The Iron Throne’s points cut like never before.

Aegon sat there, hunched over, as if his body no longer knew how to hold itself upright. The maesters had said he should be dead.

His left side was blistered skin, pale white and bright red, twisted like molten wax. His breath came in raspy pants, and his hair had grown out in clumps.

He stopped asking if the pain would go away. Let it stay. It was the only thing that made him feel alive.

The war was won. He had fed Rhaenyra to Sunfyre, watched her face her death proudly as his dragon tore her apart.

But the victory was a hollow sound. His brothers were dead. His sister-wife was dead. His children—all of them—had died in that brutal war. Even Sunfyre had not lived long after all.

And his mother... was going mad, raving and hiding in the Great Sept, trying to atone for all her sins against the Seven. Muttering incoherently every day about Rhaenyra and old King Jaehaerys.

He could no longer have children, could no longer continue the line of his family that was destined to end with him. The maesters were clear. Dragonfire burns everything.

The Small Council was buzzing, especially Corlys Vеlаryon, who still dreamed of seeing his blood on the Iron Throne. Pfft, he wouldn't get it.

Then the memory came.

It came unbidden, a fragment from another life — when he was a prince, untroubled by crowns and duties, before the war, when he didn't yet know how it would all end.

The brothel in Flea Bottom, heavy with perfume and sweat. A girl with silver-blond hair and violet eyes, skin too pale to be common. Aegon didn't remember your name, only your features. And you never mentioned your parentage — you probably didn't even know who your father might be.

You were his first.

And later... you were pregnant. You told him once, when he returned a few weeks later. He laughed. He didn't believe it. He was fifteen, drunk and stupid. And then he heard from others about a boy with silvers who survived there. His son. His... first child. But now...

Now youand your son could be all that was left.

He would legitimize the boy. He would name him Aegon. But not Aegon Waters, no more.

And you? If you were truly Daemon's child, even a bastard, it would be fitting. Flames that joined blood. The union of two branches of House Targaryen, united not by conquest, but by destruction.

He made no speeches, issued no royal decrees. The order was simple: bring you and your son to the Red Keep, alive and unharmed. Anyone who touches you without reason will lose a hand.

The city guard searched, and after two weeks they found you - cautious, thin, wrapped in rags, but despite this, scared. The boy had Aegon's eyes, he saw it at once.

You were brought to one of the chambers that used to belong to Helaena and her children. And the most frightening thing was that no matter how much you tried to find out what was happening, the guards did not even flinch.

Later, Aegon came here, helped by a maester. It was still painfully difficult for him to move after the injuries he had suffered, so the cane now seemed to become his eternal companion. But then he ordered the maester to leave, so that you were alone.

His face was cold, impenetrable. For a long time he said nothing. Looking at you, your son. You had changed, or should he say grown. It was still a mystery to Aegon why you had decided to keep the child; usually any hint of pregnancy was cut off immediately, given the realities of your work.

Then: "You are the daughter of Daemon Tаrgаryen," he told you, as if it were a long-accepted truth, though it was obviously only a guess. But the truth did not matter to Aegon now. He already knew what he would say. "Which makes your son and mine royal."

"I have no other heirs," Aegon said. "The realm must endure. And my line, too."