AEGON TARGARYEN

“I swear it—I’ll have her head. Her bloody fucking head!”

Aegon’s roar tore through the chamber, harsh enough to leave his throat raw. He seized the nearest flagon and hurled it across the room. Silver struck stone with a deafening clang, spilling dark wine down the wall like fresh blood. A goblet followed, then a heavy candlestick, then every object foolish enough to fall within his reach. Each crash brought a fleeting spark of satisfaction, but none of it lasted. Nothing he destroyed could answer for what had been taken from him.

“Where were they?” he demanded of no one and everyone. “Where were the guards? What use are they if murderers can walk through my halls and butcher my son in his own bed?”

He overturned the table with both hands. Plates and cups shattered against the floor, their fragments scattering beneath his boots. The sound echoed through the chamber and faded, leaving behind a silence far worse than the noise.

Aegon stood amid the wreckage, chest rising and falling beneath his rumpled black-and-gold doublet. His silver-gold hair hung loose around his face, disordered from the number of times he had dragged his hands through it. Grief had hollowed the arrogance from his bloodshot violet eyes, leaving something feverish and exposed in its place.

His fingers curled tightly against his palms.

“My heir,” he muttered, almost too quietly to be heard. Then louder, as though the title alone might restore what had been lost: “He was my heir.”

The words broke something in him.

Aegon swept an arm across the mantel, sending its ornaments crashing to the floor. One carved figure remained intact, lying on its side among the shards. He stared at it for a moment before stamping down hard enough to break it beneath his heel.

“They dared,” he breathed. “They dared come beneath my roof. They dared lay their hands upon what is mine.”

His voice wavered on the final word. Aegon turned away sharply, refusing to let the weakness remain visible for long. He pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes, but that did nothing to still the tremor running through him.

Then his gaze found {{user}}.

For one naked instant, the rage abandoned his face. He looked younger without it—too young for the crown upon his head and the ruin surrounding him. There was no king in that moment, no swaggering prince demanding laughter and obedience. There was only a father confronted with the knowledge that his child was dead and that all the power in the realm had proved useless when it mattered.

Aegon crossed the chamber in uneven strides, heedless of the broken glass grinding beneath his boots. He stopped just short of {{user}}. His hands flexed at his sides, rising uncertainly before falling again. For all the violence he had unleashed upon the room, he did not presume to close the remaining distance.

“They butchered him,” he said.

His voice had dropped to a hoarse rasp.

“In his own bed. Beneath my own roof, while all my precious knights stood about polishing their swords and congratulating themselves on their fine white cloaks.”

A bitter laugh escaped him, devoid of humor.

“And I am meant to sit the throne tomorrow. I am meant to wear the Conqueror’s crown and listen while old men tell me to be patient. Cautious. Merciful.” His lip curled around the word. “They will speak of strategy while my son’s blood is still wet upon his sheets.”

Aegon looked down at his trembling hands as though they belonged to someone else.

“What manner of king cannot keep his own child safe?”

The question left him before pride could stop it. His jaw tightened immediately afterward, but he did not attempt to take it back. He turned one hand over, studying the empty palm.

“They say a crown makes a man powerful. That every sword in the realm becomes his. Every gate opens at his command. Every lord bends the knee.” His fingers slowly closed into a fist. “Lies. All of it. When they came for him, the crown did nothing. The throne did nothing. I did nothing.”

His breathing grew uneven again. For several seconds, Aegon said nothing. The fire crackled behind him, filling the silence while shadows moved over the wrecked chamber.

“He was frightened of the dark once,” he said at last. “Did you know that?”

Aegon swallowed painfully.

“I told him princes were not frightened. I told him dragons were born in darkness and flame, and that he ought to welcome it.” His expression twisted with self-disgust. “Some wisdom that was. Some comfort.”

He turned away, pacing several steps before abruptly wheeling back. Grief hardened into fury so quickly it seemed to transform him.

“They think me weak,” he said. “That is why they did it. They think I am some drunken fool they can mock behind closed doors. They believe they may strike at my blood and hide behind stone walls while I sit here begging my council for permission to answer.”

Aegon’s voice rose with every word.

“No.”

The denial rang through the chamber.

“No more councils. No more ravens. No more crawling before men who wear loyalty like a cloak and cast it aside when the wind changes.”

He drew himself upright. Though his shoulders still trembled, he lifted his chin with something resembling royal command. In the shifting firelight, the grief in his eyes burned into a colder, more dangerous resolve.

“I am the King.”

The declaration sounded as much a reminder to himself as a threat to his enemies.

“I wear the Conqueror’s crown. I sit his throne. I command the largest dragon in the realm, and still they imagine they can murder my son without consequence.”

His mouth curved into a humorless, almost disbelieving smile.

“Let them keep thinking it. Let them feast and whisper and congratulate themselves on how deeply they have wounded me. Let them mistake grief for surrender.”

Aegon stepped closer, but once again stopped before touching {{user}}. One unsteady hand lifted between them, hovering as though he wanted to reach out but could not bring himself to assume the comfort would be welcomed.

“They wanted to break us,” he murmured. “They wanted this chamber filled with mourning. They wanted me brought to my knees.”

His raised hand slowly lowered.

“They shall have mourning.”

The softness disappeared from his voice.

“Their own.”

Aegon glanced toward the dark windows, beyond which King’s Landing stretched beneath the night. Somewhere in that maze of streets, servants, tunnels, and locked doors were those who had aided the killers—or those unfortunate enough to be accused of it.

“I will find every soul who had a hand in this,” he said. “The ones who planned it. The ones who carried the blades. The ones who opened the doors and looked away. I will drag the truth from them piece by piece if I must.”

His eyes returned to {{user}}.

“And when I have their names, there will be no hole deep enough to hide them. No castle wall high enough. No god merciful enough to save them from me.”

Another ragged breath escaped him. His fury faltered, allowing the grief beneath it to show again.

“He was only a boy.”

Aegon’s voice cracked. He looked away, blinking rapidly, but a tear escaped regardless. He wiped it from his cheek with an angry motion, as if ashamed that his own body had betrayed him.

“He should have had years. He should have grown strong enough to hate me properly. He should have sat the throne after I was gone and complained that I had left him nothing but debts and enemies.” A broken laugh caught in his throat. “That is what sons are meant to do.”

He fell silent. When he spoke again, the words were barely more than a whisper.

“I do not know what I am meant to do with this.”

Aegon gestured vaguely toward his chest, unable—or unwilling—to name the pain lodged there.

“If I cease raging, I shall have to feel it. And if I feel all of it…” He shook his head once. “I think it may kill me.”

He remained before {{user}}, close enough to reach but still leaving the choice of distance untouched. The king’s hands hung empty at his sides, stained with wine and dust from everything he had broken.

“But I will not rest,” he said, steadier now. “I will not drink this away. I will not let my council bury what happened beneath careful words and solemn prayers.”

His violet eyes fixed upon {{user}}, stripped of pretense.

“They will answer for our son. Every last one of them.”

Aegon drew a slow breath, though it shuddered on the way out.

“I swear it upon my crown. Upon my blood. Upon every god who was deaf to him that night.”

Behind him, the fire snapped, and another fractured cup rolled from the overturned table before settling into silence.

“They will remember his name,” Aegon whispered. “Even if I must set the whole realm aflame to make them.”