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Viserys traced the rim of his cup with a finger, watching the steam rise in lazy spirals. The wine was hot, heavy with cloves and cinnamon and some sharper spice he could not name—not his usual taste, but Lord Dandarian drank it thus, and a guest honors his host's customs.

Lord Humfrey Dandarian had spent years at the Citadel before his brother's death and his father's summons had made him an heir. That was why Viserys treasured his company above most others—the man had worn a maester's chain in all but name, and there were few in the Seven Kingdoms who could match the king's love for history, for debate, for the chasing of old truths through dusty tomes. Before the Citadel, Lord Dandarian had shared a chamber with sons of the North, great shaggy boys from houses buried in snow, and they had taught him to drink his wine this way. To keep the warmth, they said. The habit had stuck. And Viserys found he did not mind. There was something comforting in the burn, something that sat well in the belly on a chill evening such as this.

The fire danced in its hearth, casting long shadows that reached like fingers across the hall. Servants moved quietly about the long table, bearing away the remains of a meal that had stretched for hours—swan stuffed with figs and nuts, a haunch of boar in a sauce of plums and wine, delicate pastries shaped like stars and filled with honey and pine nuts. The table had groaned under its bounty. Now it stood bare, and the king and his lord rose to take their wine to the solar.

The solar overlooked the bay. Through the arched windows, Viserys could see the water darkening to violet and black as the sun bled its last across the horizon. Ships moved like sleepy fireflies, their lanterns kindling one by one. He settled into a cushioned chair near the window, his cup warm in his hands, and Lord Dandarian took the seat across from him.

Their talk had turned to stranger things than harvests and taxes. To dreams.

"I have always thought myself a dreamer," Viserys admitted. The words came easier here, in the gathering dark, with the wine's heat spreading through his belly. "All my life, I have dreamed of dragons. My family has ridden them for generations, but the dreaming..." He shook his head. "Few of us have that gift."

"Daenys the Dreamer," Lord Dandarian supplied. Her name hung in the air between them like incense.

Viserys grinned, and for a moment he was young again, a prince with his whole life ahead of him. "Yes. She saw the Doom before it came. Saved our house, our blood, everything." The grin faded as quickly as it had come. He thought of another dreamer, another vision. A secret he had told only one living soul—his daughter, Rhaenyra, before Belaryon's skull and bones.

From my blood come the prince that was promised, the Conqueror had dreamed. And His shall be the song of Ice and Fire.

"I saw a son of mine," Viserys said, and his voice had gone strange in his own ears—distant, hollow, as if another man spoke through his lips. "I dreamed of a son of mine. Seated upon the Iron Throne. He wore the Conqueror's crown, the ruby helm with its Valyrian steel bands, and Blackfyre lay across his knees. Swords were raised for him—hundreds of them, thousands—and the roar of dragons shook the very foundations of the world."

The fire popped. Lord Dandarian sat very still.

Viserys raised his cup and drank deep, let the hot wine sear his throat and chest. This, he thought. This is what dragons feel. This burning from within. The heat spread through him, warming places that had been cold since Aemma's last breath, since they had cut Baelon from her womb and found him weak then dead.

"But my son is dead." The words fell like stones into still water. "And Aemma is gone.”

He had not meant to speak of it. The dream had come to him weeks ago again, in the depths of his grief, and he had locked it away in the darkest corner of his heart. But the wine loosened tongues, and Lord Dandarian was a man who understood the weight of prophecies, or at least open-minded enough to not scorned them outright. 

Lord Dandarian set down his cup. The wine within sloshed gently, catching the firelight like liquid garnets.

"Queen Aemma was a gracious woman," he said. The words hung in the air between them, simple and true and altogether insufficient. "We deeply grieve her."

Viserys did not answer at once. He stared into his cup, at the dregs swirling in their shallow pool of spiced wine, and for a moment he was elsewhere—in a bedchamber thick with blood and screams and the copper stench of death, holding a hand that grew colder by the heartbeat while maesters muttered and midwives wept.

Gracious.

The word meant nothing. Less than nothing. It was a word for tombs and memorials, for the lips of lords who had never known her laugh, her smile, the way she would press her forehead to his when they were alone and the crown could be set aside.

Aemma was gracious. Yes. She had been. To everyone. To the servants who dressed her, to the ladies who attended her, to the lords who knelt and pledged their swords. She had been gracious the way sunlight was warm, the way rain was wet—it was simply her nature, as natural as breathing.

But she had been more.

She had been the girl who raced him through the corridors of the Eyrie when they were children, her dark hair flying behind her like a banner. She had been the woman who laughed at his jests and cried at his sorrows and held him through the long nights. She had given him a daughter with eyes like Amethysts, and she had died trying to give him a son.

Gracious.

The word was a stone in his chest.

"Aye," Viserys said at last. His voice was rough, scraped raw. "She was."

He raised his cup, found it empty. Beyond the windows, the bay stretched dark and endless toward a horizon that offered no comfort. Somewhere out there, the first stars were beginning to appear, cold and distant and utterly indifferent to the grief of kings.

Lord Dandarian rose and crossed to the flagon on the sideboard. He returned with both cups refilled, the wine steaming gently in the chill air.

"To the queen," he said, lifting his own.

Viserys looked at him—at this man who had never met Aemma, who knew her only as a name in letters and a memory in her husband's eyes—and felt something crack, just a little, in the wall he had built around his heart.

"To the queen," he echoed.

They drank.

Then, as if in shame, Lord Dandarian began.

"I admit I saw a vision of my own once. Though whether it was true vision or merely wine and folly, I have never been certain." He stared into his cup, swirling the dregs. "When your father died. The Spring Prince."

Viserys looked up sharply. Baelon. His father, Baelon the Brave, who had laughed at death and died of a burst belly in his bed all the same.

"We were there for the hunt," Dandarian continued. "My father and my brother and I. My father was seeking a knight to squire under—he had ambitions for us, always ambitions, and a prince's hunt draws the best knights in the realm. The celebration was... great. You remember, Your Grace. You were there."

Viserys remembered. He had been a young, trailing after his father like a shadow, desperate to prove himself worthy of the dragon's blood that ran in his veins. The hunt had been magnificent—pavilions of silk and cloth-of-gold, lords from every corner of the realm, casks of wine that never emptied and tables that groaned under whole herds of roasted meat.

"Lords came from every corner of the realm—Stormlands, Reach, the West. And common folk too. Hundreds of them. Thousands, mayhaps. They came with their shops on wheels and their crafts spread on blankets, their wineskins and their entertainments. Jugglers. Puppeteers. A man with a bear, I remember. The bear was old and half-blind, and the man beat it to make it dance, and the crowd laughed and threw coppers.

Lord Dandarian's smile faded.

"My brother was drunk in all of it. Drunk on the crowds, on the music, on the cheap wine they sold from carts. He was always like that, my brother. Too much heart, too little head. He would chase any joy that ran from him, and some that didn't." He shook his head slowly. "And I, as a good dutiful son did, kept an eye on him. Because the gods knew someone had to."

Viserys nodded. He understood. He had kept an eye on Daemon for years now, and the gods knew that was a task without end.

"We met a woman. In one of the tents, away from the main grounds, where the cheaper entertainments pitched themselves. She sold prophecy, or so she said. Old, she was—older than anyone I had ever seen. Her face was a map of wrinkles, and her eyes were the color of milk, blind or near enough. But she looked at my brother as if she could see straight through him. She told my brother that he would die."

The words fell into the silence like stones into deep water. Viserys felt something cold settle in his chest, though the wine still burned in his belly.

Lord Dandarian looked up, and his eyes were dark with old grief.

"She pointed at him—just pointed, with a finger like a twig, like a bone—and she said, 'You will die with your father's name on your lips, and you will see the thing that kills you coming, and you will not be able to look away.'"

"And?" Viserys prompted softly.

Dandarian looked up. In the firelight, his eyes were wet. The fire hissed.

"My brother laughed. He was drunk, and young, and laughter came easy to him then. He tossed her a copper and called her a mad old crone and pulled me away before I could ask her more." Lord Dandarian set down his cup, untouched now. "Three years later, he was dead. An outlaw's arrow through his throat, on the road from King's Landing to Storm's End. My father rode beside him. They say his last word was Father's name. And he saw the arrow coming. The man who killed him said he watched it fly for a full heartbeat before it struck. Did not flinch. Did not look away."

The silence that followed was heavy as a shroud.

Lord Dandarian stared into the fire, and Viserys stared into the dark beyond the windows, and somewhere out on the bay a ship's bell tolled, distant and mournful.

"That is the trouble with prophecies," Viserys said at last, his voice barely above a whisper. "You never know which ones are true until it is too late."

"Aye," said Lord Dandarian. "You never do."

The wine sat untouched in his cup.

Viserys said nothing. Outside, the bay stretched dark and endless, and somewhere beyond the horizon, the first stars were beginning to appear, cold and distant and utterly indifferent to the grief of men.

"I think of her sometimes," Dandarian said. "The old woman with her tent of bones. I think of what she might have seen if my brother had asked a different question. Or if I had asked one instead."

He paused, staring into the fire as if it held answers the world could not give.

"I was in the city last week." The words came slower now, dragged from some deep place. "I had to go myself. My wife would have flayed my page alive if I'd sent him to buy her a gift—she has a way of knowing when I've not chosen things myself. Women have that gift, I think. To see through the little lies we tell to spare ourselves trouble." A sad smile touched his lips. "I wished to give her something that would surprise her. A sapphire bracelet, I thought. Something blue, to match her eyes. The jewelers have their shops around Rhaenys's Hill."

Viserys watched him. Waited.

"I found what I wanted. Paid more than it was worth, most like, but the sapphires were dark and deep, and I could see her smile already. I walked out with the bracelet wrapped in silk and tucked inside my doublet, and there—" Lord Dandarian stopped. Swallowed. "There She was. Sitting on her rag against a wall, same as she had all those years ago. Same face, same eyes, same fingers like twigs, like bones. She had not aged a day."

Loudly, the fire popped. Viserys did not move.

"I never mounted my horse so fast in all my life." The admission came out rough, ashamed. "I was back in the saddle and gone before she could lift her head. My heart pounding like a boy caught stealing. And ever since, I have not known whether to curse myself a coward or thank the gods she did not see me."

He looked at Viserys then, and in the firelight his eyes were those of a man who had lived too long with questions.

"Part of me wants to know. To go back, to find her, to ask what she sees when she looks at me. Part of me wants to know if my brother's death was written, or if she simply spoke words that made it so. And part of me..." He shook his head. "Part of me curses her. Part of me is afraid. Because if she is still there, still the same after all these years, then what she said to my brother was not chance or cruelty. It was true sight. And if she has true sight, then she might look at me and see something I do not wish to know."

"That is the trouble," Viserys said softly. "The knowing. Or the not knowing. I cannot decide which is worse."

Lord Dandarian nodded slowly. "A man can spend his whole life wondering. Or he can spend it running from the answers he fears. I have done both, and I cannot say which has cost me more."

But Viserys found himself thinking.

Found himself hoping.

The wine had warmed him through, loosened the knots in his chest that had been drawn tight since Aemma's breath left her body. Perhaps he was too drunk. Perhaps he was too whimsical in his grief, too desperate for some answer, any answer, that might make sense of the senseless. Grief did strange things to a man's mind—he knew that now, knew it the way a sailor knows the shape of waves that have drowned his shipmates.

But the thought would not leave him.

She had told Lord Dandarian's brother how he would die, and she had been right. If she could see one death, why not another? If she could speak one truth, why not more?

A son of mine, seated upon the Iron Throne.

The dream burned in his mind, bright and terrible as dragonfire.

He wanted to know. He wanted to ride down from this castle, through the city gates, into the stinking warren of Flea Bottom where the smallfolk huddled in their hovels and the rats grew fat on refuse. He wanted to find that rag, that wall, those eyes like ancient pools. He wanted to ask her: Did I dream true? Will a son of mine sit the throne? Or was it only wine and grief and the desperate longing of a broken heart?

The wanting was a physical thing. A pressure in his chest. A tightness in his throat.

She might tell me something I do not wish to hear.

That was the terror of it. The old woman had told Lord Dandarian's brother he would die with his father's name on his lips, and so he had. What might she tell Viserys? That his dream was hollow? That the son he had lost was the only son he would ever have? That the throne would pass to strangers, to enemies, to men who would let his name wither and die?

Or worse—that the dream was true. That a son of his would sit the Iron Throne. Because if that was true, then he must marry again. Must plant his seed in another woman's belly. Must watch another wife bleed and scream and perhaps die as Aemma had died, all for the sake of a prophecy spoken by a Conqueror hundred years dead.

Could I do that?

He did not know. The not knowing was its own kind of torment.

The thought sat heavy in his chest, a stone where his heart should be. Another wife. Another bed. Another woman's hand in his while the maesters sharpened their knives and the midwives whispered prayers to gods who did not listen. He had held Aemma's hand while the life bled out of her. He had felt her fingers go slack, had watched the light leave her eyes, had kissed her forehead while it was still warm because he could not bear to let her go.

Could I do that again?

To another woman. To any woman. For the sake of a dream that might mean nothing at all.

He thought of Alicent.

Sweet Alicent, like summer and prayer both at once. She had come to him in the depths of his grief, night after night, when the weight of the realm pressed down and he could scarcely breathe beneath it. She had read to him while he worked on his models of Old Valyria—soft words from the Seven-Pointed Star, from histories and poems and sometimes just from her own heart. She had sat with him in the quiet hours when sleep would not come, her voice a balm on wounds that would not heal.

She was his daughter's friend. They had grown up together, shared their lessons and their secrets and their laughter. Rhaenyra loved her. Trusted her. And Alicent would never harm his daughter—he was certain of that, as certain as he was of anything in this world of shadows and doubt.

If he must marry again... if the prophecy demanded a son...

Alicent would stand with Rhaenyra. She would protect her, guide her, love her as a sister even if she became something more. She would not scheme or plot or whisper poison in the dark. She was good. Truly good, in a way that few in the Red Keep could claim.

The thought brought some small measure of comfort. Small, but real.

If it must be done, he told himself, it could be done with her. 

But still the question lingered, unanswered, unanswerable: Could I do that? Could I watch another woman die?

He did not know.

Lord Dandarian was watching him. He saw something in the king's face, some struggle written there in firelight and shadow, and he had the grace to look away.

"Very well," he said at last. "Tomorrow, if Your Grace wishes. I know where she sits. I will take you there myself."

Viserys nodded. 

The city stank.

Viserys had known it would. He had grown up in the Red Keep, had ridden through the streets a hundred times in procession, had breathed the air of King's Landing on a thousand summer days. He knew the smell of it—the reek of the Street of Steel's forges, the cloying sweetness of the Street of Silk, the rank odor of Flea Bottom that seeped into every corner of the city like water rising through a hull. He knew it, but he had never grown accustomed to it.

Now, as Lord Dandarian's wheelhouse lurched and rattled through streets that grew narrower and darker with every turn, the stench pressed against the windows like a living thing. Even in the most respectable streets—if any street in this part of the city could be called respectable—it found its way through every crack and seam. Viserys pressed a perfumed silk handkerchief to his nose and mouth, breathing shallowly through the lavender and rosewater, fighting the urge to gag.

Lord Dandarian was more tolerant. Or perhaps he simply had more practice. He opened the window a crack, peered out into the darkness, then shut it again without comment. His face told nothing.

They had left the guards behind. Lord Dandarian had been firm on that point—the king could not ride through the city with gold cloaks and men-at-arms, not if he wished to reach the woman unseen. The sight of armed men would draw eyes, and eyes would draw questions, and questions would lead to the Small Council learning that their king had gone haring off into Flea Bottom to consult a prophet. The Faith would not approve of their sovereign creeping through the city's underbelly in search of fortune-tellers and prophets. They would call it whimsy at best, sin at worst. And Viserys had enough troubles with the Faith without adding this to the pile.

Viserys thought of Daemon. His brother would find this amusing, he knew. And annoying, in equal measure. 

But Daemon was far away. On his island, with his pirates and his war and all the glories he loved more than he had ever loved his brother. The glory-seeking rake. The prince who could not sit still, could not be content, could not simply be without reaching for something more.

The wheelhouse jolted to a stop.

Lord Dandarian opened the door and stepped down lightly. He wore a plain brown cloak with the hood pulled forward, hiding his face in shadow. Viserys had one as well—coarse wool that itched against his neck, nothing like the fine fabrics he was used to. He climbed down after his host, felt the cobblestones uneven beneath his boots, and looked around.

The corner was too dark.

Even with the city alive around them—shouts and laughter and music spilling from somewhere nearby, the clatter of carts and the bark of vendors still plying their trades—this particular corner seemed to swallow light. The torches guttered in their sconces. The shadows pressed close. 

The street was narrow here, little more than an alley between tall, leaning buildings that blocked out the sky. The few windows were shuttered tight. The only light came from a distant torch sputtering at some crossroads ahead, and from the sliver of moon visible between the rooftops. Viserys felt the weight of the darkness pressing in on him, felt the eyes he could not see watching from shadows he could not penetrate. He was a king in a strange land, and he did not like it.

"Where are we?" His voice was low, barely above a whisper. The walls seemed to swallow the sound.

"Rhaenys's Hill," Lord Dandarian answered. His voice was calm, steady—a man who had walked these streets before, or who was very good at pretending. "Or what passes for it down here. The hill itself is above us, but the warren at its base has taken the name. We will walk the alley. At its end, she sits."

Viserys looked where the lord pointed. The alley was narrow, barely wide enough for two men to walk abreast, and it curved out of sight before twenty paces

"She sits there? In the dark?"

"She sits wherever she chooses. But at night, yes." Lord Dandarian pulled his hood lower. "Follow close, Your Grace. And do not speak until we reach her. There are ears in these walls that do not love the sound of lords' voices."

Viserys nodded, though his heart was beating faster now than it had in years. He clutched the handkerchief still, breathing through it, and followed his lord into the alley.

The darkness closed around them like a hand.

Viserys felt it press against his eyes, his skin, his lungs, a weight, a presence, something more than mere absence of light. The alley swallowed sound as well; the city's raucous life faded with each step, until he could hear nothing but his own breath and the soft scrape of Lord Dandarian's boots on the filth-crusted stones.

Then, light.

A faint glow ahead, guttering and uncertain. It spilled from the opening of a tent so small Viserys might have walked past it a hundred times without notice. Canvas patches stitched atop canvas patches, frayed ropes tied to rusted stakes, a flap of worn cloth that served as a door. The candle within burned low, half-consumed, its flame dancing as if stirred by breaths no living man could feel.

And smoke.

Thin tendrils of it curled through the tent's opening, carrying a smell Viserys could not name. Not incense, not quite. Something foreign. 

Lord Dandarian stopped at the threshold. Viserys stopped behind him.

"It's been too long, Humfrey Dandarian."

The voice came from within. Old. So old it seemed to crackle like dry leaves, like parchment crumbling to dust. And yet there was strength in it too, a weight that pressed against the ears.

Lord Dandarian went rigid. Viserys saw his shoulders tighten, saw the fear flash across his face before he could school it away. 

"We aren't here for me." The words came out too fast, too high. Dandarian cleared his throat, tried again. "We aren't here for me."

"No." A dry chuckle, like stones grinding together. "You are here for the king. For his whims and his dreams."

Viserys felt his heart stumble in his chest. A finger emerged from the tent's opening. Thin as a twig, pale as bone, it pointed directly at him.

"Come forward."

Lord Dandarian did not move. Could not move, perhaps. Viserys stepped past him, ducked under the flap, and entered the tent.

The woman sat at its back.

Before her burned the candle, half-consumed, its flame barely larger than a moth's wing. Bundles of dried herbs hung from the tent's patched ceiling—sage, he recognized, and others he did not. They smoldered faintly, filling the cramped space with that strange, acrid smoke that made his eyes water and his head feel light, as if he had drunk too much wine on an empty stomach.

She was small. Smaller than he had expected. Wrapped in layers of rags and tattered wool, she might have been a bundle of discarded clothing but for the face that rose from the folds. A map of wrinkles, Lord Dandarian had called her. The description fell short. Her face was a landscape carved by centuries, canyons and crevasses, peaks and valleys, skin like old parchment stretched over bones that seemed too delicate to support life.

And her eyes.

White. Milk-white, clouded over, blind as a statue's.

Viserys stared into those eyes and felt, with a certainty that chilled him to the marrow, that she saw him nonetheless. Saw through him. Saw into him. Saw the places he hid even from himself.

"I came here for—"

"I know why you came here, Viserys first of your name."

Her voice was the same. Dry as old bones, crackling like fire. But softer now, in the close confines of the tent. Intimate. As if they were old friends meeting after long years, rather than king and crone in a Flea Bottom hovel.

She smiled. Her teeth were yellow, crooked, too many of them for a mouth so small.

"Sit."

There was nowhere to sit but the bare earth. Viserys lowered himself to the ground, felt the damp seep through his fine wool cloak, and tried not to think of what else might be in the dirt beneath him. The smoke curled around his face, and the blind woman's eyes never left him—though that was impossible, he knew it was impossible, and yet he felt her gaze like a physical weight.

It rankled.

He was the king. The Lord of the Seven Kingdoms. The blood of the dragon ran in his veins, the same blood that had conquered and burned and built an empire from the ashes of Old Valyria. And here he sat on the filth-coated ground of a tent barely large enough for a goat, spoken to as if he were a supplicant begging favors from a septon.

Belittled. That was the word. He felt belittled by this nameless crone who should, by all rights, be kneeling before him.

Anger stirred in his chest, weak and guttering as the candle beside her. But the smoke was in his head now, thick and strange, and it smoothed the edges of his rage the way honey smoothed the bitterness of herbs. He could not hold onto the anger. It slipped through his fingers like water, like wine, like the dreams that haunted his sleep.

She was too old, he told himself. Too weak. No one was here to see the king spoken to this way by a woman who sold prophecies from a rag in Flea Bottom. No one would ever know.

He tried again.

"I come with questions." He reached inside his cloak, drew out a purse heavy with gold—dragons, good gold dragons stamped with his own face. He held it up so she could see, though her eyes were blind. "I have been told you will answer." He jingled the purse, let the coins clink against each other. "Will you answer, my lady?"

The crone looked at the purse. He would have sworn she looked at it—her blind eyes seemed to track its movement, seemed to count the coins within without needing to see them.

Then she smiled. That too-wide smile, those yellow teeth.

"I'm no lady."

"No," he agreed slowly. "I suppose you are not."

The crone smiled again, that too-wide smile with its too-many teeth.

"Keep your gold, dragon king. I do not sell my sight. I give it, or I withhold it, as the whim takes me." Her blind eyes found his again, pinned him to the earth. "And today, I think, I will give it. Ask your questions. I will answer, or I will not. That is the way of these things."

Viserys opened his mouth. Closed it.

For a moment—a long moment, a terrible moment—he could not remember what he had come to ask. The smoke had stolen his thoughts, or the fear had, or the hope. They swirled together in his chest, a knot of wanting and dread so tight he could scarcely breathe around it.

But he had come for something. He had come through the city's stench and the alley's darkness and the weight of his own grief. He had come because the dream would not leave him, because Aemma's face haunted his sleepless nights, because he needed to know if there was any point to going on.

"Will I ever have a son?"

The words fell from him like stones into deep water. He waited for the splash, for the ripples, for anything.

The crone was silent so long he thought she would not answer. Her blind eyes stared through him, past him, into some distance he could not see. The smoke curled. The candle guttered. The whole world seemed to hold its breath.

Then she smiled cooly.

"You will have three."

He felt his heart lurch in his chest, felt hope kindle where only ashes had been. Three sons—not one, but three. He would have heirs. The throne would have heirs. The dream of the Conqueror, the prince that was promised, the song of ice and fire—all of it still possible, still waiting, still within reach. Relief flooded through him. Warm and bright and almost painful, like stepping into sunlight after years in darkness.

He opened his mouth to ask more, but the crone spoke first.

"Your sons will be born in blood and fire," she said, "as all dragons are. And they will bring blood and fire in their turn. That is the way of your house. That is the way of the beast whose blood you carry."

Viserys felt the happiness curdle, just a little.

"What else?" he whispered. "What else do you see?"

But the crone only smiled her too-wide smile, and the smoke curled thicker, and the candle guttered low.

She said nothing.

Viserys felt annoyance prick at him, sharp and insistent, cutting through the fog the smoke had wrapped around his thoughts. He was the king. He had come here in secret, had humbled himself before this nameless woman, had sat in filth and breathed strange fumes and listened to her riddles. He deserved more. He was owed more.

"Will they sit the Iron Throne?" The words came out harder than he intended. Demanding. "My sons. Will they sit it?"

The crone's smile did not waver.

"A son will." Her voice was soft, almost dreamy. "He will wear the Conqueror's crown. He will wield his sword. And swords will rise for him—hundreds, thousands—and above his head, dragons will dance and dance."

Viserys felt his heart swell. The dream. His dream. The son on the throne, the crown, the sword, the dragons. It was real. It would happen.

Above his head, dragons will dance and dance.

"Will he be a good king?" 

She smiled again. Too wide.

"Speak," he commanded. "I am your king. I command you to speak."

She tilted her head, those blind eyes never leaving his face.

"Choose your question wisely, Your Grace." Her voice carried something beneath it now—a warning, or perhaps simply patience worn thin. "I give my sight as I see fit. And I withhold it the same."

Viserys swallowed his pride. Swallowed his command. He was a king, but he was also a man, and the man had questions that burned more fiercely than any dragon's flame. And there was another question burning in him. One he had carried since the moment he named her his heir, since the lords of the realm knelt and swore to her, since he held her small hand in his and promised she would be queen.

"What of Rhaenyra?" His voice softened, almost without his willing it. "My daughter. My heir."

The crone's expression shifted. Something flickered in those milk-white eyes.

"Gold will be her crown," she said.

Viserys beamed. Gold for his golden girl, his little princess, the light of his days. Of course she would wear a crown. She was his heir, his chosen, the daughter who had inherited all the best of her mother and all the dreams of her father. Gold would suit her. Gold would become her.

Then the crone added, "And fire her end."

Viserys beamed even more.

Fire. Of course. Fire was the death of all true Targaryens. They were the blood of the dragon, and dragonfire was their birthright and their ending. All the songs said so. All the histories. While other houses fed their dead to the sea or surrendered them to the dirt and the worms, House Targaryen gave their fallen to flame. It was the old way, the Valyrian way, the way of their ancestors who had tamed the beasts of legend and made the world kneel.

That Rhaenyra's end would be fire—that meant she would die a true Targaryen death. Honored in funeral pyre, her ashes rising to join the ancestors who had come before. She would die as dragons died, wrapped in flame, claimed by the element that gave her house its power.

He smiled. He could not help it.

"When will I die?" The question came next, natural as breathing. Every man wondered. Every king wondered more.

"The moon before the dragons dance."

Viserys frowned. "What does that mean?"

But the crone only smiled her too-wide smile, and the smoke curled thicker, and the candle guttered lower, and she did not answer.

Viserys turned them over in his mind. The moon before—so he would know the time, would see it coming. A dragon dance. Some great gathering of dragons, perhaps. A tournament, a celebration, a wedding. Dragons wheeling overhead as they had at his own coronation, as they did whenever the house came together in strength. He would die the moon before. 

"What of Daemon?" The question surprised him. He had not meant to ask. Had not known he wanted to know. But his brother's face rose in his mind—that sharp smile, those knowing eyes, the way he had of looking at the world as if it were a game he alone understood. "What of my brother?"

The crone's blind eyes seemed to brighten.

"Daemon," she said, and his name was a sigh, a song, a warning all at once. "He will be remembered for hundreds of years. Sword in hand always, even at the end. And he will die above the God's Eye."

Viserys blinked. "Above the... the lake? What does that mean? How does a man die above a lake?"

But the crone had closed her eyes—her blind, milk-white eyes—and the smoke had begun to thin, and the candle guttered once, twice, and went out.

Darkness swallowed them.

Viserys felt panic claw at his chest.

The God's Eye. The great lake in the riverlands, where the Isle of Faces sat in silence and the old gods still watched, if the tales were true. The last Targaryen who had died above that water was Aegon the Uncrowned, killed by his uncle—by Maegor the Cruel, when Maegor usurped the throne upon Aenys's death. Aegon had ridden his dragon against his uncle's, and they had fought above the lake, and Aegon had fallen from the sky into those dark waters, never to rise again.

Killed by his uncle.

Viserys's mouth went dry.

The smoke made him heavy, made his thoughts swim and stumble, but this truth cut through the fog like a blade.

What would my brother do above the God's Eye?

"Daemon," he whispered into the darkness. "What would my brother do above the God's Eye?"

She did not answer.

Hot and desperate, he felt anger rise. He was the king. He deserved answers.

"Answer me."

Silence.

"Answer me!" His voice cracked, too loud in the close darkness. "Will he usurp Rhaenyra? My brother—will he try to take her throne?"

The silence stretched. Broke.

"No."

Her voice came from everywhere and nowhere, soft as ash, final as death.

No. Daemon would not usurp Rhaenyra.

Relief flooded through him so powerfully that his eyes stung with it. His brother—difficult, dangerous, glorious Daemon—would not turn against his daughter. Would not try to take what was hers. Whatever else happened, whatever the God's Eye meant, whatever death awaited his brother above those dark waters—he would not be Rhaenyra's enemy.

Viserys let out a breath he had not known he was holding.

The darkness pressed close, but the crone was still there. He could feel her presence like a weight, like the heat that radiates from dying embers. She had not left. She was waiting.

"What does the dragon dance mean?"

A long pause. So long he thought she would not answer.

Then her voice came, soft as ash falling on stone.

"The beginning of the end." Each word dropped into the darkness like a stone into deep water. "Before the stag raises his hammer and smashes it on the trident. Where rubies will spill from the prince’s chest like droplets of blood, like tears from a dying star. And the prince will whisper the wolf maiden's name with his last breath."

Viserys's mouth went dry.

The beginning of the end.

Of what? Of what?

"The beginning of the end of what?" His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.

Silence.

"Who is this prince?" The words tumbled out now, desperate, uncontrollable. "Daemon? One of my sons? What stag—"

Stag. Baratheon. The sigil of Storm's End was a stag, black on gold. And wolf—wolf was Stark, the north, Winterfell. But the Starks had no daughters. Did they? He could not think. The smoke had tangled everything, made his memories slippery, made the names and faces swim before his inner eye like fish in murky water.

He felt uncomfortable. Restless. Wrong.

And then he felt it—a prickling at the back of his neck, a weight on his shoulders, as if thousands of eyes were staring down at him in judgment. From where? From where? The tent was empty but for him and the crone. But the feeling would not leave. It pressed against him, through him, demanded something he could not give.

They were trying to tell him something. Through this hateful crone, through her riddles and her silences and her too-wide smile. 

What are you trying to tell me?

"I will have three sons," he found himself saying, the words tumbling out before he could stop them. The crone had given him so much, taken so much, and still there were questions clawing at his chest. "What of Rhaenyra? Will she have sons too? Heirs of her own?"

A long silence. Then, from the blackness, her voice:

"She will have three."

Viserys felt a smile tug at his lips. Good. Three sons for his daughter, three princes of the realm, three dragons to carry her blood into the future. The succession would be secure. The house would stand strong.

"Strongs they will be," the crone continued. "And untrue they will be."

Viserys blinked. "Untrue? What do you mean, untrue?"

Untrue. The word sat wrong in his mind, squirmed like a thing not meant to be caught. Untrue how? Untrue to what? To whom?

"Then she will have two. True they will be, broken they will be.” 

Viserys tried to understand, tried to force the meaning from the words the way a man might force water from a stone. Untrue—did she mean bastards? Did she mean her sons would not be trueborn? But Rhaenyra was his heir, his princess, his daughter with summer skies in her eyes. She would marry honorably, as princesses did. Her sons would be princes, trueborn princes, and the realm would kneel to them after her.

Unless—

No. He would not think it. He would not.

And broken. What did broken mean? Sickly? Weak? Dying before their time? The word was a knife in his heart, and he had not even met these children yet, these grandchildren who might never draw breath or might draw it only to suffer.

"Tell me more." His voice cracked. "I don't understand. Tell me more."

The darkness held its breath.

Then her voice came once more, from everywhere and nowhere, from inside his skull and from the farthest reaches of the world.

"Banners will rise for House Targaryen." Each word fell like a drop of blood into still water. "Banners of green and banners of black. The dragon will dance, and when the dragon dances..." A pause that stretched into forever. "...it will be the beginning of the end.”

He opened his mouth to ask again, to demand, to beg if he must.

The words died in his throat.

She was there no longer.

But how? He sat directly before the tent's flap—the only way in or out. He had not moved. Had not heard her rise, had not felt her pass, had not seen so much as a shadow stirring in the darkness. The tent was small, barely large enough for two. There was nowhere to go.

And yet she was gone.

Viserys stared at the empty space where she had sat. The candle was cold, dead longer than he had realized. The smoke had cleared. The only smell now was damp earth and his own fear-sweat.

"Lord Dandarian," he called. His voice sounded small. "Lord Dandarian!"

The flap opened. Light spilled in—torchlight, distant and dim, but light nonetheless. Lord Dandarian's face appeared, pale and worried.

"Your Grace? Are you—is she—"

"She's gone." Viserys heard how lost he sounded. How lost he was. "She was here, and now she's not, and I did not see her leave."

Lord Dandarian's eyes went to the empty space, to the cold candle, to the tent walls that pressed close on all sides. He sounded equally frightened, “God be good.”

Viserys let his lord help him to his feet. His legs were unsteady, his head still light, his heart pounding with questions that would never be answered.

Alicent read, her voice soft and steady in the quiet of the chamber. "...and the Mother, thus, holds her children close to her breast, and the Crone lights the way to the lost, her lamp ever burning in the darkness..."

Viserys closed his eyes at the word Crone.

He could not stop the shiver that ran down his spine. It crawled along his skin like a centipede, left gooseflesh in its wake. He drank deeply from his cup, let the wine burn away the memory. It did not burn enough.

Alicent paused in her reading. He felt her gaze on him, felt the weight of her attention. "What is it, Your Grace?"

He opened his eyes. Alicent sat across from him, the Seven-Pointed Star open in her lap, her finger marking the page. She wore a gown of dark purple, rich and heavy, with a neckline that dipped lower than was perhaps proper—low enough to show the pale curve of her shoulders, the delicate architecture of her collarbones. Her hair was up in beads, intricate and lovely, and a golden necklace lay against her throat, catching the firelight with every breath.

She came to him most nights. Read to him while he worked on his models of Old Valyria, while the weight of the crown pressed down and sleep would not come. He had forgotten to tell her not to come tonight. Had forgotten, or had not wanted to, or had simply let the hours slip away while he sat with Lord Dandarian and then rode back through the stinking streets with prophecies burning in his brain.

He found himself staring at her hands.

A son will be born in blood and fire. Gold will be her crown, and fire her death. Banners of green and banners of black.

He looked into the flames.

"I'm burdened," he admitted.

Alicent leaned forward, just slightly. Concern creased her brow. "I might help you, if you would let me. A burden shared is a burden lightened. The Mother teaches us—"

"What green banners do you know, my lady?"

She blinked at the question, surprised by its strangeness. But she was a lord's daughter, trained in heraldry and houses, and she answered as readily as if he had asked the weather.

"Banners?" She frowned in thought. "House Toland uses green—a green dragon eating its own tail, on a field of... but that's Dornish. House Osgrey: a chequy lion, green and gold, rampant on a field of white. House Velaryon: a silver seahorse on a sea-green field, though the green is more of the sea than of..." She trailed off, thinking. "House Reed uses green, certainly—a lizard lion on black and green. House Grimm. House Borrel.”

Viserys frowned. The list meant nothing. Or meant everything. He could not tell

"House Lynderly," Alicent continued, warming to the task. "House Mormont of Bear Island—their bear is green on a field of black, did you know? Most think it's brown, but it's green, a deep forest green. House Middlebury, House Moreland, House Moss, House Wagstaff..." She paused, frowning in thought. "And the Hightower lights its tower green when—"

"When they call for war," Viserys finished, resigned. The word fell from his lips like a stone into still water. Dead.

"Yes," she said quietly. "When they call their banners for war. The Hightower burns green to signal the mustering of their strength. My father told me. It has been that way for thousands of years, since long before the Conqueror came. The whole of the Reach knows to look for the green flame."

Viserys felt the world tilt beneath him.

Banners of green. Not house banners. Not sigils. Not the chequy lion or the silver seahorse or any of the other banners she had listed so helpfully, so innocently. Green itself. The color. The signal. A beacon burning in the night to call men to war.

Banners of green and banners of black.

He looked at her.

Really looked.

The gown was dark purple, not green. But it was fine, rich, cut to flatter a young woman's figure. The beads caught the firelight. The golden necklace gleamed at her throat. The neckline was modest by court standards—but it showed her collarbones, showed the pale skin of her chest, showed just enough to remind a man that she was a woman grown and not the child who had played with Rhaenyra in the gardens only a few years past.

The late hour. The endless nights of reading, of comforting, of being there when a grieving king could not bear to be alone. The way she always knew when to come, always had the right words, always stayed just long enough to ease his sorrow but not so long as to seem forward.

He felt so stupid.

The realization crashed over him like a wave—cold, shocking, leaving him gasping. Why would a young maid come to a grown man's chambers in the middle of the night, night after night, unless she was sent? Unless she was meant to be there? Unless every visit, every soft word, every gentle reading from the Seven-Pointed Star was part of some larger design?

He looked at her with hurt in his eyes. With suspicion. With something that might have been betrayal.

"If I ask you," he said slowly, "will you tell me the truth?"

Earnestly—so earnestly, with those big brown eyes wide and guileless—Alicent answered.

"Of course, Your Grace. I would never lie to you."

"Why are you here?"

She blinked. "Your Grace?"

"Why are you here?" He set down his cup. His voice was not harsh, but it was no longer soft either. "In a grown man's chamber. Unchaperoned. At this hour." He paused. Let the weight of the question settle. "Did your father send you?"

Alicent's face went very still.

Her lips parted. For just a moment—a fraction of a heartbeat—something flickered in her eyes. Guilt? Fear? Calculation? He could not read it. Could not tell. She began to tug at the dead skin around her nails, picking, worrying, the way she did when she was anxious or afraid. He had seen her do it a hundred times in his daughter's company.

"My father..." She stopped. Started again. "My father knows I come to you, yes. He thinks it is... he thinks it is a kindness. That you should not be alone in your grief. That someone should—"

"Should what?" Viserys's voice was gentle now. Gentle and sad. "Should comfort me? Should keep me company? Should make me forget, for a few hours each night, that my wife is dead and my son died with her?"

Alicent's eyes glistened. Tears, or the pretense of tears? He could not tell. He could not tell anything anymore.

"I only wanted to help you," she whispered. "That's all I ever wanted. To help." Her voice trembled. "It's my duty. To the king. To the realm."

Viserys felt something twist in his chest. Duty. Such a small word for such a heavy burden.

"What do you think will happen," he asked quietly, "when you come here? Night after night? Alone?"

Tears spilled from her eyes—real tears, surely, no one could fake tears that fell so freely, that caught the firelight like liquid gems.

"That..." she began, then stopped. Swallowed. "That I..."

"To the realm, you said." He tried again, gentler now. She softer than Rhaenyra, who had dragon fire in her veins and had never learned to bend. He was so used to Rhaenyra's fire that he had forgotten—this girl was not of the blood of the dragon. She was flesh and blood and fear, like anyone else. "Tell me the truth of it, Alicent. I promise you no harm will reach you."

He paused. Added, softer still, "Or yours."

Alicent's face crumpled.

"My father..." The words came out broken, wet with tears. "My father thinks I should... should offer you comfort. In your chamber." She gestured helplessly at herself. "Wearing my mother's dress."

She buried her face in her hands and wept.

Viserys closed his eyes.

The hurt was sharp and deep, a knife between the ribs. Otto Hightower. His Hand. The man he trusted above all others. The man who sat at his council table and gave him wise counsel and spoke of loyalty and duty and the good of the realm.

And all the while, he had been plotting. Scheming. Using his own daughter as bait.

Banners of green.

He opened his eyes and looked at the girl sobbing into her hands.

She was innocent in this. Or innocent enough. A daughter does what her father tells her. A child obeys. The blame lay elsewhere—with the man who had sat at his council table for years, who had whispered counsel in his ear, who had knelt and sworn fealty and meant none of it.

"Alicent."

She looked up, tear-streaked, miserable. Her nose was red, her eyes swollen, her careful braids coming undone. She looked like what she was: a girl of fifteen, caught in a game she had never asked to play.

"You have done nothing wrong," he said. "Do you understand me? Nothing. You came because your father asked you to come. That is not a crime."

She sniffled. Nodded. Her fingers worried at the torn skin around her nails.

He looked past her, into the fire, where the flames danced and curled like dragons in the sky.

Banners of green and banners of black.

He saw them now. Not sigils, not houses—colors. Causes. Sides in a war that had not yet begun. Green for the Hightower, for the tower that burned when armies marched. Black for his house, for the dragons who would fight and die and dance above a realm that bled.

Gold will be her crown. And fire her end.

Your sons will be born in blood and fire, as all dragons are. And they will bring blood and fire in their turn.

He will be remembered for hundreds of years. Sword in hand always, even at the end. And he will die above the God's Eye.

He will not usurp Rhaenyra. Viserys felt the pieces click into place, slow and terrible as the turning of a great lock.

He would not usurp her. No. Daemon would not take his daughter's throne. But he would die for her. Fight for her. Raise his sword against her enemies—against her brothers, the sons who would wear green banners and call themselves kings.

Thousands of swords will rise for him.

The crone had not said whether those swords would be raised with him or against him. She had not needed to. It was all the warning he required.

He felt so stupid.

He had sat on the Iron Throne for years, believing himself wise, believing his counselors honest, believing his family safe. He felt weak. So weak. A king who could not see what was happening in his own court, in his own chambers, in his own bed.

He needed—

He needed his brother.

Yes. Daemon. Daemon had seen it. He had warned Viserys a hundred times, in a hundred ways, and Viserys had dismissed him as reckless, as dangerous, as a glory-seeking rake who saw enemies where none existed.

But the enemies were real. They had always been real. And Daemon had known.

Viserys would write to him. Tonight. Tomorrow at first light. He would call his brother home, would mend the wounds between them, would make him understand that he was needed. 

"Go to bed now," he said.

Alicent looked at him with those wet, miserable eyes. Waiting. For what, he did not know. 

"Lady Alicent." His voice was gentle but final. "Go to bed. And do not come here again unless I send for you."

She nodded. Rose on unsteady legs. Curtsied, though the motion was clumsy with exhaustion and tears.

At the door, she paused. Looked back.

"Your Grace... I am sorry. Truly sorry."

"I know," he said. "Goodnight, Lady Alicent."

The door closed behind her.

The letter went out at dawn, sealed with the king's own signet and entrusted to the swiftest ship in the harbor. Come home, Viserys had written. I have been a fool, and I need my brother.

Then he summoned the Hand.

Otto Hightower arrived within the hour. 

"Your Grace. You sent for me."

"I did." Viserys stopped before him. They stood as equals now, king and counselor, but there was nothing equal in the king's gaze. "I am relieving you of your office, Lord Hightower."

Otto startled, "Might I ask why, Your Grace?"

"You might." Viserys held his gaze. "But you would not like the answer."

Otto's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. A muscle feathered in his cheek, the only betrayal of feeling on that carefully composed face.

"If I have given offense—"

"You have given more than offense." Viserys's voice was quiet, but it cut like a Valyrian blade. "You have given me reason to doubt every word that has passed your lips for the past ten years. You have given my daughter reason to fear the court she is meant to rule." He stepped closer, and the king's face was terrible in its sorrow. "Like a crow come to feast on my wife and son's dead bodies, you came. While Aemma's blood was still wet on the sheets, you were already scheming. Already plotting. Already sending your daughter to my chambers in her mother's gown."

For the first time, something cracked in Otto's composure.

"Your Grace, I have only ever acted in the interest of the realm—"

"The realm." Viserys laughed. It was not a pleasant sound. "You sent your child to my chambers in the dead of night, wearing her mother's gown, and you call that the interest of the realm? You set her in my path like bait, like a hunter staking out a goat for a lion, and you call that service?"

Otto's mouth opened. Closed. Opened again.

"I thought—"

"You thought to put your blood on the throne." Viserys cut him off, the words sharp as broken glass. "One way or another. Through Rhaenyra, if she would have your daughter as friend and confidante. Through me, if I would have her as something more." He shook his head slowly, wearily. "I have been blind, Lord Hightower. Blind and grieving and weak. But I am blind no longer."

He reached out and plucked the Hand's pin from Otto's doublet. 

"And my daughter?" Otto asked. 

"Your daughter will remain at court." Viserys saw the flicker of hope in Otto's eyes—there and gone in an instant—and crushed it with his next words. "As Rhaenyra's companion, if Rhaenyra will have her. If word of her visits should spread, the crown will prepare a dowry and find her a suitable husband. Some lord of good standing, far from King's Landing, where she can live in peace and forget the uses to which her father put her." He paused. "I am afraid the queenship is not a position fit for her, Lord Hightower. And I will not see her shamed for your ambition."

Otto's face went pale. For a moment—just a moment—he looked almost human. Almost a father, rather than a schemer.

"She is innocent in this," he said, and for the first time his voice held something real. Something that might have been guilt, or grief, or simply the recognition that he had sacrificed his child for nothing. "She did only what I told her."

"I know." Viserys turned away. Walked toward the throne, toward the steps he had descended a thousand times. "That is the only reason you are leaving with your head still on your shoulders."

At the base of the steps, he paused. 

"You have until sunset to quit the city. Take your household, your servants, your ambitions. Go back to Oldtown and tend your tower. If I see your face in King's Landing again, I will have it mounted on a spike above the gate."

Otto stood alone in the great hall.

The great doors boomed shut behind him, and Viserys sat alone on his throne of swords, and the silence of the empty hall was the only answer he received.

The sun was setting over Blackwater Bay when the Hightower party rode through the King's Gate. Otto led them, his face set in stone, his gaze fixed straight ahead. Behind him came his household—servants, guards, a handful of retainers.

Viserys watched from a window in Maegor's Holdfast. He had not meant to watch. Had told himself he would not. But his feet had carried him here, to this narrow slit of glass, and now he could not look away.

He thought of what the crone had said. Banners of green and banners of black. 

Viserys turned from the window and went back to his models, his wine, his waiting. Somewhere across the narrow sea, his brother was coming home. Somewhere in the city, enemies regrouped and plotted. Somewhere in the future, dragons danced.

But tonight, there was only silence, and the memory of a girl crying into her hands, and the terrible weight of knowing too little, too late.