Maegor's Holdfast, The King's Chambers.
In the King's chambers at the peak of Maegor's Holdfast, the air was thick with the scent of medicine.
Heavy curtains blocked out the night, and only a single silver lamp by the bed cast a dim glow, illuminating a small patch of space around the hangings.
Viserys lay in the bed. Aemond stood at the foot of it.
He had been speaking for a long time, unveiling everything from the impounding of the dragons at the Pit to the hunt in Blackwater Bay and the recent aerial war over Dragonstone.
He hid no details. He offered no apologies.
When Aemond described the public execution of Jacaerys in the city square, Viserys listened with his eyes closed, his breathing thin but steady.
Only after Aemond finished his final sentence did a long, heavy silence settle over the room.
Finally, the King's eyelids fluttered and slowly opened.
"Come here," Viserys whispered.
Aemond walked to the bedside without hesitation. Viserys raised his right hand; it was nothing but bone and parchment-like skin.
With the last of his strength, he struck Aemond across the face.
Slap
The blow was piteously weak. It was the slap of a dying old man, almost silent. Yet Alicent let out a sharp gasp.
Aemond's head turned with the impact, but his expression remained calm and expectant.
"You killed them..." Viserys's voice trembled.
"Jacaerys... Joffrey... Lucerys... they were children..."
"Jacaerys was fourteen," Aemond replied flatly.
"He was already training bastards on Dragonstone to ride dragons and overthrow us. Joffrey was ten, but he rode a dragon into a royal facility to steal property of the Crown. They chose their path. They must endure the end of it."
"But they were your blood!" Viserys roared.
The exertion immediately triggered a violent fit of coughing. His skeletal body convulsed on the bed. Alicent hurried to prop him up, gently patting his back.
It took nearly half a minute for the King to recover, a trail of bloody foam clinging to the corner of his mouth.
Aemond waited for his father's breathing to level out.
"Father, if we were the ones who lost, do you truly believe they would have spared us?"
Viserys fell silent. He knew Daemon, the brother who never followed rules, the "Prince of the City" who had bathed the Stepstones in blood.
And Rhaenyra... he dared not imagine what she would become after losing three sons.
"It was you who took their dragons first..." Viserys's voice weakened, weighted by deep exhaustion.
"They were only trying to take back what was theirs..."
"It was not 'taking back,'" Aemond interrupted.
"It was theft. The Velaryons do not deserve dragons. They are not Targaryens. House Velaryon believed that by marrying Princess Rhaenys, they could reach for the fire. They were wrong. Dragons belong only to the True Blood."
He leaned in closer to his father.
"The Velaryons were already too powerful. The navy, the gold... and then they wanted the sky. Corlys dreamed of establishing a dynasty in the East, making the Velaryons another house of Dragonlords. If I had not stopped it, the consequences would be unimaginable."
Viserys closed his eyes. He thought of Corlys Velaryon, the "Sea Snake," the wealthiest man in the Seven Kingdoms, who never truly bowed his head.
Corlys supported Rhaenyra not out of loyalty to House Targaryen, but because her sons bore the name Velaryon. He dreamed of his blood sitting on the Iron Throne.
"But... Aemond..." Viserys opened his eyes, which were filled with tears.
"You cannot... You cannot stain your hands with the blood of your kin. How will the Seven Kingdoms look at you? What will the Maesters write? They will call you a kinslayer. You will be, "
"Father," Aemond interrupted calmly.
"Why should I care how the Seven Kingdoms look at me? Why should I care what the Maesters write in their chronicles?"
He sat on the edge of the bed and took his father's hand. The skin was ice-cold.
"You spent your life in the praises of the nobility. You listened to them, balanced their interests, and sought their love. You wanted to be remembered as a second Jaehaerys, the 'Old King' of a golden age."
He squeezed the hand. "But the Targaryen rule was never a request. It is a command."
Viserys tried to pull his hand away, but Aemond's grip was iron.
The strength in the young Prince's hand filled the old King with a nameless terror, not a fear of his son, but a fear of a future that could no longer be stopped.
"We are the descendants of the Conqueror," Aemond continued, his violet eye burning with internal fire.
"Aegon I conquered this land with three dragons, not because he was 'right,' but because he had the power. Maegor crushed the Faith Militant because he was more ruthless. House Targaryen has ruled for a century not because we are loved, but because we are feared."
He stood up and walked to the window, pulling the curtain back slightly.
Outside was the mist-covered city of King's Landing.
"You cared too much for their opinions. But the truth is, the Seven Kingdoms should obey the Targaryen will, not the other way around. Dragons are above; men are below. Everywhere the dragon-fire touches is Targaryen land. Every sky the dragon-wings shadow is a Targaryen sky."
Viserys stared blankly at his son's back. This sixteen-year-old boy, whom he had once thought of as merely impulsive and in need of discipline, was now speaking words that shattered the King's lifelong convictions.
Because he knew his son was right.
For twenty years, Viserys had tried to be a "Good King." He balanced factions and pursued peace. He thought it would sustain the Golden Age.
And the result? The Realm had split under his feet. His children were butchered.
If he had been as ruthless as Maegor... if he had stripped Rhaenyra of her inheritance the moment she bore her first bastard... if he had crushed Velaryon ambition early...
Suppose he had never married Alicent. If he had never let Otto Hightower hold the Handship... perhaps today would be different.
Alicent watched her husband, her own tears falling silently. After twenty years of marriage, she knew him too well.
She saw the agony on his face, not just for the death of his grandsons, but for the realization that his entire philosophy of rule may have been a mistake from the very beginning.
After a long time, Viserys let out a ragged sigh, a sound of absolute defeat.
"You are right," the King whispered.
"Dragons... must belong only to the Targaryens."
-----
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