Chapter 6: Lyonel Strong I
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110 AC
Lyonel Strong was a large, burly man, broad in shoulder and deep of chest, his head already half-bald though not yet grey. He cut the figure of a brute, yet those who mistook him for one quickly learned otherwise. The Hand of the King had studied at the Citadel in his youth, forged more links than most maesters ever wore, and left Oldtown with a mind as keen as the edge of Valyrian steel. His voice was slow, his words few, but every sentence landed with the weight of an anvil.
It had been a year since Lyonel was appointed Hand, after Ser Otto Hightower had wearied the King beyond patience with endless talk of succession. Five years had passed since Queen Aemma's death, and in her grief's wake Princess Rhaenyra had been named Princess of Dragonstone and heir to the Iron Throne. Yet the King was still young, and the court would not rest while the realm's future lay upon a single girl's shoulders.
Many candidates had been proposed for remarriage. The most prominent were young Laena Velaryon – flowered, yes, but still a child – and Alicent Hightower, then eighteen and well within womanhood. The choice fell upon Alicent.
The reasons given were noble: that the marriage would bind the Faith and the Crown, the Tower of Oldtown and the House of the Dragon. Had not Queen Ceryse Hightower once been wife to Maegor the Cruel? Despite the ruin of that match, its beginning had been hailed across the realm. A union with Oldtown promised stability, communion between dragonlords and septons alike, and the goodwill of the Citadel.
The reasons unspoken were many. Some whispered that Otto's friendship with Viserys had ripened into something like influence. Others pointed to the curious fact that Alicent Hightower, though eighteen and long flowered, remained unwed – a common enough thing among the smallfolk, yet a strangeness in the houses of high birth. The reason, they said, hid in rumor: that it was Prince Daemon Targaryen himself, the King's own brother, who had stolen her maidenhood in a fit of arrogance and lust. Otto, discovering the disgrace too late, had sworn vengeance and thereafter loathed the prince with a depth that never cooled. Ashamed and fearful for his daughter's name, he is said to have gone before the King in private, begging that Viserys take pity and protect her from ruin and a cruel uncaring husband.
Alicent herself was gentle and clever, with the manner of one born to please but never to scheme. When the Old King Jaehaerys lay dying, it was she who read to him at dusk and eased his pain in the small hours. Some said that in his last days he mistook her for his lost daughter Saera returned from exile; the confusion only deepened the realm's fondness for her.
Viserys, moved by her grace and gentleness, took her to wife. So said the court in its whispers when it thought no one listened.
Lyonel Strong listened to none of it. Rumor, he knew, was the wine of courtiers – sweet to the tongue, bitter to the mind. The truth of the marriage, like all royal truths, mattered less than the heirs it produced. And heirs there were: a son, Aegon, now three years old; a daughter, Helaena, born the year past; and another child soon to come.
For the Hand, the greater concern was not gossip but governance. The question of succession had become a wound that would not close. Otto Hightower, having once urged the naming of Rhaenyra to spite Prince Daemon, now bewailed that very act and begged the King to set it aside in favor of his own blood. The King would not yield, and so Otto had been dismissed to Oldtown.
Still, even a king's decree cannot still the minds of men. Since the Great Council of 101 AC, the lords of Westeros had tasted the power of decision. It was they who had chosen Viserys over Princess Rhaenys, and they remembered it well. Too well. Each great house now fancied itself a voice in the matter of kings. If the question was left unsettled after Viserys's death, Lyonel feared the realm would bleed again – this time more fiercely than ever before.
The lords had learned from Maegor's reign and from the early years of Jaehaerys that in wars of dragons, right is written only by the victor's hand. There would be no mercy for the defeated, no safety in oaths or kinship. The next war of succession would not merely pit dragon against dragon; it would set all Westeros aflame, for men who believed themselves makers of kings would not bend easily.
Lyonel brooded on these things in the private room of the Tower of the Hand, quill scratching against parchment while the bells of King's Landing tolled the hour. Beyond his window the city glittered in the sun, red roofs and golden domes. He had no patience for the court's petty jealousies, yet he knew that somewhere among them the next storm already brewed.
And then there were the Volantene guests.
The council chamber was smaller than the usual hall of audiences – a private meeting room behind the King's solar, where the light filtered through colored glass and the air smelled faintly of lemon oil and ink. It was meant for treaties and confidences, not spectacles.
Lyonel Strong entered first, his heavy steps dull on the tiled floor. Behind him came King Viserys I Targaryen, still broad of shoulder but thicker now about the middle, his face marked by the warmth of wine and the weight of peace. His hair, once pure silver, had dulled with age, and the lines about his eyes deepened when he smiled – which he did often, and sometimes even meant it.
A small table had been set near the window. Upon it stood a decanter of Arbor gold, a bowl of figs, and a single candle whose wax had begun to lean. Four visitors waited.
At their head stood a woman of striking poise, her hair the pale gold-silver of old Valyria streaked with white, her gown of black silk edged in crimson. Her beauty was of the sort that lingered even after youth had passed – proud and knowing. She curtsied low and held the pose long enough to remind them that she knew how to greet a king.
"Your Grace," she said. "It has been too long."
Viserys's brows knit, then lifted as memory stirred. "Gods," he breathed. "Saera?"
"The same, though the years have not been kind," she said with a faint smile.
The King laughed, half in disbelief. "The last time I saw you, you were running from the Red Keep with half the septas of the realm shrieking behind you."
"And I've been running ever since," she replied, her eyes glinting. "Yet it seems I have finally run in a circle."
Viserys's gaze softened. "You should not have fled. Jaehaerys loved you, for all your faults."
"For all my sins, you mean," she said. "He did not when it mattered the most, and I have no regrets."
She stepped aside.
Behind her stood a man – tall, graceful, with eyes the color of polished jet and the mild smile of a merchant who owned more than he admitted. His doublet was dark blue embroidered with silver threads that shimmered like frost.
"Raelano Rhaelys, of Lys, Your Grace," he said in smooth Westerosi. "And this is my daughter, Serala. I hope you remember us. We last saw each other almost nine years ago."
Viserys's expression changed – a flicker of recognition beneath the surface. The name, the voice, the color of her eyes – all of it came rushing back like the taste of old wine. He gave a small nod.
"Yes," he said quietly. "I do remember."
Raelano inclined his head in gratitude, stepping aside to reveal the child. She stood still, solemn, her hands folded before her – silver-haired, violet-eyed, the very image of a Valyrian painting come to life.
Saera's smile was faint. "This is Viserra, Your Grace," she said softly. "She has seen eight name days."
The girl curtsied with uncanny composure for one so young. "Your Grace," she said, her voice a clear, steady note.
The chamber went still. Even Lyonel Strong, who had entered at Viserys's side, leaned forward slightly. For a heartbeat, his expression flickered – surprise, then something almost like recognition.
"She favors… another," Lyonel murmured, half to himself.
Viserys glanced at him. "Another?"
The Hand gave a slow, wistful nod. "Princess Viserra," he said quietly. "The Old King's daughter. Gods forgive me, she was the most beautiful woman in the realm, once. I was a young knight then – and a fool, like all who looked upon her." His gaze lingered on the child, softening. "This one bears her face."
Viserys studied the girl again – not a mirror of himself, but of the blood that bound them both to the same line. She looked like a story reborn, and that frightened him more than likeness ever could.
Lyonel straightened. "Forgive an old man's memories, Your Grace. But such resemblance is not proof." His tone hardened slightly. "You come before the Iron Throne with a claim. What do you bring to support it?"
Before Raelano could speak, Saera answered, her voice smooth as wine.
"Blood, my lord. And if that is doubted, let blood answer blood."
Viserys's gaze flicked toward her. "Explain yourself, aunt."
"Give the child a dragon's egg," Saera said. "If she wakes it – if the hatchling lives and bonds – then her blood will speak louder than tongues ever could. If it does not, then you lose nothing, and the world need never know the question was ever asked."
A heavy silence followed.
Viserys's eyes returned to the girl. Her stillness unsettled him. The longer he looked, the more he remembered that night – rain on stone, the wine's warmth, the sound of a woman's breath – and the guilt that had slept for nine years stirred awake.
But Lyonel's voice cut through the silence, steady as a gavel. "Your Grace, I beg caution. Such matters stir more than rumor. The court is restless enough; dragons do not choose their riders for politics, yet men make politics of dragons. Let us think before we act."
Viserys exhaled slowly, rubbing at his temple. "Aye. You speak true, lord Hand." He looked again at the Lyseni envoys, his tone softening. "This is… much to take in. I must think on it. You will have my answer soon."
Lyonel turned to them, bowing slightly. "Until that time, I ask your discretion. Let no word of this matter reach beyond these walls. The King will deliberate in peace, as is his right."
Raelano inclined his head with diplomatic grace. "As you command, my lord Hand."
Saera smiled faintly, though her eyes betrayed no warmth. "We are patient, my lord. We have waited for almost ten years – a few more days will not be the end of ours."
The King rose, signaling the end of the audience. As the guards opened the doors, Viserys cast one last glance at the child – and for the briefest instant, Viserra's violet eyes met his. Something ancient and unspoken passed between them, like a whisper through flame.
When the envoys had gone, Lyonel turned toward the King. "Your Grace," he said softly, "if that child truly carries your blood, she may yet bring both blessing and ruin."
Viserys said nothing. His eyes lingered on the empty doorway, haunted by a memory that had just come to him on her own two little legs.
Chapter 7: Viserys Targaryen I View contentPersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmark#12110 AC
The chamber smelled faintly of stone dust and oil. A dozen lamps burned low along the walls, throwing long shadows over the model that consumed the room – towers, bridges, streets, canals, aqueducts, all carved from pale stone and ashwood. The sprawl of it reached nearly to the windows, so that when the King of the Seven Kingdoms rose from his chair, he did so with the care of a man afraid to disturb even the specks of dust.
Old Valyria.
Or what his hands remembered of it.
He had begun this work years ago – when his hair was thicker, his back straighter, his nights less crowded with dreams. What had started as curiosity had become devotion. He no longer built for glory but for remembrance, though he could never have said whose.
He sat now before the miniature city, knife in hand, tracing the curve of an unfinished bridge. Fine flakes of stone clung to his fingers. The details came to him too easily – the height of the towers, the flow of the streets, even the pattern of canals that no man living had ever seen. When he closed his eyes, he could almost hear it: the low thunder of the Fourteen Flames in the distance, the hiss of molten rivers feeding forges that sang with dragons' breath.
He told himself it was imagination. But he had seen it before – not in books, nor in dreams of his own making, but through the eyes of something older.
Balerion.
The great black dread of Aegon the Conqueror had carried him once – for one short flight, and never again. He could still recall how the dragon's hide felt beneath him, hard as rock, hot as a forge. He had been young, proud, and terrified. The air had stung his eyes, and the world had vanished into the rush of wings.
Once, Viserys remembered, he had thought himself in control – until Balerion turned east.
It had been only a few hours, perhaps a day. The dragon had flown until the sea blurred beneath them and the sun sank into smoke. When they landed, Balerion had been wounded – not by blade or arrow, but by something unseen, as if the air itself had burned him. His roars had shaken the sky; his blood had steamed where it touched the sand. And from that day, he had never been the same.
Then Viserys woke up. He remembered what truly transpired. He had only one short flight from Dragonstone to King's Landing, but the dragon was so old and heavy he couldn't manage to make the trip back. That dream he saw was not his own. Memories they were, of a girl that was before him.
The maesters said the dragon was old, that age had finally caught up with the beast who had outlived every rider save him. But Viserys knew better. Balerion had gone home.
And home had poisoned him.
He looked now at the model and wondered if the dragon had shown him these streets before the end. Sometimes, when the lamp oil burned low, he thought he could see them move – fire flowing down canals like rivers of red molten gold, towers breathing smoke like large bloomeries. He would wake drenched in sweat, the sound of wings in his ears, and know that he had dreamt Balerion's dream again.
The maesters spoke of dragon dreams as superstition. He had told them the same, smiling as they wished him good night. But in his heart he knew: dragons did dream, and those dreams were not bound by time. They remembered the world as it was and as it would be.
Balerion had lived through both.
When Aegon first rode him from Dragonstone to the mainland, the Conqueror had seen the kingdoms of men – fields, castles, towns – and thought of empire. Balerion had seen only a shadow of home: lesser mountains, dimmer fires, smaller gods. He was a creature born from cataclysm, not from conquest. And as he aged, the memory of Valyria – its heat, its music, its endless flame – must have grown heavier inside him, like a wound that refused to close.
Perhaps that was why the dragon's eyes had burned red when he looked east, and why the King's dreams had burned with them.
Viserys set the knife down and leaned closer to the model. A single tower caught his eye – the High Hall of the Freehold, still unfinished in his carving. He had never seen a picture of it, yet he knew how the light should fall through its windows, how the dragons circled its spire.
It came to him every night.
Sometimes, in the dreams, he walked those streets as a man among gods. Sometimes, he flew above them, shadowing the molten rivers as they fed the forges. Sometimes, he stood on the edge of the Black Sea and saw Valyria burning – not in ruin, but in glory. Always, Balerion was there, vast and silent, wings stretched across the horizon. And when he turned, Viserys would see his own reflection in the dragon's eye, and it would not be his face.
He rubbed his temples. He had told no one of this – not Alicent, not Rhaenyra, not even his own father. What could he say? That he dreamed dreams that were not his own? That an old dragon had carved memories into his very existence?
He rose and walked around the table, trailing his hand along the model's edge.
The city was nearly complete now – the last towers standing like white teeth against the lamplight. He had spent half his reign trying to finish it, yet each time he thought the work done, another image would come to him: a gate he had forgotten, a bridge misplaced, a dome misaligned. It was as if the memory itself corrected him.
And always, beneath it all, a whisper: You've built it wrong. You've never seen it whole.
He hated that voice. He loved it too.
It was the same feeling he had known as a young man standing before Balerion's skull – awe and terror entwined.
The Black Dread had outlived almost all his riders: from Daenys to Aegon, from him to Maegor. Only he lived further past his dragon. Unheard of in their family. He had carried generations of Targaryens across skies no man could follow. Each had left a piece of themselves behind in his mind – ambition, cruelty, faith, fear. When the dragon died, all of it had come to rest somewhere, and sometimes Viserys wondered if that "somewhere" was him.
He sat again, staring at the city. "What do you want of me?" he whispered. "Why won't you let me sleep?"
There was no answer, but the lamp flames flickered, and for a moment the light seemed red – not the warm red of fire, but the deep, endless red of burning rock. The smell of sulfur filled the air.
He blinked, and it was gone.
His hand trembled slightly. He reached for the model's heart – the central plaza where, in his dreams, a great forge always burned – and placed one stone in its center. It was black, smooth, and warm to the touch, though the room was cold.
A gift from the dragonkeepers, they had said: a piece of Balerion's scale.
He kept it here as a talisman, though sometimes he thought it pulsed faintly, as if remembering its owner's heartbeat.
He sighed, exhaustion weighing on his shoulders. Beyond the window, the city slept – a thousand torches mirrored on the dark waters of Blackwater Bay. Somewhere out there, dragons roosted on towers, smaller now, weaker, their fire dimming with each generation.
He wondered if they too dreamt of Valyria.
When he finally stood, his knees ached, and his fingers were stained with dust. He took one last look at the model. The light played along its streets, and for an instant – only an instant – he thought he saw shadows moving between them, wings unfolding above spires of stone.
He closed his eyes.
The city burned behind them.
The door opened softly.
"Your Grace," said a voice, clear and steady – a woman's, touched with age yet still edged in silver.
Viserys looked up, half-startled. The guards who should have stood at the threshold were gone. In their place stood Saera Targaryen, still regal – her beauty dimmed by time but not undone by it. In her arms she carried a girl wrapped in pale silk.
He rose from his seat slowly. "How did you come here? The King's Guard–"
Saera's smile was sharp and amused. "–would look poor indeed if they kept a king from meeting his long-lost aunt." She crossed the room, the hem of her gown whispering against the stone floor. "Forgive the intrusion, nephew. I was told you preferred solitude, but I could not resist."
Viserys studied her a moment longer, then gestured toward a chair. "I… Where have you been, aunt, I presume not in Westeros."
"I wasn't," Saera said. She sat gracefully, the child now drowsing against her shoulder. "Volantis has been kind enough to me these past years, kinder than this court ever was. But I thought it was time I visited home again. It has been… gods, how long?"
"Since you fled," Viserys said softly. "I was a boy."
Saera chuckled, though the sound was soft and brittle. "A sweet boy, shy of speech. You used to follow me and my sister wherever we went. Gods, how you blushed whenever the queen caught you near young septas."
Viserys allowed himself a small smile. "I remember."
For a brief moment the years fell away, and they were simply kin again – two dragons of the same blood, watching the world through the smoke of memory.
Then he noticed the movement at the edge of the room.
The girl – left unattended for a moment – had slipped from Saera's side and wandered toward the model. Her fingers traced the carved towers, the aqueducts, the bridges of the old city. Then she stopped before the black stone shard at its heart – Balerion's scale.
Viserys opened his mouth to speak, but before he could, she touched it.
"Warm, still, after so many years," she murmured, almost reverently. "Balerion's scale."
Viserys froze. The child's voice was calm and soft. He hadn't told her what it was.
"You know that name?" he asked quietly.
Before the girl could answer, Saera spoke. "She spends too much time with old tomes and scrolls. Half the wizened men of Volantis know her by name now. In that, she's a mirror of you at her age – always with a book, never with a playmate."
Viserys's cheeks colored faintly, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. "You remember that, do you?"
"I remember everything the court preferred to forget," she said wryly.
The girl – Viserra – had turned again to the model. Her small finger traced one of the bridges, delicate as a quill stroke.
"Did Balerion show this to you?" she asked suddenly.
Viserys blinked. "And what made you think so?"
She turned her gaze on him, those deep violet eyes both innocent and impossibly knowing. "There are many tomes about dragons in Volantis. Some say dragons show their riders different things when they dream. One of the books told of a dragon of House Belaerys who sent his rider visions of–" she paused, searching for the words, "–well, lusty things. Dragons with… other dragons. And one time," she added brightly, "it showed a woman with a dragon's face, a tail, and scales instead of skin, dressed like a servant girl, doing differ–"
"Viserra!" Saera's voice cracked sharp. The girl fell silent at once, eyes wide but unashamed.
Viserys, despite himself, almost laughed – though something in the child's phrasing made him pause. Did Balerion show this to you? The way she had said it was not curiosity, but recognition.
He leaned forward slightly. "You seem to know much of dragons, little lady. What else do the tomes tell you?"
Viserra brightened. "That dragons can hear without ears. But they still have them! Kind of like mine."
She brushed aside her hair, and Viserys's breath caught. Her ears were not like others – not rounded but pointed.
Saera's face tightened; she reached as if to pull the hair back down, but the girl continued blithely. "See? The same as the drawings of the children of the forest. I like to think they were dragon friends. Maybe even dragon children."
Viserys watched her carefully. "And what else, little one?"
Viserra looked thoughtful. "I dream of a dragon. A lot."
The King's pulse quickened. "Oh? And how does it look?"
"It's creamy white," she said, eyes unfocused, "but when the sun shines on its wings, they shimmer like pearls. It hatched from a white egg – so beautiful. We fly a lot. It always takes me over a city like this one." She pointed to the model of Valyria. "Only brighter."
Viserys leaned back slowly, a strange warmth spreading in his chest – not joy, not fear, but something between.
"Dreams," he said softly. "Dreams have power."
The King said nothing more on that matter. Instead, he and the girl spoke – of dragons, of the old Freehold, of ancient names that rolled off her tongue so easily. She told him of the Rhoyne's temples where Valyrian idols still stood, of maps older than the Conquest, of the forges that had once quenched blades in molten gold and dragon blood. Her voice never faltered, though her eyes grew heavier with each word.
Only when her lids began to droop did Saera rise. "It is late, Your Grace. She's near sleep already."
Viserys nodded. "Let her rest. She's earned it."
As they turned to go, Viserra glanced back once at the model. The lamps flickered across her hair like a living flame.
When they were gone, the King remained where he sat. The room was silent again, save for the faint whisper of the wind against the glass.
He reached out and touched the scale.
It was warm.
Still.
After so many years.
He drew his hand back as though from a live coal. Somewhere in the pit of his stomach, something stirred.
He whispered into the dark, "A white egg… creamy wings…"
Tomorrow, he would summon the dragonkeepers. He had to know if such an egg existed. Award ReplyReport50PersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 8: Viserys Targaryen II View contentPersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmark#13110 AC
The chamber beneath the Dragonpit was a womb of heat and stone. Charcoal smoldered in a shallow urn set within a copper cradle; above it, on a ring of black iron, rested a single egg pale as moonmilk, veined with faint lilac, its shell sweating warmth. The dragonkeepers had built the brazier as their fathers had taught them – charcoal banked low, air-holes set cunningly, dampened ash to keep the pulse steady as a heartbeat.
"It came from Dreamfyre," the oldest keeper had told the King, squinting through a veil of steam. "Brought from the rookery near the Pit nine years past. Left as a lonely egg in her wake – warm, alive, stubborn. It listens, but it does not break."
Now the keepers were gone. Viserys stood alone, the glow of coals painting his rings the color of blood. He reached out and held his palm an inch above the shell. It breathed heat into his skin, eager and patient at once. An orphaned fire, he thought, waiting for a name.
Footsteps in the passage; a soft knock.
"You have summoned me, Your Grace?" Lyonel Strong filled the doorway like a tower, broad and still powerful, his hair receding, his eyes keen. He bowed, then glanced toward the urn. "So it is true. There is an egg."
Viserys did not turn. "Dreamfyre's, they say. Almost a decade on her own. She has waited long enough."
"For what?" Lyonel asked.
"For the hand that matches her heart." Viserys finally faced him. He looked tired and younger all at once, as if the heat had burned away years and left the boy who had once stared at Balerion. "I have decided to give it to the girl."
A muscle tightened in Lyonel's jaw. "Your Grace…"
"You will say no," Viserys said gently. "Say it, then."
"Then: no." Lyonel stepped closer, lowering his voice though there were no ears in the stone. "This is not a ribbon to tie about a bastard's cradle. A dragon is a banner that flies itself. You place such a banner in King's Landing now, while Princess Rhaenyra is still heir, while Queen Alicent bears you more sons? You put the torch to dry kindling and wonder why the forest burns."
Viserys's mouth thinned. "You were not in the model chamber last night."
"I need not be," Lyonel replied. "I have seen the court. I know its thirst. The moment this egg breaks, ten lords will swear they saw Viserys the Young in the child's face. Ten more will swear they saw Daemon. And a hundred, afraid to be last to the feast, will swear they saw a dragon and call it truth. Rhaenyra will be wronged; Aegon slighted; Daemon enraged. And every foreigner at our gates – Lys, Volantis, even the Triarchy – will listen for the crack and weigh their gold."
Viserys drew a breath, steady. "Daemon is on the Stepstones. He has his war and his pride to keep him. Rhaenyra has my word. Alicent has my love and my children. There is room for mercy in a king's chest, Lyonel. Not every kindness is treason to the rest."
"This kindness," Lyonel said, "wears a helm."
Viserys's gaze went to the egg. "And yet… the choice may not be mine. The keepers did not speak of this egg to courtiers or to gossips. They keep their own counsel. Only they knew it existed, and I learned of it from a girl I met yesterday. She described it – white as pearl, warm as gentle flame. She dreams of it. The dragon inside calls to her."
"Dreams," Lyonel said carefully, "are kind wine and cruel counsel."
"Perhaps." Viserys's voice grew softer. "But I have known dragon-dreams that were older than the dreamer. This egg and that child are near the same age. If fate has set them upon the same road, who am I to bar the gate?" He lifted his hand and held it an inch above the shell again, as if blessing or beseeching. "I will not deny destiny to a child. Nor to the dragon."
Lyonel paced once – three strides and back – like a caged bear forced to think. "Let us be plain, then. If the egg hatches for her, she will not be merely a girl. She will be Targaryen in the eyes of half the realm and pretender in the eyes of the other half. Volantis will smile at you while counting ships. Lys will sell your truth by the barrel. Corlys will watch the winds and set his sails whichever way the gossip blows. The Triarchy will raise a cup to the chaos and tax every ship that comes to see it."
Viserys's smile was rueful. "I have missed your comfort, my lord Hand."
"I offer you safety, not comfort," Lyonel said. "Delay. Send the family back to Volantis with honor. Let the court cool. When Daemon returns from his island war and the Triarchy's taxes strangle themselves, when Rhaenyra's succession is a road well paved, when Prince Aegon is old enough to understand love that does not rob him – then we test the egg in quiet, at Dragonstone, with only the keepers and the sea to witness."
"And if the dream is now?" Viserys asked. "If the fire sleeps and sickens in waiting? If a king who once flew with Balerion has grown too fearful to let a dragon choose?"
Silence. The coals shifted with a dry sigh.
Lyonel looked at him for a long moment, and when he spoke his voice gentled. "Then let the choice be yours, and let the blame be mine. I will say I counseled it and failed. I will tell Oldtown it was a necessity, and Driftmark that it was mercy. I will bleed, if bleeding keeps your house whole."
"You always did swing like a smith," Viserys said softly. "But this hammer falls from another hand." He glanced toward the corridor. "I have already sent for them."
"The Essosi?"
"All of them." He drew a breath that steadied something inside him. "If the gods, or dragons, or fate mean to speak, let them. We will not smother the mouth."
Lyonel closed his eyes for the space of a prayer. "Then, Your Grace, we should at least temper the fire. No heralds. No septons. No ladies to faint, no fools to sing. Only the keepers, the guards I trust, myself… and you."
"And the child," said Viserys, looking once more at the egg. "Do not forget her."
"I could not, after last night," Lyonel admitted. "There was a moment – just a moment – when I thought I saw another Viserra in her face. That is a memory I had hoped to bury." He exhaled. "So. Let us bury something else instead. Gossip."
Bootheels in the passage. Murmured Valyrian. The door opened.
Raelano Rhaelys entered first, grave as a priest, the lines around his mouth held in strict obedience to joy. Serala followed, pale and poised, her hands clasped too tightly to be calm. Saera came last, unhurried, a smile like a drawn veil. Between them walked the child: silver hair tucked back, violet eyes wide and unblinking, her small hand already lifting as if to greet a friend.
"My lord Hand," Raelano said, bowing. "Your Grace."
Viserys nodded to each, then to the keepers at the wall. "No words go beyond this stone. No eyes that see will pretend to have seen aught. If any tongue wags, it wags its last in my city."
The keepers bowed, their faces unreadable beneath ash and sweat.
Viserys crouched so his gaze met the girl's. "Do you remember what we spoke of, last night?"
"The egg," she said. The word was not breath but certainty.
"Go to it," he said gently. "Do nothing clever. Only feel it. If it speaks, answer. If it sleeps, let it sleep."
Serala flinched. "Your Grace–"
Viserys raised a hand. "If she is in danger, a dozen men will pull her away before you take two steps. Don't fret, I will not feed a child to a dream." He softened. "But I will not steal a dream from a child."
The girl stepped forward. Heat lifted a curl of hair from her cheek. The charcoals pulsed a lazy scarlet. She halted before the urn as if before an altar, closed her eyes, and placed both palms upon the shell.
The chamber held its breath.
A sound like a sigh went through the egg. Not a crack; a fresh breath. The veins along its shell brightened, lilac to lavender to white-fire, and the heat that had been content to live in metal and coal rose up as if to meet her hands. The girl did not move. She tilted her head, listening to something that none of them could hear.
The first crack was small as a stitch popping. The second was a thread. The third ran like lightning.
Serala made a soft and weak sound – half a prayer, half a protest.
Raelano fell to his knees without knowing he had done it, murmuring in Lyseni Valyrian, "Lady of the Lemon Groves, Mother of Waters, Keeper of Memory, let it be true…" Saera said nothing at all. Her eyes shone with a light that was not wholly lamp-born.
The shell split. Steam and scent rolled out – iron, salt, something sweet and queerly clean, like rain over hot stone. A slick head shoved through, pearl-white and opalescent, crowned with fine nubs where horns would bud. The body that followed was long, serpentine, each ribtine marked by gleam; limbs thin and elegant as a dancer's wrist; a tail that seemed all whip and promise. A second pair of pinions unfurled beneath the first, smaller, translucent – two sets of wings, both dainty and outsized at once, like silk fans catching light.
The hatchling blinked. Its eyes were pale – cream shot with silver, pupils like slits of ink. It hissed softly, more question than threat.
The girl did not recoil. She lifted her forearm in wonder. The dragon coiled itself around her wrist as if it had always known the shape of her bones, climbed to her shoulder with a clatter of tiny claws, and settled there, head beneath her ear, wings mantled as if to shelter a flame from wind.
The heat in the room changed. It had been the heat of coals; now it was the warmth of a loved embrace. The keepers bowed their heads. One made the sign that dragonkeepers make when they see a thing more sacred than oaths.
Viserys exhaled a laugh that was not merriment. "So. Caraxes and Dreamfyre, hm?" He could not help it – the shape was there: the length and lithe of Daemon's mount, the sheen and light of Dreamfyre's brood. "A river of a body, and wings like silk."
Serala's hands had flown to her mouth. Fear and wonder wrestled in her eyes; fear lost. "She–she is on her– Your Grace, will it–" She could not finish.
"It has already decided," Viserys said.
Raelano's murmuring had become weeping. He pressed his forehead to the stone. Words tumbled out of him, old and salt-sticky, the prayers of a city that sells everything and still finds something to keep in the dark. "Let her blood be true. Let the memory be ours. Let the fire not shame us."
Saera watched with a calm that bordered on cruelty – no, not cruelty; reckoning. "Blood remembers blood," she said very softly, to no one and everyone.
Lyonel Strong had not moved. He stood as a man stands when he knows the road has turned beneath his feet. He looked at the child, the dragon, the King, and saw in a single glance the next twenty years: arguments in council chambers, banners mustering on windswept hills, parchments signed with shaking hands. He saw Rhaenyra's pride scalded and Alicent's patience ground thin, Daemon's smile sharpened to a blade, Corlys staring long at the horizon to read the weather of men, Oldtown counting sins against advantages and finding both profitable.
He saw a realm watch a girl who had become a symbol and forget the girl she was.
He forced air into his lungs and bent his knee. The words came out quiet, even, without ornament or plea – words meant to steady a world that had just changed shape.
"…Welcome home, princess."
The hatchling tightened its coil around the girl's throat, not choking but claiming, and lost a note that was not quite a chirp and not yet a roar. The sound skipped along the copper cradle, kissed the charcoal into a brighter glow, and climbed the stones like a ladder to the sun.
Viserys closed his eyes and bowed his head, as a man bows to a door he has opened knowing it will never close again. Award ReplyReport55PersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 9: Viserys Targaryen III View contentPersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmark#14111 AC
Viserys had torn through it hours ago; half of Old Valyria lay in ruin across the floor. Towers broken like crumbled old bread, bridges snapped, canals turned into red rivers where the wine had pooled. He sat amid the wreckage, robe undone, hands black with ash from the lamps he had overturned. Every wheeze of his lungs rasped against his throat, raw from shouting at men who were no longer there.
Daemon.
Even thinking the name made his teeth grind. The brother he had loved, the fool he had trusted.
The court said the prince had dragged Rhaenyra through the Flea Bottom brothels, showing her "what men do." Some whispered he had gone further, that the Dragon's Heir had lain with her uncle upon a bed of strangers' cheers. A small minority said it was only play-acting, that Daemon had left her untouched at the last moment. It did not matter. The filth had already been spoken aloud, and words, once flown, never died. They multiplied.
He saw it when he closed his eyes: Rhaenyra's silver hair in the torchlight, Daemon's hand on her waist, the crowd howling for a show. He hated himself for picturing it, hated them more for giving him the image.
They were Targaryens – dragon-blooded – and yet no better than common rutters in an alley.
He struck the table again. "He taught her rot," he muttered, voice hoarse. "He taught her the taste of sin."
Beyond the door the guards pretended to be deaf. No one entered when the King's temper turned to fire.
He pushed himself to his feet, staggering among the ruins of his model. The lamplight caught his face in streaks: sweat, tears, dust. He looked like a smith beaten by his own forge.
"She is my heir," he whispered. "My joy. And now the court weighs her maidenhood like a coin."
He turned toward the half-finished spires, the fragile bridges he had once carved with devotion. "What did I build you for?" he asked the long dead city.
A faint rustle answered – silk brushing stone, a lighter step than any guard's.
"Your Grace?"
Viserra stood at the threshold, pale hair bound with a black ribbon, eyes soft with worry. Behind her, the dragon padded in on long limbs, scales the color of moonlight rippling with each breath. Aenyx – larger now than any hound, its second set of wings folded like veils along its rear limbs. It lowered its head as it entered, the air warming with the faint sulphur scent of its throat.
"I heard shouting," she said.
Viserra didn't say anything more. She didn't need to. She moved to the corner of the room where a small table had somehow survived the storm. She took a cup and a cloth tissue from the pocket of her dress, wiped the dust carefully, then filled it from a crystal carafe that had escaped the wreckage. Juice, not wine. She carried it to her father.
"Thank you," said Viserys.
Only when the cool sweetness touched his tongue did he realize how raw his throat was.
"So," Viserra asked after a pause, "what will you do now?"
"Already did," he rasped. "I have banished my brother. Yet again."
Viserra didn't reply at once. Her small hand brushed the rim of the table, eyes following the ruin of the city. When she finally spoke, her voice was gentle – so calm it stung.
"He didn't appear as a villain to me."
"That's because you are still a child," Viserys said sharply. Then softer: "If Rhaenyra is like that, I am afraid of what will happen to you and Helaena once you flower."
"We will be fine," she said, laughing – light, silvery, like chimes in a breeze. "Or so I think. Helaena should definitely not worry about any dashing or dazzling young knights. Her little bug friends are more than enough."
Viserys's mouth twitched. "Oh, you play with your siblings? Tell me more about them. You know…" He gestured vaguely at the broken model. "With the crown's weight, and… everything else, sometimes I find myself completely isolated from my own family. Rhaenyra loathes her younger siblings; Alicent sings them praises. How are they, in your opinion? As a third party."
"Well…" Viserra tilted her head, thinking. "Aegon is… funny? If that is a good description. He always gets himself into petty problems. He'll steal a bottle of wine here, run away from his lessons there, gather a gang of young wards and noble scions around himself and they collectively start arranging troubles for everyone around – with no care who that is. But he is also responsible. Every time one of his little bandit group gets caught, he steps forward and takes all the blame himself."
Viserys listened closely. He suddenly became so engrossed in this little tale about his oldest son.
"Queen Alicent worries about him, but in my opinion she's too harsh. Sunfyre, his dragon, is already said to be the most beautiful ever born. I don't buy it. To me, Aenyx is the most beautiful."
The dragon gave a low, pleased purr, curling around her feet.
"But Aegon fits his dragon," she continued. "They both love attention."
Viserys chuckled under his breath – the first real sound of warmth that had escaped him in days. "And what about the others?"
"Helaena can't walk nor talk properly yet, but she already likes her bugs. She's very curious. She always smiles, very sweet… but sometimes too dreamy."
"I've noticed that too," said Viserys. "I think she's destined for Dreamfyre. And what about the youngest?"
"Aemond?" She smiled. "Still a baby, but he already seems quite determined. His eyebrows are always crossed and he looks at everyone with that face. Can't say much else."
For a while, the only sound was the gentle drip of melted wax from the candles. The King stared at the cup in his hands. "Do you think I'm doing well with the succession?"
"I don't know," she said honestly. "I am still a child myself. I have zero idea. But there is one thing I know, father."
"Oh? And what is that? Please share."
"I know that you are the last rider of Balerion the Black Dread," she said softly. "He chose you for a reason."
Viserys exhaled. The words struck deeper than he expected. The thought of Balerion was a wound that had never fully closed – the weight, the heat, the shadow of that monstrous wingspan. "Balerion chose many," he murmured. "And outlived most."
"Yet you are the last," she replied, her tone certain. "You carry something that others couldn't."
He looked at her – at her poise, her pale eyes reflecting the lampfire. "And what do you think that is, little one?"
"Patience," she said. "And compassion."
He barked a short laugh that turned into a sigh. "A cruel combination."
"Necessary," she said. "Without patience you would be Daemon. Without compassion, you would be Maegor."
The dragon lifted its head, blinking at the sound of its mistress's voice. Viserys watched the shimmer along its scales – moonlight caught in silver flame.
The King found himself speaking aloud. "Do you know what they say about your birth? That I was a fool to acknowledge you. That you are a scandal born of shallow grief and vanity."
Viserra didn't flinch. "They said the same of all Targaryens, once."
He looked away. "You have your mother's courage."
"Then you have my grandfather's eyes," she said quietly. "The same sadness."
Viserys turned toward the shattered city. "It's not sadness. It's exhaustion. Every year I think the realm steadies, and every year the ground shifts again. Daemon. Rhaenyra. The Hightowers. The Velaryons. The Triarchy. Now Dorne too. All pulling at the same time. I hold it all together with smiles and small feasts."
"Then keep holding," she said.
"Until what? Until they tear each other apart? I can already see it. I'm not blind. Greens and blacks, Hightower and Velaryon, every vulture waiting to see who dies first."
She set down her cup. "Maybe they will. But you are still King."
"And when the King's blood is spent?" he asked bitterly. "Who remains then – the ashes?"
Her gaze didn't waver. "So what?"
She stated it with innocence that was allowed only to children. Aenyx flicked its tail, brushing her ankle; its scales gleamed faintly like liquid pearl. The King said nothing. He only watched her – the strange mixture of gentleness and depth. There was no hunger in her, no ambition, no deceit. Only that calm and composure.
He thought of Rhaenyra's flushed face in the throne room, of Daemon's smirk, of the courtiers' laughter that would ripple through the hallways for months to come. And then he thought of this girl, pouring juice for a weary man and speaking to him as though he were not a king at all, only a father.
He rose slowly. "Walk with me."
They stepped out onto the terrace that overlooked the city. Night had fallen, and the wind carried the scents of smoke, rain, and sea. The torches of King's Landing glittered below like a thousand tiny forges. From this height, even the Red Keep seemed small.
"Look," he said quietly. "The city still sleeps. The people still eat. They don't know their king has failed them."
"Why?" she asked.
He turned to her. "I don't even know it myself. I was not supposed to be here. The training I had was very little, and I feel like I'm making mistake after mistake."
She smiled faintly. "But you are here. Nobody else."
Aenyx slithered between them, craning its long neck over the balustrade. Below, a patrol of the City Watch marched with torches – orange dots in the dark. The dragon's breath hissed faintly in sync with the wind.
Viserys laid a hand on its head. "You're growing fast, little monster."
"Faster than any other," Viserra agreed. "Maybe it wants us both to fly together as soon as possible."
"Perhaps it does," Viserys said.
They stood there in silence, father, daughter, and dragon. The wind tugged at his hair; her silver locks danced in the torchlight. The King closed his eyes for a moment. He thought of Daemon's exile, of the court's whispers, of the thousand ways this house might still devour itself. When he opened them again, he saw only her reflection in the glass of the window – serene, luminous, and utterly still.
"You are the only calm in this storm," he said quietly.
"Storms pass," she replied. "And the fire can be rekindled."
Viserys gave a tired smile. "And what am I, then?"
"The hand that holds both," she said.
He reached out and touched her back – a brief, uncertain gesture – then turned back toward the chamber, toward the broken model of a world that had once ruled all others. "Then may I hold steady a little longer," he murmured.
Below, the city flickered – green banners, red banners, and between them, the black waters of the river glimmering like oil.
Aenyx gave a low, rumbling croon. Viserra looked up at the sky and whispered something in High Valyrian, a word too soft for him to catch.
Viserys did not ask what it meant. He only listened to her voice – melodic and strangely comforting – and for the first time in many years, that night, the King of the Seven Kingdoms felt the storm within him begin to quiet. Award ReplyReport48PersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmarkView discussionThreadmarks Chapter 10: Corlys Velaryon I View contentPersianPrince69699/11/2025Add bookmark#15114 AC
The Great Hall of the Red Keep shimmered with color that night – crimson and black, gold and green, silver and sea-blue. Banners hung from the rafters like sails in full wind, the torches beneath them making the painted dragons writhe and dance. Music drifted through the air, a dozen harps and pipes and drums rising and falling like the tide.
Corlys Velaryon stood at the edge of it all, shoulders square, hands clasped behind his back, his sea-cloak trimmed with white coral and pearls. For once, he was not the commander or the lord admiral – only a father watching his son take the hand of the future queen.
At last, he thought, the sea and the dragon are bound by blood once more.
Pride swelled in him like a favorable wind. His house – the richest in the realm, but for so long a house of ships rather than thrones – now stood within the line of kings. The Iron Throne itself would one day rest beneath the feet of his blood.
Yet pride could not drown habit. His mind, trained to sound for reefs even in calm water, turned unbidden to the Stepstones. He remembered the heat, the reek of tar and rot, the flies circling the nailed men. He remembered Daemon's sword descending on the Crabfeeder's helm, the spray of blood that followed. Victory had tasted of iron that day, and of glory too. They had drunk it deep and believed the war ended.
It had not.
When word came that the Three Whores had redoubled their fleets, that they had joined hands with Dorne, Corlys had laughed first – a short, sharp sound – and then cursed. Now Racallio Ryndoon haunted those waters – a monstrosity with ten lives and a hundred sails. The men who fought him called him the Sea-Devil, for he came and went with the fog, burning ships by night and vanishing before dawn. The Stepstones had become a graveyard of masts and bones, and the crown sat silent.
And here, in this hall, while he stood surrounded by the laughter of courtiers, that graveyard grew. He forced the thought away. Tonight was not for mourning.
The heralds had outdone themselves. Peacocks roasted whole, stuffed with oranges and almonds; swans baked in crusts of gold leaf; sweet wines from Arbor and Dorne alike. Minstrels played ballads of Aegon's Conquest while children scattered rose petals across the floor.
Rhaenyra glowed in her gown of red and black, rubies winking in her hair. His son Laenor – tall, proud, handsome, and radiant in silver and sea-green – looked every inch the prince he had always believed himself to be.
Rhaenys, at Corlys's side, watched them with quiet satisfaction. Her hand found his, fingers tightening for a heartbeat. We did it, her look said. Our line endures. Corlys nodded. He felt older than his years, but not weary. He was content.
As the feast continued, his eyes drifted across the hall, cataloguing what most men barely noticed.
There sat Lord Beesbury, small and neat as a button; beside him, the Fossoways, green apple and red apple alike, pretending their feud was forgotten. Lord Rosby, pale as parchment, whispered to a Tully retainer. The Malisters of Seagard laughed with the Merryweathers, wine already staining their lips.
Even the reclusive Celtigars of Claw Isle had come – thin-faced Valyrian cousins whose silver hair gleamed under the torchlight. Their lord, Bartimos, raised his cup to Corlys across the room; Corlys returned it, the barest nod. They were of the same blood once, long before the Doom – sea-lords born of dragonseed and salt.
He smiled faintly. The whole realm, gathered for my son.
It was the sight he had dreamed of in younger years: ships bearing his sigil filling Blackwater Bay, banners of Driftmark flying beside the royal standard. He had won this through gold, through risk, through storm – and now through marriage. For a man born of spray and wind, it was a strange kind of immortality.
And then his gaze found them. At the edge of the dais, stood the Volantene knot.
Raelano Rhaelys, still too young to have earned the silver streaks in his hair, dressed like a prince of Essos – deep blue velvet trimmed with gold, a ring for every finger. Corlys remembered him: younger brother to a former First Magister of Lys, now making himself comfortable in Volantis.
Beside him stood Serala, his whore of a daughter – the King's long-forgotten mistress – pale, composed, her Lyseni beauty not looking to be fading yet.
And with her, that child: Viserra, now Targaryen, twelve years old and already the subject of half the court's whispers. Silver hair and violet eyes. Four years had passed since the hatching. The little dragon she had cradled like a cat was a beast grown now, long as a galley's mast, two pairs of wings glimmering like silk in the torchlight. Through the tall windows, Corlys could glimpse the dragon's pale shape upon the outer terrace of the Red Keep. The creature's breath smoked faintly in the dusk. Earlier that day, before the ceremony, it had circled the city once in calm, deliberate flight. The court had not stopped speaking of it since.
Corlys's jaw tightened. They had come by way of Volantis. That alone spoke volumes. Lys and Volantis in league again. The whore and the tiger sharing the same bed.
He told himself he had no quarrel with them – they were Targaryen blood, of a sort – yet their presence itched beneath his skin. When Triarchy and Volantis conspired, the sea ran red soon after. And with the Triarchy's banners once more crowding the Stepstones, this was no coincidence.
If the Free Cities are whispering to one another, then I will need Pentos before long.
Corlys's thoughts turned eastward, beyond the hall, beyond even the Stepstones. To Braavos – that city of banks and faceless men.
He remembered his daughter Laena's failed betrothal to the Sealord's son. A fine match it had seemed: coin for coin, power for power. Until the old Sealord was cut down and the son lost his wits and fortune in brothels and dice-houses. The betrothal died before it lived, and with it his belief in Braavos.
If Braavos was no longer trustworthy and Volantis armed his enemies, only Pentos remained. Pentoshi princes feared both Volantis and Dorne – and fear was a fine ally when bought at the right price.
The hall thundered with applause as the newly wed couple took the floor. Rhaenyra's laughter rang bright, Laenor's smile steady and practiced.
Corlys watched with a father's pride – and an admiral's unease. His son's shoulders were too stiff; his eyes darted too often to the galleries. He thought of the rumors – of Laenor's fondness for certain companions – and dismissed them as the jealous mutterings of court women.
"My son rode Seasmoke into battle," he thought. "No sword-swallower he."
Still, the gossip clung like barnacles. His gaze shifted again, reading the room as he would read a storm. Queen Alicent sat beneath the banner of her house, radiant and watchful, surrounded by her father's allies – the Greens.
Across from her, Princess Rhaenyra's supporters laughed with Daemon, recently returned from exile – the Blacks.
And between them, poor Viserys, sweating beneath his crown, forcing mirth he no longer felt. Two queens in one court, and a thousand lords choosing sides by the color of their gowns.
Near the dais, the child Viserra moved among the crowd.
Rhaenys followed his gaze. "A beauty, isn't she?"
"Beautiful things are seldom harmless," Corlys replied.
He had seen the way the girl greeted Queen Alicent with a curtsy, how warmly the queen returned it. Rhaenyra, meanwhile, had ignored her half-sister entirely. Rumor said the girl spent more time in the queen's solar than among her own kin. If that were true, it was telling.
As the feast wore on, Corlys found himself beside the balustrade, overlooking the dark waters of Blackwater Bay. Ships glittered below like stars fallen into the sea – royal galleys, merchant cogs, his own sleek warships from Driftmark.
A servant refilled his cup. He sipped slowly, savoring the salt-kissed wind.
The laughter from the hall behind him sounded far away, as though muffled by distance and time.
He thought of the Stepstones again – of men dying nameless deaths for a war the realm had forgotten. He thought of Daemon, bold and reckless, carving glory while the king carved a toy city. And he thought of the realm itself, its unity no sturdier than a ship of reeds.
The Greens had their queen, the Blacks their heir. The Free Cities watched and waited, knives behind smiles. And now these Volantene "kinsmen," gilded in false grace, drank the king's wine.
Back in the hall, the dancing had begun anew. Rhaenyra spun in her husband's arms, jewels flashing like sparks; Alicent watched from her chair, unreadable; the king raised his goblet high, declaring love and unity.
Corlys saw none of it. He saw instead the pattern beneath – the shifting currents that would one day drag them all under.
Yet he smiled all the same. Let them feast. Let them toast. His son was prince-consort now, and Driftmark's sigil hung beside the royal dragon. The sea had claimed its place in history. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would send word to Pentos.
He turned once more to the dark window, to the rhythm of waves beating against the cliffs. The music faded, replaced by the slow pulse of the sea – his oldest, truest ally.