PROLOGUE ,
the bastard princess

          Almost two hundred years before the death of the Mad King and the birth of his daughter, Princess Daenerys Targaryen, was the birth of her ancestor, Lillibaeth Targaryen. She entered the world during a sunrise washed with red, orange, and yellow hues that complemented the flowers that were just staring to bloom in the meadows overlooking Blackwater Bay.

A gift and a curse from the Gods. A first born but a constant reminder to Viserys of the guilt with going to a handmaid to bare his child after years of his wife's struggle with providing him an heir even against the future queen's wishes — she wanted to keep trying with her husband but he was too eager to even listen to her pleas.

The woman had looked almost identical to Aemma and he thought that he could get away with it, 'sweep the truth under the rug' so to speak, but when Lilly came out with black hair and gleaming green eyes, these features reflected the truth that was bound to come out — that she was a bastard. A bastard daughter. She couldn't be a heir.

The physical disparities between himself and his wife with their first born was the beginning of the gossiping suspicion of why he couldn't even look at her most of the time.

Lillibaeth wasn't Targaryen worthy in Viserys' eyes.

Aemma hated that her husband wouldn't even acknowledge their daughter but the more she tried to bond with Lilly, the more he pushed his wife away. All she wanted was a child, but nonetheless, Lillibaeth wasn't blood — no matter how much she tried to imagine she was. As the weeks and months past, those nagging thoughts plagued her mind until it was too much to bare and she had ultimately decided that the love from her husband was more important to her than the attempt of an relationship to the raven haired baby girl.

Then three years later, as if to spite the King and Queen, they were blessed with a child of their own — A daughter. A blonde daughter.

The Red Keep is where the two princesses were raised and after years of seeing her older sister being treated poorly by their father — Rhaenyra grew to adore and respect her older sister more than she did Viserys because after everything he'd put her through, Lillibaeth was still the most tenderest soul she had ever known.

A weakness according to the King but to his second born daughter — it was one of the greatest strengths someone could have in the gruesome world they lived in. Perhaps it was both? A gift and a curse.

author's note,

i'm way too proud of myself to bring back
the "gift and curse" from the first paragraph
into the last paragraph considering that shit
was not planned

well anyways, here's the prologue!

with love ,
sloane