Chapter Text
King's Landing, 126 AC
SLASH!
The blade of Dark Sister flashed in a cold arc, cleanly severing the head of Ser Vaemond Velaryon right in the middle of the throne room. The traitor’s corpse slammed onto the stone floor, forever silencing the insults aimed at the bloodline of Lucerys Velaryon.
King Viserys I stood upon the Iron Throne, his breath ragged. Summoning his remaining majesty, he raised his scepter and thundered his supreme command: "The court is dismissed! The law of Driftmark has been sealed, and the transgressor has paid the price in blood!"
The Blacks smiled with supreme arrogance as they slowly strode out of the great hall in absolute triumph and pride. The lords and ladiesbowed their heads in deep reverence, seeing off the rightful heirs.
"Do not be so smug, Rhaenyra!" Queen Alicent Hightower took a slow, deliberate step forward. A cold, mocking smile gradually appeared on her lips as her eyes locked onto her stepdaughter's retreating back. She spoke with a quiet, venomous amusement: "You may use Daemon's violence to silence this room, and you may force the world to pretend your bastards are prince material. But do tell me, Princess... how do you plan to make the Seven ignore the truth? They judge on facts, not on the blades."
BOOM!!!
The very moment the mockery left Alicent's lips, a world-shattering thunderclap struck straight down from the skies. The broad daylight sky of King's Landing instantly turned pitch-black as midnight. Not just within the walls of the Red Keep, but across the entire continent of Westeros, a colossal surge of ancient magic froze the clouds into a massive, glowing screen of crackling lightning. From Oldtown to Winterfell, every peasant and lord looked up in absolute horror as the sky itself began to broadcast a brutal, undeniable future.
The throne room exploded into absolute, suffocating chaos as the pitch-black sky crackled with terrifying ancient magic.
Lords and ladies stumbled backward, tripping over their heavy velvet cloaks and spilling chalices of wine onto the stone floor. Several noblewomen screamed in terror, covering their faces and falling to their knees, while highborn men clutched their chest pieces, their faces drained of all color.
"The judgment of the gods has come upon us!" Lord Mathar Rosby shrieked, his voice cracking with hysteria.
"We are doomed! The sins of the dragon are tearing the sky apart!" another voice wailed from the crowded benches.
Amidst the panic, Prince Daemon Targaryen’s instincts as a wartime commander kicked in instantly. His grip tightened on the hilt of Dark Sister, the ancestral Valyrian steel blade humming with a lethal vibration. He didn't look at the sky; his violet eyes darted across the room, tracking every movement of the Kingsguard and the Green faction. Stepping directly in front of Princess Rhaenyra and their children, Daemon raised his sword, its blood-slicked edge catching the eerie light from above, ready for any sudden attacks.
On the opposite side of the hall, Ser Criston Cole’s hand snapped to the hilt of his sword His sharp eyes immediately locked onto Daemon’s unsheathed blade, calculating the distance between them in a split second. Stepping forward with a rigid, protective stance, Criston used his armored shoulder to push Prince Aegon—who was frozen in fear and reeking of wine—directly behind him. He formed an unbreakable human shield, ready to strike down anyone from the Blacks who might use the cosmic chaos to launch a desperate assault on Aegon.
Then, the clouds and the thunder in the sky began to shift, casting a ghostly, pale light over the entire continent of Westeros. The roaring wind slowed down, revealing a vast mirror.
High above the sky, the silhouette of a young dragon tore through the rain. It was Arrax. And riding upon his back, clutching the saddle reins tightly against the howling gale, was Prince Lucerys Velaryon. The entire realm watched in stunned silence as the vision of the young prince began to unfold.
In the great hall below, the breathless silence cracked as a wave of realization swept through the frantic crowd. Heads snapped around in unison, hundreds of terrified, questioning eyes turning away from the sky to lock onto Prince Lucerys standing right there in the flesh.
"Look! It is him!" Lord Allun Caswell gasped, pointing a trembling finger. "The prince is right here, yet he flies up there!"
Lucerys stood frozen, his hands clutching his mother’s gown. He stared up at the gargantuan canvas of clouds, his young face pale and completely bewildered.
The cosmic canvas across the sky of Westeros continued to shift, ignoring the boy’s confusion as the storm on the projection grew fiercer.
The titanic screen showed Arrax diving heavily through the sheeting rain, his wings straining against the gale, before executing a rough, desperate landing in the courtyard of Storm’s End. As the young dragon skidded across the wet stones, the pale light of the projection illuminated a massive, terrifying shape lurking in the outer courtyard. It was a mountain of ancient, leathery green flesh, so vast that the stone walls around it seemed small. It was Vhagar.
Up in the sky, the young Lucerys could be seen freezing in his saddle, his eyes wide with a pure, agonizing terror that everyone in the realm could feel. Yet, despite his visible fear, the projection showed him forcing his trembling legs to slide off the dragon, gritting his teeth, and resolutely walking toward the towering keep.
"You fool!" The silence in the great hall of the present was shattered by Jacaerys. The ten-and-two-year-old prince spun around, his face flushed with a mixture of terror and fierce anger as he grabbed his younger brother by the shoulders, shaking him.
"You absolute idiot!" Jacaerys yelled, his voice cracking with emotion as he glared at Lucerys. "Why did you go inside?! You saw Vhagar! You knew Aemond was there! You should have jumped back on Arrax and flown away as fast as you could! Why didn't you just run?!"
Before Luke could utter a word in response to his brother’s frantic yelling, the rumbling thunder above drowned out all sound as the cosmic projection violently advanced.
The sky-screen shifted inside the dimly lit, cavernous round hall of Storm’s End. The projection tracked the young Lucerys walking resolutely forward, his small boots clicking against the stone floor. Everyone in the present could see how hard the boy was trying to steel himself, deliberately averting his gaze and trying his absolute best to ignore the terrifying, menacing silhouette of Aemond Targaryen lurking in the shadows of the hall. uscerys focused entirely on his duty as a messenger, presenting the parchment and projecting his voice to deliver the royal demand for Lord Borros Baratheon to remain loyal to Queen Rhaenyra.
Down below in the Red Keep, an acute wave of panic rippled through the gathered nobility as they watched the screen.
They looked back and forth between the eleven-year-old Lucerys standing right beside Rhaenyra and the boy projected onto the sky. The realization hit them like a physical blow: the Lucerys on the screen was barely any larger or older than the boy standing in front of them right now.
"Gods above..." Lord Marqis Merryweather whispered in horror, his face completely drained of color. "This isn't the distant future."
The murmurs swelled into a frantic, terrifying certainty throughout the hall. If Lucerys was still this young when this confrontation took place, it could only mean one thing—the death of King Viserys I was dangerously close at hand, and the realm was on the absolute brink of a catastrophic, unavoidable civil war.
While everyone was still trying to process this information, up on the massive screen of clouds, Lord Borros Baratheon leaned forward on his stone throne, his face twisted into a boorish, mocking grin. His voice boomed across the sky, loud enough for every soul in the realm to hear: "Prince Aemond came to me with a marriage pact, offering to bind my house to the crown! And what do you bring me, boy? An empty order from a mother?"
The projected Lucerys stood his ground, his small shoulders squared: "I cannot make a marriage pact, Lord Borros. I am already betrothed to my cousin, Lady Rhaena."
Lord Borros on the sky-screen scoffed loudly, waving his hand in utter dismissal. His boorish voice boomed down from the heavens, dripping with contempt: "Go home then, little pup! Tell your mother that the Lord of Storm's End is not a dog to be whistled for whenever she pleases! Guards, take this boy out of my hall before he wastes any more of my time!"
Down below in the present hall of the Red Keep, the temperature seemed to drop to absolute freezing.
Princess Rhaenys Targaryen's regal posture hardening into a terrifying stiffness. Her face turned completely dark, her eyes narrowing into slits of pure, royal fury as she stared at the projection of her cousin, Borros Baratheon. It was completely obvious to everyone standing near the Queen Who Never Was that she believed her cousin Borros was sorely lacking a brutal lesson in loyalty and respect, and if she could fly Meleys to Storm's End right this second, she would gladly deliver it herself.
On the massive screen of clouds, the projected Lucerys turned to leave the round hall, his boots echoing sharply on the stone as Borros's guards stepped forward to escort him out. But before he could take a dozen paces, the terrifying silhouette of Aemond Targaryen moved like a striking serpent, cutting off the young prince's path to the exit.
"Hold, taobus," the projected Aemond hissed, his voice echoing menacingly across the heavens.
With a slow, deliberate motion, the Aemond on the screen raised his hand and ripped away his leather eye patch. Beneath it lay no empty socket, but a brilliant, mocking sapphire wedged into the flesh.
The sudden revelation of that grotesque, blue stone caused both the projected Lucerys in the sky and the people in the present hall of the Red Keep to winces and narrow their eyes in absolute disgust.
"You owed a debt, boy," Aemond’s future voice boomed down from the sky, cold and lethal. "Did you truly think you could fly around the realm like nothing happened? I want your eye. Cut it out yourself, or I shall take it from your skull."
The young Lucerys on the screen trembled, but he forced himself to stand straight, raising the parchment tightly clutched in his fist. He looked into the sapphire eye of his tormentor and spoke with fierce defiance: "I will not fight you. I came here as a messenger, carrying the word of my Queen."
Before Aemond could strike, Lord Borros’s heavy fist slammed down onto the armrest of his throne, his boorish roar echoing across the continent: "Not in my hall, Prince Aemond! I will have no bloodshed beneath my roof! Take your squabbles to the winds!"
Borros fiercely gestured to his men-at-arms, barking a final command: "Guards! Get the Velaryon boy to his dragon! Clear him out of Storm's End right now!"
Lucerys was hurried out by Baratheon guards. The moment his feet touched the slick stone courtyard, he broke into a desperate sprint, racing through the freezing, torrential rain directly toward Arrax. The young pearl-white dragon was terrified, snapping at the air and shaking off the heavy downpour. Lucerys scrambled into the saddle, his hands slick with water as he frantically secured his chains.
The very instant Arrax kicked off the stone rampart and leaped into the black sky, a sound shook the entire continent of Westeros.
It was a low, primeval, bone-chilling roar that ripped through the storm clouds. Vhagar had taken flight. The monstrous sound signaled, loud and clear to every soul in the realm, that Aemond Targaryen was hunting down his prey.
The titanic sky-screen then shifted, focusing entirely on Lucerys’s perspective from the saddle. The visual was agonizingly disorienting; the screen filled with nothing but blinding sheets of rain, flashing lightning, and black, turbulent storm clouds. Lucerys could see absolutely nothing around him. Yet, the monstrous roars of Vhagar echoed continuously, sounding as if the giant beast was everywhere at once—above him, behind him, and lurking right beneath the thick shroud of rain.
Down below in the great hall of the Red Keep, the tension broke into sheer terror.
Princess Rhaenyra pulled Lucerys into her arms, crushing him against her chest in a desperate, fiercely protective embrace. Her body trembled violently as she hid his face from the terrifying broadcast, weeping in absolute horror for the fate of her son.
Beside them, Jacaerys stepped forward. Tears of panic streamed down the twelve-year-old prince's face as he reached out and gripped Luke’s small, cold hand with all his might. His knuckles turned completely white as he stared up at the terrifying dark sky, his lips moving in a frantic, desperate prayer: "Please... please, Luke, just fly faster... Gods, please let him escape... run, Luke, just run..."
The entire court watched, completely paralyzed, as the horrific airborne chase between the two dragons began to close in on its fatal end.
Suddenly, the canvas across the sky of Westeros turned blindingly bright for a single, breathless second as lightning fractured the grey horizon.
The pearl-white dragon snapped its wings with desperate strength, clawing its way up through the suffocating, pitch-black turbulence until they finally burst through the ceiling of the storm.
The transition was breathtaking. Suddenly, the chaotic rain vanished, replaced by a vast, serene expanse of open sky bathed in the pale light of the moon. The moment the projected Lucerys looked back and saw nothing but peaceful clouds beneath him, a collective, profound sigh of relief swept through the entire realm. Down in the great hall of the Red Keep, lords and ladies clutched their chests, genuinely believing the boy had escaped the nightmare.
And then, the heavens shattered.
Out from the sea of dark clouds beneath them, the colossal, mountainous jaw of Vhagar erupted like a leviathan rising from the deep. There was no chase, no warning, and no time to scream. With a single, monstrous, bone-crushing snap of her ancient jaws, Vhagar bit directly through Arrax’s torso, completely tearing the young dragon and Prince Lucerys into mangled pieces in a flash of blood and shattered scales.
A horrific, collective shriek of pure terror erupted from the nobility down below. Noblewomen fainted onto the stones, men stumbled backward in blind panic, and Rhaenyra’s choked scream of agony echoed off the walls as she shielded her trembling son with her own body.
But the gods were not finished.
The titan sky-screen violently zoomed in, focusing entirely on the face of the future Aemond Targaryen. He was looking down from Vhagar's saddle at the falling debris of flesh and bone. There was no shock on his face, no panic, and no regret. His lips curled into a cruel, manic, and uncontainable grin of absolute relish and savage pleasure.
Then, the celestial broadcast snapped shut with a deafening crack of thunder, plunging the sky back into its normal state.
And down below, the absolute and raging chaos exploded across the Red Keep.