing their heads as the princess dragged her feet silently.
She'd sit at a place in the table, though there was no marble stone for her to set as she was not a member, she did not belong.
When the Master of Coin jested about a Dorne invasion, Visenya's fingers trembled with the urge of banging his head against the marble in front of him.

It was ugly, that was what Visenya took from the argument at moments she was mentally present. The council had been planning to usurp Rhaenyra's throne unbeknownst to Alicent—and though Visenya knew her grandfather planned for it, she did not know members of the council were involved.

Lord Beesbury took Rhaenyra's side, "I am six and seventy years old. I have known Viserys longer than any who sit at this table.  And I will not believe that he said this on his deathbed, alone, with only the boy's mother as witness. This is seizure! This is theft! It is treason! At least it is-"

"Mind your tongue, Lyman." Maester Gerardys counciled.

"The King was well last night! by all accounts. Which of you here can swear that he died of his own accord?" The old man's suspicious gaze landed upon those who sat the table.

"Which of us are you accusing of regicide, Lord Beesbury?" Another councilman questioned.

"Whether it was one of you, or all of you, I care not. I will have no part—"

"SIT DOWN!" Ser Criston's hand was brought upon Lord Beesbury shoulder as he pushed the man down, his head smashing upon his marble and his neck cracked with the impact. Blood leaked on the table, Visenya's gaze gravitated towards it with an empty glance.

Three souls the Stranger had taken in less than a day in the Keep. Would there be any more until this dreaded day came to an end?

Ser Harold Westerling, the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard raised his sword towards Ser Criston, "Throw down your sword, and remove your cloak, Ser Criston." he commanded.
Yet Cole's blade was raised in return,

"I am your Lord Commander, Ser Criston. Cast down your sword." Westerling reminded. "I will not suffer insults to Her Grace the Queen." Cole retorted.

"There was no insult to me, Ser Criston. Put your blade aside." Alicent spoke sternly, her nerves jumping out of her body. And like a loyal pet, the knight obeyed.
And in her half-hazed mind Visenya found it strange how Criston Cole had always been the most loyal to Alicent. A literal mutt.

"Has it come to this?" Ser Westerling asked Otto Hightower.

"Let us have Lord Beesbury removed." the Grand Maester suggested yet the Hand interrupted promptly. "No. The door remains shut until we finish our business."

Visenya could not stop staring, at his eyes, at the skin growing cold, at the forming stench. As those surrounding her spoke of politics as though a dead corpse did not lay at her side. Visenya now wondered if it was the Council who had been cursed long before she came to be.

"Rhaenyra will never bend the knee," Alicent spoke anxiously. It was only hours before that the two had finally reconciled after nearly twenty years of estrangement and animosity. "Nor Daemon, which you know. You plan to kill them."

"And all here accede to this?" The Queen was befuddled at what the council had become. And she now questioned her decisions in having Visenya join them, she questioned listening to Otto as he suggested.

"But the king did not wish for the murder of his daughter!" Alicent argued as they tried to excuse the murder of Targaryens, of their family, like it or not.
"He loved her. I will not have you deny this!"

"And yet—"

"One more word and I will have you removed from this chamber and sent to the wall!" The Queen raised her voice to a council member.

"What do you suggest, Your Grace? Time is of the essence." Lord Lannister spoke carefully. But it was Otto who answered without second thought to his daughter, his higher power.
"Lord Westerling take your knights to Dragonstone. Be quick and be clean."

Visenya glanced at the knight as he ripped out the cloak that signified his purity, his loyalty. "I am Lord Commander of the Kingsguard. I recognize no authority but the king's. And until there is one, I have no place here." He said with finality, and so he walked out. Betraying the council.

Visenya watched as the servants were being dragged to the dungeons. No one could carry out secrets. The death of the king and the change of heir should remain unknown to most, lest it reached Dragonstone.
She now sat in her brother's room, Aemond beside her.
She was restless, her eyes heavy from being awaken from slumber now an hour or two or so. She remained unaware.

"Prince Aegon's not to be found within the castle walls, Your Grace. Your father has sent Ser Erryk into the city to find him." Ser Cole informed.

"Ser Erryk knows Aegon. He has the advantage." Alicent sighed as she walked towards Criston.

"I trust again to you, Ser Criston, and to your loyalty. Aegon must be found, and he must be brought to me. The very fate of the Seven Kingdom depends on it." She whispered something neither the prince or the princess could hear, yet from the way the knight had looked at the Queen, Visenya was left to theorize. Especially after his murderous performance an hour earlier.

"I will not fail you."

"I'll come with you." Aemond spoke up.
"That would not be my desire, Aemond." Alicent shook her head. "If anything has happened—" She took his arm.

"Cole needs me, mother. Ser Erryks isn't the only one who knows Aegon's doings."

Alicent looked upon her daughter, unknowing what to do.

"I have seen the Lords of the Great Houses join grandsire at the Iron Throne." Visenya swallowed the bile forming in her throat. "Before I arrived."

"The Great Lords are pledging their loyalty to your brother, it is nothing to worry about." Alicent took her daughter's hands in hers.

"Is it not? What shall happen when a Lord does not pledge to Aegon? If grandsire wishes to dispose of Rhaenyra and Daemon and their bastards so rapidly, what do you think will happen to those trapped with him?" Visenya raised an eyebrow.

"You should be resting, you have been exposed to too much ruthlessness this night. It is not good for your—"
"I have managed, mother." And in fact, Visenya did not. A mother knows best—the Targaryen girl had been drowning in her own curse, ruined by her pervesions the day her blood felled on the holy ground of the Sept.
The seven didn't help her then, witchcraft did.