Baelon did not ride a dragon.
Vhagar and Caraxes had already flown back to the Dragonpit in King’s Landing of their own accord.
Baelon had not followed the traditions of House Targaryen and allowed the Blood Wyrm to cremate his rider’s remains there on Tarth.
That land had been defiled by invaders and soaked in blood.
Baelon did not believe it worthy of his brother.
A gentle grey mare carried him north, her steps so steady that each hoofbeat seemed to measure out the depths of his grief.
Baelon rode in silence before the black carriage bearing his brother’s coffin, following the kingsroad his father had built.
North.
Toward King’s Landing.
Toward the throne room he would never again enter with Aemon walking at his side.
Jocelyn and Lord Boremund accompanied the procession.
As for Corlys and Daemion, they had already returned to King’s Landing by sea.
After all, someone had to tell the Old King how his heir had died.
Jocelyn had returned to Storm’s End merely to visit her brother.
Instead, within that ancient castle looming over the cape, she had waited for the arrival of her husband’s corpse.
The moment she saw Aemon’s peaceful, cold face within the carriage, her world shattered before her eyes.
Jocelyn threw herself upon the coffin.
Her fingers closed desperately around Aemon’s stiff hands, folded across his chest.
Those hands had once caressed her cheeks with such tenderness.
They had once fumbled awkwardly while fastening necklaces around her neck.
They had once gripped a sword in the tourney grounds and defeated challenger after challenger.
Now they were nothing more than cold, heavy things.
Lifeless.
“Why him?”
She screamed the question again and again.
“Why not someone else?
Why not those pirates?
Those sellswords?
Why did it have to be my Aemon?”
The sounds that tore from Jocelyn were not sobs.
They were not weeping.
They were howls of such utter despair that they seemed ready to rip open her chest and tear apart her throat.
It scarcely sounded human.
It was more like the dying cry of a wounded she-beast.
Cameron, driven nearly beyond reason by grief and guilt, had even proposed taking the black and joining the Night’s Watch.
Only the desperate pleas of Boremund and Alyssa had managed to drag him back from the edge of self-imposed exile.
Nearly there.
At last, the silhouette of King’s Landing appeared upon the horizon.
The towering shadow of the King’s Gate fell across the road.
Silent crowds lined both sides of the way.
There were no cheers.
No revelry.
Only countless eyes filled with reverence, sorrow, and sympathy, following the black carriage as it passed.
Brother, do you see them?
They are all here.
They have come to bid you farewell.
Memories surged through Baelon like the tide.
Nine years ago, he and Aemon had ridden through this very gate beside their father in triumph.
Prince Morion Martell of Dorne had launched the Fourth Dornish War.
He had hired pirates from the Stepstones, Myrish sellsails, and privateers from the Pepper Coast, intending to invade the stormlands by sea.
The Iron Throne had spies in Sunspear.
Before the first Dornish warship ever left port, word had already reached King’s Landing.
Father had decided to take Aemon and Baelon and fly directly to war.
Three dragons destroyed the Dornish fleet before it could land.
House Targaryen had ended the war in a single day.
They had won without losing a single soldier.
Back then, the cheers of King’s Landing had roared like thunder.
Flowers and ribbons had rained from the city walls and windowsills.
The procession passed a sept.
Septons stood in solemn rows, holding willow branches heavy with dew.
When the carriage crossed a bridge, a veiled maiden stood above them and cast petals from a basket onto Aemon’s coffin.
“Hero!”
A blacksmith raised his hammer high and shouted toward Baelon and the bier behind him.
Other voices soon joined his.
At first, they were scattered.
Then they gathered like a rising tide.
“Hero!”
“To Prince Aemon!”
“Farewell, my prince!”
Baelon’s fingers tightened slightly around his reins.
His eyes happened to meet those of an old woman standing beside the road.
She lingered at the edge of the crowd, dressed in plain clothes.
Yet her gaze was strangely deep.
Strangely calm.
It pierced through the composure Baelon had fought so desperately to maintain and reached into the deepest corners of his soul.
Baelon stared at the old woman in silence.
Seconds passed.
The moment felt at once impossibly long and terribly brief.
Then Baelon blinked.
The old woman was gone.
As though she had never existed.
An indescribable chill crept slowly up his spine.
It felt like cold fingers brushing softly across the back of his neck.
Nearly there.
The scarlet walls and immense gates of the Red Keep now loomed before him.
Baelon saw his father.
Jaehaerys seemed stooped now.
The majesty that usually filled the king’s face had been replaced by profound weariness and grief.
His mother’s eyes had always been strong and gentle.
The instant she saw the carriage—and Baelon riding before it—those eyes filled with tears she could no longer restrain.
Rhaenys was there.
Viserys.
Daemon.
They stood beside their grandsire and grandmother.
Baelon’s vision suddenly blurred.
Warm moisture veiled his eyes until he could no longer distinguish the faces before him.
He almost fell from his horse.
Baelon stumbled several steps.
Then he could bear it no longer.
Like a child lost for years who had finally found his way home, Baelon threw himself into his mother’s arms.
He crashed against the queen.
Every mask he had worn shattered in that instant.
Baelon clutched Alysanne’s outer robe with both hands and buried his face against her shoulder.
The broken sobs he had suppressed for so long finally burst free.
They came with choking breaths.
With guilt.
With pain so deep that words could never contain it.
“I killed a thousand enemies…”
Baelon’s voice broke.
“But I couldn’t bring him home.”
“I know, child.”
Alysanne held Baelon tightly in her arms.
His tears soaked the cloth upon his mother’s shoulder.
King Jaehaerys remained silent beside them.
His gaze rested upon the black carriage.
The emotions within his eyes were too complicated to read.
He grieved.
Of course he grieved.
Yet something else seemed to churn in their depths.
Perhaps bitter mockery of the cruelties of fate.
Perhaps…
Father.
What are you thinking?
A tall funeral pyre had been raised in the center of the hall, built from dry pine and fragrant sandalwood.
Six knights of the Kingsguard slowly carried Aemon’s coffin inside and placed it atop the pyre.
His body had been carefully washed and anointed with fragrant oils.
He wore a new doublet of black velvet, with the three-headed red dragon of House Targaryen exquisitely embroidered upon his chest.
“Prince Aemon Targaryen of Dragonstone…
eldest son of His Grace Jaehaerys the First and Good Queen Alysanne.
Heir to the Iron Throne.
Master of Laws and chief justiciar of the realm…”
Septon Barth recited the eulogy in a gentle voice.
Two painted stones, each bearing the likeness of an eye, rested over Aemon’s closed eyes.
His hands were crossed over his lower belly.
Within them lay Blackfyre.
King Jaehaerys himself had insisted that the sword be placed there.
“Go, child.
Your cousin needs comfort more than I do at present.”
Baelon whispered the words to Viserys and tilted his head slightly toward Rhaenys.
Jocelyn wore a black veil.
Rhaenys’s eyes were red, and she clung tightly to her husband’s arm.
Her face was pale, her lips pressed into a stubborn, narrow line.
She wore a black gown.
Beneath its loose folds, the faintest swell could be seen at her belly.
Rhaenys was more than two moons with child.
“He was a brave and fearless prince, beloved by the people…”
Corlys watched Viserys approach them.
The Sea Snake raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
“In the seventy-second year After Aegon’s Conquest, he triumphed in a squires’ tourney and was formally raised to knighthood…”
Viserys took Rhaenys by the hand.
Rhaenys did not look at him.
Her eyes remained fixed upon her father’s body.
Her fingers curled stiffly around Viserys’s hand, while her gaze remained locked upon Aemon atop the funeral pyre.
“In the eighty-third year After Aegon’s Conquest, he fought beside Jaehaerys the First, Protector of the Realm, and Prince Baelon, and together they shattered the Dornish invasion…”
“In the ninety-second year After Aegon’s Conquest, while scouting upon the Isle of Tarth, he fell to an ambush and was slain by a Myrish crossbowman…”
Jaehaerys accepted a torch from a courtier beside him.
He lowered it to the base of the pyre.
The dry, oil-soaked wood caught at once.
Orange-red tongues of flame sprang upward like living things, greedily licking at the pine and fragrant sandalwood.
Jocelyn trembled violently beneath her veil.
At last, a faint sob escaped Rhaenys.
She buried her face against Corlys’s shoulder.
“May the Warrior grant him courage.
May the Smith grant him strength.
May the Father Above judge his life with justice.”
Septon Barth raised a crystal bell.
Its clear chime pierced the roar of the flames.
The fire swiftly consumed the entire pyre.
It swallowed the black coffin.
Through the shifting wall of flame, Aemon’s body slowly blurred until nothing remained but the vague outline of a man lying peacefully at rest.
The hilt of Blackfyre began to glow red beneath the terrible heat.
The flames burned.
And burned.
Until at last they died.
Until the ashes cooled.
Ser Ryam Redwyne, Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, stepped forward and drew Blackfyre from the remains of the pyre.
Holding the sword in both hands, he presented it to the king.
Jaehaerys took the blade.
Then the Old King spoke.
“Kneel, Baelon Targaryen.”