c28: Hiding
Viserys Targaryen, the last young prince of the fallen dynasty, was being hunted relentlessly by three ruthless mercenaries who had slipped onto the island under the cover of the storm and the confusion of war.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the castle,
Queen Rhaella Targaryen, heavily pregnant and exhausted from grief and fear, had slowly made her way back to her bedchamber within the ancient fortress of Dragonstone. Two loyal maids supported her trembling body as they carefully removed her heavy outer garments—dark velvet and fur meant to protect her from the sea winds and changed her into a pure white velvet nightgown embroidered with faint silver thread.
They then gently helped her lie down upon the large bed carved from dark wood, its sheets soft but cold in the damp island air.
"My child..."
Her long silver-gold hair, the unmistakable mark of House Targaryen, spilled across the pillow and down her back like pale fire. The queen lay quietly, her beautiful pale violet eyes staring up at the stone ceiling above her.
A deep, lingering sadness remained trapped within those eyes.
One hand slowly stroked her swollen belly as she drifted into troubled thought.
Rhaella's mental state had grown increasingly fragile in recent months. Since the destruction of her family and the fall of King's Landing during Robert's Rebellion, she would sometimes lash out suddenly at young Viserys without reason, or collapse into uncontrollable tears in the middle of the night.
The queen had endured too many devastating blows in too short a time.
Her husband, King Aerys II, was dead. Her eldest son Rhaegar had fallen on the Trident. The Iron Throne had been seized. The Red Keep her home for so many years was lost forever.
All of it had pushed the once-dignified queen dangerously close to madness.
Yet at this moment, Rhaella's mind was unusually clear.
"I don't know if bringing you into this world... was right or wrong."
Her homeland and her dynasty had been shattered almost overnight.
And as time passed, Rhaella understood something with painful clarity: Robert Baratheon, the new king sitting the Iron Throne across Blackwater Bay in King's Landing, would never allow a surviving Targaryen heir to live in peace.
Not her.
And certainly not the child she carried.
Outside the walls of Dragonstone, the warships stationed in Blackwater Bay were locked in battle. The roaring wind of the great storm mixed with the distant crash of ships and shouted orders from sailors struggling against the violent sea.
Perhaps the royal fleet had already been spotted.
Perhaps the Baratheon forces commanded by Lord Stannis Baratheon were already sailing toward Dragonstone to finish what the rebellion had begun.
Rhaella herself was only a frail woman who had spent most of her life within the guarded halls of the Red Keep. She had rarely concerned herself with matters of strategy or politics, leaving such things to kings, lords, and councils.
The complicated movements of armies and fleets meant little to her.
But even she understood the reality of their situation.
Dragonstone, though ancient and strong, was isolated. The island fortress lacked sufficient soldiers, food stores, and ships to withstand a determined siege by the new king's forces.
If Robert truly wished to destroy the last remnants of House Targaryen, Dragonstone could not stand forever.
But where could they go?
Rhaella was unwilling to abandon Dragonstone.
More than unwilling she resisted the very idea with near madness.
For abandoning Dragonstone would mean something far worse than fleeing a castle.
It would mean leaving Westeros itself.
It would mean accepting that the Iron Throne now belonged to Robert Baratheon and that the Targaryen dynasty that had ruled for nearly three centuries had truly come to an end.
She feared that if that final truth settled in her heart, the last fragile thread of her will would snap completely.
And once that thread broke, all hope would disappear.
Yet now...
She could not stop the small flicker of regret that surfaced in her thoughts.
Perhaps bringing this child into the world had been cruel.
The son or daughter she carried might grow up hunted, exiled, and alone living a life far harsher than that of even the poorest commoner in Westeros.
But now that the child had grown so strong within her womb, abandoning it was impossible.
This unborn life was the only reason Rhaella continued to breathe.
It was the last ember keeping the ashes of her broken heart warm.
Outside the queen's chamber were the rooms of her ladies-in-waiting, where frightened servants whispered prayers while listening to the raging storm. Several guards stood watch in the corridor, their armor damp from sea mist, their hands resting uneasily on their swords.
Among them stood Sir William, a sworn knight who had remained loyal to House Targaryen even after the fall of the capital.
He had personally doubled the watch around the queen's chambers, fully aware that assassins or mercenaries might attempt to infiltrate the castle during the chaos of the storm.
This level of Dragonstone's main keep was high above the crashing waves. A narrow spiral staircase nearby led upward toward the Hall of the Painted Table, the legendary chamber where Aegon the Conqueror had once studied the map of Westeros carved into wood while planning his conquest centuries earlier.
Tonight, however, that hall was dark and empty.
Only the roar of the storm and the distant clash of battle filled the ancient fortress.
The sounds of fighting outside the castle walls were deafening.
Ships smashed against each other in the bay. Men shouted orders over the wind. Somewhere in the darkness, steel struck steel.
One of the maids knelt beside the bed, clutching a small seven-pointed crystal and whispering desperately.
"May the Seven protect us all…"
Lyra Targaryen murmured softly as she lay upon her bed within the ancient fortress of Dragonstone. Her long silver-gold hair flowed freely across the pillow like pale fire, and her high breasts rose and fell gently with each uneasy breath. One slender finger pressed against her brow as she whispered a quiet prayer to the Seven, the same gods worshipped across the Seven Kingdoms from the Great Sept of Baelor in King's Landing to the quiet septs of the Stormlands.
She prayed for victory in this desperate war.
Or at least for survival.
Just as Lyra lay in bed lost in troubled thoughts of the fallen Targaryen dynasty and the fate of her young brother Viserys, a sudden disturbance erupted outside her bedchamber door.
At first there were shouts echoing from the lower corridors of Dragonstone's main keep, startling the guards who had been stationed outside the queen's chambers by Sir William, the loyal knight who had doubled the watch earlier in the night after hearing rumors that assassins might have slipped into the castle during the storm.
"Who goes there?!"
One of the guards shouted sharply into the dim corridor, gripping the hilt of his longsword.
Then another guard responsible for protecting the queen seemed to notice movement in the darkness of the stairwell. Steel rang as he drew his blade and stepped forward.
"Stand and be known!"
The next second
The violent clang of weapons exploded outside Queen Lyra's bedchamber door.
Steel crashed against steel. Boots scraped against stone. Men screamed in pain as blades struck flesh.
"What happened?"
The pregnant Queen Lyra jolted upright in bed as the sudden chaos reached her ears. She quickly gathered the loose folds of her nightgown around her body, her hands trembling.
Her face had turned as pale as moonlight.
Since the War of the Usurper began what the victors now proudly called Robert's Rebellion Lyra had barely slept peacefully. The deaths of King Aerys II in the Red Keep and Prince Rhaegar on the Trident had shattered the royal house.
In the past few years, and especially during the last six months since she and young Viserys had fled from King's Landing to Dragonstone across Blackwater Bay, she had lived in constant dread.
Every storm.
Every distant horn.
Every unfamiliar footstep in the castle corridors.
Each one made her fear that the soldiers of the new king had finally come.
She feared the arrival of the man who had destroyed her family.
"Has the fleet been defeated?"
Lyra's voice trembled.
She feared that the royal fleet still loyal to House Targaryen the ships that had guarded Dragonstone since the days of Aegon the Conqueror had been destroyed in the storm or defeated by the forces of Lord Stannis Baratheon, Robert's stern younger brother.
If that were true, then the enemy might already be inside the castle.
"Protect Her Majesty the Queen!"
A voice shouted urgently outside the door.
But the fighting grew so intense that no one had time to answer Lyra's frightened question.
Boom—
In the next moment the wooden door to the queen's bedchamber shattered inward with a deafening crash.
A soldier of Dragonstone stumbled through the doorway.
He was covered in blood.
The man collapsed heavily onto the stone floor, an axe buried deep in his chest, his lifeless eyes staring upward.
…
The mercenary band that had infiltrated the castle had somehow located the positions of Queen Lyra and Prince Viserys with frightening accuracy.
A brutal battle erupted in the corridors as the remaining loyal guards fought desperately to stop them.
Meanwhile, Viserys himself was still running through the dark passages of the castle, struggling to escape the assassins pursuing him.
A completely dark storage chamber swallowed the boy's figure.
The room appeared long abandoned. Broken furniture and unused crates filled the space, and the air smelled strongly of dust and rot.
Huff… huff…
The silver-haired boy crouched inside a rotting wooden crate, his chest heaving as he struggled to control his breathing.
Only a narrow crack between the boards allowed him to peer outside.
Just moments earlier the young prince had been chased through the corridors of Dragonstone by the mercenaries. In blind panic he had slipped into this unused chamber and hidden inside the crate, hoping they would run past without noticing him.
But to Viserys's horror, he soon heard the rough voices of the mercenaries outside the door.
"Damn brat runs fast!"
One of them cursed loudly.
The boy had been running as fast as his legs could carry him through the torch-lit halls, so the assassins had split up to block both sides of the corridor in order to trap him.
They had not seen him escape.
Which meant he must still be hiding somewhere nearby.
"Hmph…"
"He's in here somewhere. The little dragon can't escape."
A tall mercenary whose face was smeared with crude war paint waved his hand impatiently.
"Search every room."
He ordered the other two men to begin searching the nearby chambers, clearly eager to find the silver-haired child quickly and cut off his head to complete their bloody mission.
"Find him… and finish it."
After all, the longer they remained inside Dragonstone Castle, the more dangerous the situation became. Loyal soldiers might still arrive.
"I should've gone with Driss's group," another mercenary complained.
His face was wrapped in black cloth and his leather armor was torn and filthy. A short sword hung at his waist.
"I hate killing children."
He spread his hands dramatically.
"Why didn't you let me take the easy job dealing with the queen? Maybe I could even"
"Heh… heh…"
The mercenary laughed in a strange, unpleasant way.
The foul smell of his unwashed body filled the corridor, and when he grinned his yellow teeth made one want to retch.
For the moment the atmosphere among them had relaxed.
After all, they had already killed most of the castle guards.
To them, killing a frightened seven-year-old prince was practically guaranteed.
What could a child possibly do?
He even held up a large toothpick mockingly.
"What? You want to pick my teeth, little dragon?"
But the tall mercenary clearly had no patience for the man's disgusting jokes.
He shot him an irritated glare, then kicked open the door to one of the nearby rooms and stepped inside to search for Viserys.
The third mercenary, a man skilled with a crossbow, was just as impatient and even more short-tempered.
He glanced coldly at the foul-mouthed man.
"Stop talking nonsense."
"Get to work."
Their voices echoed clearly through the corridor outside the room where Viserys was hiding.
Then the door slowly creaked open.
Inside the wooden crate, Viserys's heart pounded wildly in his chest.
The young prince tightened his grip on the short sword that had been custom-made for him by the castle smith a blade small enough for a child but sharp enough to kill.
Through the narrow crack in the crate, he could see the flickering torchlight spilling into the room from the corridor.
And the man who had just stepped inside.
The mercenary was holding a crossbow.
...