The Red Keep was quiet, but not still. A hush had fallen over it, the uneasy silence that always precedes death. Servants moved like ghosts through the halls, maesters whispered behind closed doors, and no one dared raise their voice above a murmur.
King Aegon IV Targaryen lay dying.
It had been five years since Queen Naerys's passing, and the man who had once wielded power like a cudgel was now rotted from within. His body had bloated grotesquely, and his flesh had turned a sickly hue—green and yellow, like spoiled meat. His chambers stank of lavender and filth, and the corridors around them had been cleared of courtiers. The Iron Throne remained empty, watched over only by the grim-faced Ser Willem Wylde of the Kingsguard.
That night, the king summoned his bastards.
All of them.
Daenerys had heard it whispered first in the kitchens. Then in the courtyards. Then in the shadowed antechambers of the Small Council. The bastard children of Aegon the Unworthy—those acknowledged and otherwise—were called to his bed.
Daenerys should have turned away. It was not her place. Not her burden. And yet, something drew her after them.
She moved unseen, as she often had in her girlhood, winding through the darkened passages behind the King's Tower. A secret alcove opened near the high gallery of his bedchamber, shielded by a hanging tapestry of dragons in flight. Through its embroidered wings, she watched.
They came in silence.
Daemon Waters, now Ser Daemon Blackfyre, knelt at the front—tall, proud, his jaw tight with fury and confusion. He had left his sword outside. His bastard brothers and sisters followed in his shadow, each more curious or wary than the last.
There was Brynden Rivers, skin milk-pale, his long white hair falling over one red eye. His infamous birthmark gleamed like fresh blood—shaped as a raven, they said, as if some god had marked him for prophecy.
Beside him stood Aegor Rivers, lean and angry as a drawn sword. His dark hair fell across a face that might've been Daemon's, were it not for the scowl etched deep into every line. His eyes were unmistakably Targaryen—purple, proud, and full of scorn.
Then came Shiera Seastar, clad in dark blue lace and moonlight. Her beauty stole the breath from Daenerys's throat. Hair like silver silk poured down her back, and her eyes—one green, one purple—shimmered like twin stars. Rings glinted on each finger, rubies and sapphires, and she moved with the grace of a dream.
Others stood behind them—lesser bastards whose names Daenerys did not know. A boy with copper curls. A girl with her father's laugh. So many children, scattered like seeds across the realm.
And on the bed, barely breathing, lay the king.
His face had sunken, his lips cracked and black. A maester fed him dreamwine through a golden tube. His voice was little more than a rasp now, but he summoned what strength he had.
"You are all… of my blood," he croaked. "Targaryen blood… Dragon's blood. The world shall know it."
Daemon stiffened. "What are you saying, Your Grace?"
A wheezing breath. "You are… no longer Waters. You are Blackfyre. I… I give you the name… and the sword. And more."
He lifted a trembling hand, and the maester unrolled the parchment beside him. The royal seal—already cracked from heat—was pressed to the wax.
"I… I legitimize you. All of you."
A murmur rippled through the room. Some gasped. Others said nothing. But the world itself seemed to lurch beneath Daenerys's feet.
Daemon said nothing. His face did not move. Not until Aegor Rivers stepped forward.
"All of us?" Bittersteel's voice was dry, incredulous.
"Yes," the king hissed. "Every… last… one."
Brynden Rivers chuckled. "Seven save us."
It was done. With that single act—his last grand folly—King Aegon IV shattered the bloodline of House Targaryen. The maester's hand trembled as he placed the seal upon the scroll. The king's hand fell back against the pillows, and his breath grew ragged.
Daemon turned to go. But Shiera lingered. "Is this your vengeance, father?" she whispered. "Or your curse?"
The king's eyes fluttered shut.
Daenerys pulled away from the tapestry, her breath caught in her throat.
She fled then—down the stair, across the yard, through the godswood where her mother had once walked in silence. The branches of the weirwood shivered in the wind. She fell to her knees at its roots, the pale leaves drifting around her.
The realm would not recover from this.
She understood it then—not just the madness of Aegon the Unworthy, but the shadow it would cast over the years to come. She had loved Daemon. Still did. But this… this changed everything.
Aegon the Fourth would die three days later.
But the war he began with his last breath would not die for generations.