The Dragonpit loomed ahead like a broken tooth against the darkening sky.
Tessarion had landed hard, wings folding with a tired snap, and the keepers were already moving to secure her.
I slid down from her back, boots hitting the worn stone, and rolled my shoulders.
The flight from Bitterbridge had been long enough to leave a dull ache in my thighs and a thin film of dust across my clothes.
A white cloak waited near the entrance.
Ser Arryk or was it Erryk, stood beside a second horse, already saddled.
His expression was the usual Kingsguard blankness, though his eyes tracked me with quiet assessment.
“Prince Daeron,” he said, offering a short bow.
“The Lord Hand sent me to escort you to the Red Keep.”
I raised an eyebrow and took the reins he offered.
“How thoughtful. Wouldn’t want the masses to tear me apart on the way, would we?”
Arryk’s (I’m gonna assume it is Arryk) mouth twitched, not quite a smile.
“The city has been restless of late, best not to test it.”
We mounted and rode out through the pit’s great gates.
He rode slightly ahead, white cloak bright even in the fading light.
“I was under the impression you intended to return to Oldtown,” he said after a stretch of silence.
“Or so the whispers claimed.”
“Plans change.”
“So it seems.” He glanced back at me.
“May I ask what brought you back?”
I considered the question for a moment, then gave a thin smile.
“There’s a play unfolding at the Red Keep,” I said.
“I decided I’d rather have seats closer than watch from some quiet corner of the realm.” I paused, then added, “Also, I left my lucky smallclothes in the castle.”
His brow furrowed.
“Smallclothes?”
“They’re very lucky,” I replied with complete seriousness.
He stared at me for a beat longer, as if trying to decide whether I was mocking him.
Eventually he faced forward again without comment.
Wise man.
The rest of the ride passed in relative quiet.
The gates opened for us without challenge.
We dismounted in the outer yard, stablehands already moving to take the horses.
I had barely set foot on the stones when a familiar figure stepped out from the shadows near the inner doors.
Otto stood with his hands folded, green-and-gold robes immaculate even at this hour.
His pale eyes found mine immediately.
“Daeron,” he said.
“I confess I did not expect you so soon.”
“Missed my family,” I answered lightly.
“Couldn’t stay away.”
Otto’s mouth curved into something that was not quite a smile.
“Try a better lie next time.”
He stepped closer, his gaze flicked over me once, sharp and assessing.
“You stink of dragon,” he said quietly.
I shrugged.
“Better than the Red Keep stinking of snakes.”
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then Otto’s expression smoothed back into its usual controlled neutrality.
I moved past him toward the doors.
Night had settled heavily over the Red Keep.
I stood alone in the chamber that held Balerion’s skull, the massive black bone rising like a dark cathedral above the scattered models of Old Valyria.
Candlelight flickered across the delicate towers and bridges of the Freehold, casting long, broken shadows.
The air smelled of dust, old wax, and something faintly metallic, the lingering ghost of a dragon that had once blotted out the sun and burned the largest castle.
I stared up at the empty eye sockets of the Black Dread and let my thoughts drift.
How had Old Valyria managed it?
Dozens of dragonlord families, hundreds of dragons, and somehow they hadn’t burned their own peninsula into glass.
Westeros couldn’t even handle two competing claims without tearing itself apart.
Was there some Dragon King above them all?
One ring to bind them?
One lord to rule them?
Or had it been simpler, a balanced equation?
No two families dared go to war because a third would always be waiting to pick the bones.
Truly, no one could say unless they had lived through it.
A soft footstep broke the quiet.
“The Conqueror truly was a god among men,” Aemond said, joining me at the edge of the dais.
His single eye reflected the low torchlight as he gazed up at the skull.
“He rode the largest dragon in the world, and the Seven Kingdoms crumbled before his feet.”
“Six,” I corrected, offering a mild smile.
“There’s still one left to be bent, broken, or burned.”
Aemond’s head turned slowly, the look he gave me made it clear he did not appreciate being corrected even when he was wrong.
“I ride the largest dragon in the world now. The greatest dragonrider of our age.” His voice carried absolute conviction.
“I will unite the Seven Kingdoms in time.”
“Then I wish you good fortune in the wars to come,” I said, turning back to the skull.
“Because I will not be flying with you.”
He nodded, as if he had expected the answer.
“Aegon told me you refused the whores. I see you’ve lost your balls after all.”
I laughed under my breath.
The kid is trying to rage-bait me and it was funny as shit.
“Well,” I replied, “it’s better than losing one’s wits.”
The cold kiss of steel against my throat was sudden enough that I almost respected the speed of it.
Aemond had moved faster than I expected.
The dagger’s edge pressed just firmly enough to promise pain if either of us shifted the wrong way.
“That clever tongue of yours will not always be in your favor,” he said quietly.
Huh.
Not the first time someone’s told me that with a blade pointed my way.
“I know you have the Hand’s ear,” he continued, pressing the steel a fraction closer, “but do not misunderstand, that will not save you here, I know of your schemes against me, She is mine.”
I blinked.
Uh… what?
Who?
“What scheme?” I asked, genuinely lost.
“Do not play the fool with me.” The dagger pressed harder.
“You placed me on a platter for every grasping house in the Reach and the Westerlands so you could have Helaena for yourself but it will never happen, the gods have judged that she is mine by right and you may try to sway her in hope that she will fall for you but she is mine.”
I had to fight down the sudden urge to laugh.
The sheer ridiculousness of it was almost impressive.
The logic tracked in a twisted, Aemond sort of way but I was also firmly against the whole Targaryen wincest propaganda about keeping the bloodline pure.
“Then marry her,” I said calmly.
“I care nothing for claiming my sister.
But this-” I gestured faintly at the blade with my eyes, “-is a pathetic display, brother.”
Aemond snarled and the dagger twisted.
A thin, hot line opened across my cheek.
In the next breath he had me by the throat, the point of the blade now resting against my chest, right over the heart.
“You are so obsessed with what makes you happy,” I said, voice steady despite the steel, “that you never even bothered to ask what makes her happy.”
He blinked, just once.
“I would bring her all the Seven Kingdoms if that is what she desires,” he said, voice low and fierce.
“I would make her happier than any other man ever could.”
“She never asked for the Seven Kingdoms,” I replied.
“That was never her wish. It was yours.”
The tip of the dagger bit deeper, drawing a small bead of blood through my tunic.
“And what do you know of her desires, brother?”
“Violence,” I said quietly, “is the weapon of the coward. This is a pathetic display of power from the man who calls himself the greatest dragonrider of our time.”
I let a small smirk touch my mouth.
“What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?”
Aemond stared at me.
The single eye narrowed in pure incomprehension.
“…What?”
“The greatest dragonrider in the world,” I said lightly, “and he doesn’t even know about a simple swallow.”
“Aemond!”
The voice cracked through the chamber like a whip.
Aemond stepped back instantly, dagger vanishing somewhere into his sleeve.
We both turned.
Alicent stood at the top of the steps, one hand resting against the stone railing, face pale in the torchlight.
I touched the cut on my cheek with two fingers, examined the smear of red, then offered my brother a mild smile.
“It was a pleasant conversation, brother.”
I waited, mildly curious whether he would answer with sullen silence or one last mean comment.
He chose the huff.
Then he turned on his heel and strode out without another word.
Alicent descended the steps slowly.
When she reached me, her eyes went first to the thin line of blood on my cheek.
“Did he hurt you?”
“Only my feelings, my Queen” I said.
Something flickered across her face at the formal address as she looked away for a moment.
“Aemond is… a difficult child.”
“He is indeed special, My Queen.” I agreed.
She studied me for a long moment.
The quiet of the chamber pressed in around us, broken only by the soft crackle of the torches.
“You are not as subtle as you believe yourself to be,” she said at last.
“You have not called me Mother. Not once since you returned to the Red Keep.”
I was quiet for a breath.
“It simply felt… strange,” I admitted.
Then, softer: “Mother.”
The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction.
She reached up as if to touch the cut on my cheek, then thought better of it and let her hand fall. This chapter was copied from g.com without permission.
“You should call him Father as well,” she said.
“At least once. Before it is too late. Or you will regret it.”
I looked at her for a long moment.
Then I nodded.
“Then we should go see him.”
The corridors leading to the King’s chambers were quieter than the rest of the Keep.
The air itself felt heavier, thick with the scent of milk of the poppy, old sweat, and something faintly sweet that I did not want to identify.
Alicent pushed open the doors herself.
No maesters waited inside and no servants hovered by the walls.
The great canopy bed dominated the center of the room, its heavy curtains half-drawn.
Candles burned low in their holders, casting long, trembling shadows across the tapestries of old Targaryen kings.
The windows were shuttered against the night.
The only sound was the wet, labored pull of breath from the figure on the bed.
Viserys was no longer a man.
He was a husk, a skeleton wrapped in skin so thin it looked ready to tear, what little muscle remained clung stubbornly to bone, and every rise and fall of his chest looked like an act of violence against his own body.
One side of his face was a ruin of old wounds and decay, the other still held the ghost of the man he had once been, barely present.
Each breath and exhale sounded like it cost him something he could not afford to lose.
“My soup…” he mumbled, voice paper-thin and full of pain.
“My soup…”
I stopped just inside the doorway.
“Was he always like this?” I asked quietly.
Alicent’s face was carefully composed, but her eyes were tired.
“He strained himself after Rhaenyra’s trial. He has been this way ever since.”
Viserys’s remaining good eye fluttered, his lips moved again.
“My soup…”
I glanced at Alicent.
“What soup does he keep asking for?”
She did not answer with words but only tilted her head toward the small table beside the bed, where a shallow bowl sat cooling, a wooden spoon resting against its rim.
I crossed the room slowly and sat on the edge of the mattress, the bed groaned under even that slight weight.
Up close, the smell of sickness was stronger.
I lifted the bowl carefully, steadied his head with one hand, and brought the spoon to his lips.
He drank in small, painful gulps.
When his eye finally focused on me, it was cloudy and unfocused.
“Who… who is this?” he rasped.
“Father,” I said, the word still strange in my mouth.
“I’m Daeron, your son, here, have some more soup.”
He swallowed again.
His lips trembled.
“Dae… Dae… Daemon…”
“It’s Daeron, Father. Not Daemon.”
But the name did not stick.
His mind was already drifting somewhere else.
“The dreams…” He drew a ragged breath that seemed to scrape the inside of his chest.
“They have… changed, Daemon… promise me.”
“You’re simply in pain,” I said quietly, setting the bowl back on the table.
“Rest.”
His hand twitched weakly against the sheets.
“Rhaenyra… she… brings darkness.”
I froze.
Uh… what?
That was not what he had said in the show.
“Promise me… Daemon…” He tried to lift his hand and failed.
“Rhaenyra… must… not be Queen.”
The words hung in the air like a blade.
“Aegon’s dream… the Song… the Prince that was promised…” His voice was barely more than breath now.
“Promise me… Daemon… my son… must be king.”
He exhaled one final, shuddering time.
Then the rise and fall of his chest simply… stopped.
The silence that followed was absolute.
I stared at him.
…
..
.
No.
No, no, no, no.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
What the fuck just happened?