Daemon stood in the center of the council chamber, arms behind his back, the fire crackling behind him. The rain whispered against the tall windows, but inside, not a single soul dared move. He turned his gaze toward Aegon, then to the others seated along the stone table. He began slowly.
"It has been many, many years since he last drew breath. But already, you've all forgotten, haven't you?"
His voice was smooth, eerily calm for the weight of the words. A silence, tight and reverent, settled over the chamber.
"House Hurellion…" he spoke the name like an old, half-buried curse, "was once nothing but a speck. A speck, I tell you—tucked away in a jagged stretch of frostbitten land. No fertile plains. No great river. Just snow, stone, and silence. Fifty miserable miles of cursed earth and stubborn blood."
He began pacing slowly.
"Back then, no one feared them. No one saw them. They were lesser men—hill folk. Common-born, barely scraping bread from their fields. But then…"
Daemon stopped, a sharp breath through his nose.
"Then came Aurex. Aurex the Undying. The first. The flame."
A pause. His voice dropped to something deeper.
"No one gave him power. He took it. Not for greed. Not for ambition. But because someone took her from him. His lover was stolen by the son of a petty king across the border. They thought he'd mourn. They thought he'd break."
Daemon turned and glared at the table.
"He crossed the border alone. Not with knights. Not with a coin. Alone. In the dead of winter. He infiltrated the palace, slit the throats of every royal in their beds, and dragged their corpses to the courtyard. Then he sat on their throne, soaked in blood, and declared that land his."
A few gasps echoed from the younger lords. Daemon smiled faintly.
"But that wasn't the end. It was only the beginning. Over the next seven years, he took two more kingdoms. Not by alliance. Not by marriage. By steel. Fire. Terror. They say his banner was soaked in ash, and his eyes never blinked."
Daemon leaned forward, whispering now.
"They say he couldn't die."
He straightened, pacing again.
"After him came a line of kings—some strong, some weak. Some men of thought, others of war. But every single one of them… sat. They sat on the throne Aurex carved with his bloodied hands. And they did nothing."
He turned on his heel, spitting the words now.
"Cowards, the lot of them. Hurellions in name but not in fire. Not a single one dared expand the borders. Dared to reach beyond. They called it peace. I call it rotting F***ing c**ts. And then..."
He paused again. There was a strange flicker in his voice now. Not quite hate. Not quite awe. Something between the two.
"Then came Baraxeon the First. Baraxeon the Cruel."
The silence in the chamber cracked like ice. Even the older nobles sat straighter at the name.
"He did what no king after Aurex dared. He conquered. Two more kingdoms brought them to their knees. But he wasn't like Aurex. No. Aurex conquered for love. Baraxeon… conquered for pleasure."
Daemon's voice darkened.
"He didn't just win battles. He unmade nations. Burned cities to the ground. Drowned children in front of their fathers. Half the population of a kingdom—gone. His soldiers wore skulls as medals. He turned rivers red. And when the priests condemned him…"
He grinned savagely.
"He boiled them. In holy oil."
Daemon poured himself another cup of wine but didn't drink it. He stared into the deep red, as though it too remembered. His voice was softer now, more intimate—but no less sharp.
"He had two sons," Daemon repeated. "Baraxeon the Second—the crown prince, heir to the empire. And the other…"
He glanced up.
"Arthur. Arthur von Hurellious. My ancestor."
There was a long pause, heavy and slow.
"He wasn't born in silk sheets or palatial halls. No golden cradle. No nursemaids or bards to sing of his birth. They say he was born beneath a hunter's moon, in a moss-covered cabin far north of the capital. His mother was a healer—a commoner of no name and no house. The kind of woman history forgets."
Daemon tilted his head slightly.
"And yet, the king himself visited her. Secretly. Often. When her belly swelled, there were whispers. When she vanished one winter night, no one questioned it. When the cabin was found burned and she lay frozen in the snow, the only thing left alive inside was a six-year-old boy."
He looked to the lords again.
"A boy with golden-red eyes."
The fire flickered. The room remained silent.
"They brought him to the palace. Barefoot. Dirty. They say he didn't cry. Didn't speak. Just stared at the Emperor with those strange, ember-lit eyes."
Daemon leaned forward, voice cold now.
"King Baraxeon looked into that boy's eyes and felt fear. No doubt. Not confusion. Fear. And you must understand—this was a man who crushed skulls with his teeth. Who flayed priests for amusement. And yet… he looked at that child like a man glimpsing the end of his reign."
He finally sipped the wine, slowly.
"You might ask why. Why be afraid of a bastard boy, barely six, barely walking?"
He chuckled, but there was no humor in it.
"Because that child didn't blink. Because that child didn't flinch, even as nobles spat at him, mocked him, called him bastard, dog, lowborn scum. He'd sit, silent, unmoving, as though the whole palace were beneath him."
Daemon gestured broadly now, drawing the chamber in with his words.
"But only one soul was kind to him. One. The crown prince himself—Baraxeon the Second. Where others scorned, he shared his bread. Where others laughed, he trained beside them. They grew close, the bastard and the heir. Brothers, not just by blood, but in bond."
His voice dipped lower.
"But bonds, like swords, are tested in blood."
Daemon stepped forward again, slowly now, as if tracing an invisible thread of fate.
"It happened during a training session. The White Raven Knights had come—pride of the realm, the Emperor's most elite winged swords. They were there to spar with the young princes. To test their mettle."
He exhaled through his nose.
"Arthur was only eight. He was told to stand aside. Watch. Learn. But the moment they drew their blades—those pristine white-feathered warriors—something in him changed."
His hand clenched unconsciously.
"One of the ravens struck Baraxeon—cut him across the back. Not fatal. Not serious. But it made him bleed."
Daemon looked down into his cup again.
"And that's when Arthur moved."
He looked up, eyes smoldering.
"They say he didn't run. He walked. Picked up a training sword. No armor. No shield. Just that fire in his veins. And before anyone could stop him, he killed the raven."
Stunned gasps echoed.
"Right there. In front of the entire court. He butchered the knight. Cracked his helm with one blow, then another, then another. They say the White Raven's skull was reduced to pulp. That his wings—pure white feathered cloaks—were soaked red, fluttering like dying birds."
Daemon took another slow sip.
He didn't sit. He couldn't. He walked slowly around the fire pit, boots tapping against the ancient stone tiles. His gaze never left the wine in his hand, but his voice grew darker, thicker, like smoke curling through a forgotten battlefield.
"They say it happened in silence. After the blood stopped dripping from the raven knight's throat, and his white-feathered cloak soaked crimson on the training sands... You could hear nothing. Not even the wind."
He stopped and turned to face them. His voice was quiet, but each word landed like a hammer.
"The court erupted. Nobles screamed for his head. The king himself stood, eyes wide, face pale. But Baraxeon the Second… he stood in front of his little brother. Arms outstretched. Shielding him from their wrath."
Daemon's jaw tightened. He paused for a moment, as if reliving it.
"And that's when Arthur spoke."
He looked at each of them in turn, his voice dropping into a whisper of steel.
"He looked up. Straight into their eyes. All those noble lords and ladies. And he said—anyone who dares try to injure my brother... will die like that knight did."
A shiver went through the room. Daemon let the silence sit heavy before he went on.
"There was no screaming after that. No more outrage. Just... stillness. A kind of stillness no one in that court had ever felt before. A fear that sank beneath the skin."
He stepped closer to the table, voice rising just slightly.
"They say it wasn't the words. It was how he said it. Flat. Certain. Like he wasn't threatening. Like he was declaring a truth. Like death itself had whispered to him—and he'd agreed."
He gestured toward the empty air, eyes burning now.
"The nobles didn't see a boy that day. They didn't see a bastard. They saw something else. Something that I watched. Measured. Judged. A presence. That day, they say… they felt watched. Every lord and lady in that training yard swore later they felt eyes on them from every shadow. From every corner of the palace. From the stones themselves."
Daemon paused, then turned his gaze to Aegon.
"But no fear was greater than what the king felt."
He took a final step forward.
"King Baraxeon I the Cruel—slayer of cities, butcher of priests, warborn terror of four realms—felt fear. Not from an army. Not from a rebellion. But from a bastard child, eight years old, covered in blood, standing with a broken training blade beside his brother."
A gust of wind howled faintly outside the hall. Daemon's voice dropped to a hush.
"They say that was the first day the king truly began to lose sleep."
Viserys sat still as Daemon's words faded, but his thoughts began to stir, slow and heavy, like a beast waking in the dark.
Arthur von Hurellious.
The name echoed like a hammer against bone. That name wasn't just history—it was a myth. A curse. A shadow whispered in the black hallways of their grandfather's manor when the candles burned low.
He remembered it now—his great-grandfather, old and frail, half-mad with wine, gripping Viserys's shoulder one night under a storm-lit window.
"He wasn't a man, boy. Arthur was something else. Something the world couldn't hold."
As a child, he'd thought it nonsense. Now... now he wasn't sure.
Daemon's voice, the tale of emperors and killers, of kings who ruled continents and bathed them in blood—it rang too close. Too specific. Too sharp-edged to be fantasy. Viserys had heard it before. Not in full, no. But in fragments. Warnings.
"That cursed house..." his grandfather used to mutter. "We served it once. We lived because of it. But when the Archduke vanished—when he disappeared—chaos came wearing a crown."
Vanished.
No tomb. No ashes. No sword left on a pyre. Just... gone. As if the world had blinked, and the man had slipped between seconds.
And then came the civil wars. The madness. The plagues. The heresies. The breaking of the Western thrones. One after another.
Viserys's throat tightened.
They had always said House Hurellion was too powerful. That it couldn't simply fall. It had to be swallowed.
He glanced at Daemon without lifting his head.
Did he believe the Archduke was dead?
No. He didn't. Not truly.
Viserys's grandfather hadn't believed it either. He'd never dared say it aloud, but there were nights when he would look out over the sea and whisper...
"He's not dead. He's just waiting."
Waiting for what?
Viserys's eyes darkened.
No. Not what.
Who.
And then Daemon's story continued—something about King Baraxeon, something about exile, a failed rebellion—but Viserys wasn't listening anymore.
He was remembering the dream he once had as a boy. A corridor of mirrors. Blood running uphill. And a man, tall, dressed in black, standing at the end.
He had golden-red eyes.
Eyes that burned like judgment.
Daemon leaned back in his chair, the shadows of the council room curling over his shoulders like cloaks. His voice was calm, but there was something coiled underneath—something old and dangerous, like a forgotten blade unsheathed once more.
"After that day," he said, "King Baraxeon the First-the so-called Cruel, the Conqueror of Five Crowns—was never the same man."
He paused, fingers drumming once on the oak table.
"He had nightmares," Daemon said quietly. "Not once. Not twice. Every night. Nightmares of fire. Of blood. Of a burning throne and a boy—his son, his bastard son—standing over the ashes. Watching. Smiling."
The candlelight flickered, and for a moment, even the air felt colder.
"They say the king would scream in his sleep," Daemon went on. "That he'd wake with his sheets soaked through, clawing at his own throat like something was choking him. Servants found him weeping once. A king. Weeping. Said the boy, Arthur, stood at the foot of his bed. Just watched him. Said nothing. Then vanished like smoke."
He looked around the room. "That was when the dread began. The kind that doesn't shout. The kind that just sits in your chest, heavy. Like you're being hunted by your blood."
Daemon leaned forward, voice low now.
"You have to understand… Arthur never raised a blade to his father. Never plotted against him. Never threatened the crown. He didn't need to. His presence was enough. That boy, eight, nine years old—he would walk through the Black Garden, and the hounds would whimper. The ravens in the towers would stop singing. The guards would avoid looking him in the eye."
"Even Baraxeon's queens avoided him. His court magicians refused to speak his name aloud. One tried to read his fate—drew a knife across his palm to cast the spell, and screamed so loud it shattered the crystal mirrors. His eyes bled for a week."
Daemon shrugged.
"They called him cursed. Said he was born under the twin eclipse. Said he had the eyes of a god and the heart of a void."
There was a beat of silence.
"And yet… the king could never bring himself to kill the boy."
Daemon smiled darkly. "Oh, he tried. Poisoned food. Assassin blades. Traps in the stairwells. But Arthur… Arthur never flinched. Every blade meant to harm him broke. Every poison turned to water. Every assassin—dead by morning. One slit his own throat before making it up the stairs. Another just vanished. All that was found was his shadow, burned into the wall."
"By the time Arthur was twelve," Daemon said, "the king had banished him from the main keep. Gave him a manor far from the palace, deep in the mountains. A cursed place, they said. Haunted by the screams of forgotten gods. But Arthur made it his court. Built a following there. Not with nobles. With monsters. Men were exiled for treason. Sorcerers. Halfbloods. Fallen knights. All of them found him. And all of them served him."
Daemon's voice lowered, and the fire snapped.
"They say he never asked for loyalty. He didn't need to. One look was enough. One word, and a man would carve out his tongue to prove devotion."
"Around that time," he continued, "Baraxeon the First ordered all records of Arthur to be sealed. Burned. His portraits were removed from the palace. His name was erased from the royal trees. But it was too late. You can't erase a storm. You can't forget fire."
He leaned back again, letting his words linger in the smoke.
"On the king's thirty-fifth nameday, he held a grand feast. Tried to show the realm he was still in control. Still the Lion of the Throne. But halfway through, he stopped eating. He just… stared. Pale as snow."
"No one saw what he saw. But he whispered something. Over and over. 'He's here. He's here. He's come for me."
"They say," he began slowly, "on his deathbed, King Baraxeon the First called for his bastard son one last time."
The fire crackled in the hearth. Rain whispered faintly against the stone windows.
"The servants had all left. The guards were dismissed. It was just the king—frail, gaunt, riddled with the fear that no blade could pierce—and the boy he feared more than death itself."
Daemon stared into the flames, as if watching it all play out again in some ghostly mirror of time.
"Arthur was sixteen then. Taller than most men, colder than winter steel, his eyes burning gold and red like the heart of a dying star. When he entered the king's chambers, the torches dimmed. Not by spell. Not by wind. By presence."
"He didn't kneel. He didn't speak. He just stood there, silent. Watching."
Daemon's voice carried a strange mixture of awe and sorrow.
"And the king… the mighty King Baraxeon the First, who broke empires and drowned cities in blood… he wept."
Wept.
"No more pride. No more cruelty. Just an old man begging his son not to take what he could never truly earn."
Daemon's hand curled slightly, as if gripping the memory itself.
"He asked him for a vow. A blood oath."
Daemon's eyes narrowed, almost in disgust.
"He begged Arthur to swear—on the bones of his mother, on the legacy of their cursed house—that until and unless his brother, Baraxeon the Second, sat upon the throne… he would never seek it. Never claim it. Never wear the crown. Not even if the whole realm knelt before him."
He exhaled sharply, as if the words left ash on his tongue.
"And Arthur… agreed."
A long pause.
"He stepped forward, looked his dying father in the eye, and said: 'You fear me, old man. But I do not want your throne. I only want what belongs to him."
Daemon leaned forward, fingers locked, his voice low like thunder buried deep underground.
"Then he placed his hand on the king's chest. Not with malice. Not with vengeance. Just stillness. The kind of stillness you see before a great storm breaks the sky."
"And the king died."
Just like that.
"No wound. No poison. No curse. Just… stopped breathing. As if the fear finally took his soul and offered it to something darker."
Daemon looked at the others, his expression unreadable.
"Arthur didn't mourn him. Didn't attend the funeral. He vanished again, like mist on a battlefield. But from that moment on, he watched. From the shadows. From beyond the veil of the throne room. And anyone who dared move against his brother, anyone who sought to twist the crown away from Baraxeon the Second…"
A faint, grim smile tugged at his lips.
"They disappeared. Sometimes quietly. Sometimes… loudly."
The council chamber had finally quieted. Torches along the corridor walls flickered low as footsteps echoed faintly into the night. Daemon, Aemond, and the others had taken their leave, some casting lingering glances back toward the heir, perhaps sensing he needed time alone. Viserys remained seated in his high-backed chair, his fingers resting on the polished wood of the council table, his thoughts adrift in the storm Daemon's words had left behind.
The fire had burned low, casting long shadows along the stone walls.
Then… came the voice.
Smooth. Calm. Touched by an ancient weariness.
"How are you, kid?"
Viserys's head jerked up, and his breath caught.
The chamber had been empty.
But now, standing directly in the center of the room, where moments ago there had been nothing, was a hooded figure, cloaked in black, unmoving, yet unmistakably present.
Steel rasped from scabbards. The two knights stationed beside the doors leapt forward, blades drawn and ready.
But they froze mid-step. Eyes wide. Breaths caught in their throats.
Frozen.Not dead. Not unconscious. Just… suspended, as though the world had stopped listening to them.
Viserys rose slowly, the fire behind him giving him a silhouette of command—but his heart thundered with confusion and dread.
The figure reached up. Unclasped his hood.
And time itself seemed to buckle under the weight of what was revealed.
His hair was black as midnight, slicked back and untouched by age. His skin was pale, yet unblemished. His gaze—those golden-red eyes—pierced through the veil of decades, of bloodlines and buried memories.
Viserys had seen them once before.
In an old portrait. In a forbidden book. In dreams.
The figure took a slow step forward, the knights still frozen behind him like statues.
"Last time I saw you," the man said, his voice almost… fond, "you were crying over your grandfather's grave."
Viserys stiffened. "That was… years ago," he muttered. "When I was ten. No one was there. I was alone."
The man didn't answer immediately. He stepped into the firelight fully now, and the weight of his presence filled the room like smoke. Every line of his posture, every movement, was sharp—efficient. Deadly.
"You weren't alone," the man replied, eyes narrowing slightly. "Not really. I was watching."
A pause, long and unbearable.
Viserys felt the back of his neck prickle. "…Who are you?"
The man chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Your brother would know. Daemon would feel it in his bones, but deny it with his tongue. Your uncle would pretend to guess, and be wrong."
He leaned forward ever so slightly.
"But you… You already know. Don't you?"
Viserys didn't answer.
Not with words.
But in the shadow of that flickering fire, he saw it—knew it. It wasn't a guess. It was blood calling to blood. A heartbeat echoing through generations.
"…Arthur," he whispered.
The man—the Archduke—tilted his head with a slow, grim smile.
"Still remembered. Hmph. I thought the world had forgotten."
Viserys swallowed hard. "You should be dead."
"I've been many things," Arthur replied. "A soldier. A ghost. A name cursed in silence. But never dead."
He turned away from the fire and wandered idly toward one of the shelves lined with relics and scrolls.
"I didn't come to kill you. Or take your crown. I didn't come for vengeance or blood."
He turned his head slightly.
"Not yet."
Viserys's hand twitched near the dagger at his belt.
Arthur noticed.
"I wouldn't," he said flatly. "You'd be ash before the blade cleared the leather."
Silence again. Even the fire dared not crackle.
"…Then why are you here?" Viserys asked, voice lower now. Not out of submission—but a strange, buried awe.
Arthur turned back to him, his eyes reflecting the firelight like molten gold.
"I need something."
Viserys narrowed his eyes. "What?"
Arthur stepped closer. "There's a key hidden in the royal vault beneath the catacombs. Sealed in black iron, engraved with a wyrm eating its tail."
"The Ouroboros Sigil…" Viserys said quietly. "That vault hasn't been opened in over a hundred years."
"Because it wasn't meant to be," Arthur replied. "Not until now."
"What's inside?"
Arthur paused. Something flickered in his gaze—nostalgia, perhaps. Pain.
"…A map. Of the old world. Before the gates. Before the sundering. It shows the way to the Temple of Silent Flame. The last piece I need."
"Piece of what?"
Arthur smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes.
"The end."
Viserys stiffened. "The end of what?"
Arthur moved closer, standing directly before him now. A breath away.
"Everything," he said, his voice a whisper of steel. "But not yet. I don't seek to destroy. I seek to reset. To burn away the rot… so something cleaner may rise."
He reached into his cloak and withdrew a ring.
A black band with a crimson stone, set with ancient runes.
He handed it to Viserys.
"Put this on when the stars go red. You'll know the night. You'll feel it in your blood. On that day, come find me. Alone."
Viserys stared at the ring. It felt heavier than it should.
The ring pulsed once more in Viserys's palm, throbbing like a heartbeat made of iron and ancient blood.
But Viserys had made his decision.
His jaw clenched. His voice, cracked with fury and fear, rang out in defiance.
"Dracarys!"
There was a distant roar. And then—
A rupture in the air. A rush of heat.
From above, like a god summoned by a single word, the great wyrm Valmyrix, his dragon, erupted from the shadows of the tower's upper alcove. A dragon hidden in the black, coiled in silence until called forth with fury. His scales shimmered like molten obsidian, and his eyes were pits of living magma.
With a snarl that shook the chamber's stones, Valmyrix unleashed his breath.
Fire.
Not just heat, but a torrent of living flame that devoured the very air it consumed.The inferno struck Arthur full in the chest, engulfing him.
Stone cracked. Tapestries on the walls turned to ash.The firestorm swept across the room, leaving behind nothing but a circle of smoldering ruin.And at the center—
Only a heap of scorched ash.
Viserys stood, chest heaving. Eyes wide. The scent of smoke clung to his skin, the heat still humming in the air like thunder.
The two knights rushed in, confused and alarmed by what they had just seen—but Viserys raised a hand, halting them.
"He's gone," Viserys muttered. "It's over."
But then—
A sound.
Not a breath. Not a whisper.
A heartbeat.
A single, deep, unnatural thud—like the toll of a bell beneath the earth.
The ashes began to stir.
Slowly at first, then violently—pulled upward as if gravity had inverted. The black dust coalesced in midair, swirling into a tight spiral. Then came the heat. Not flame this time—something deeper. Older. Colder.
A strange purple-black flame licked the edges of the ash cloud. Unlike dragonfire, it gave off no warmth, but consumed light. The torches along the wall flickered and dimmed, drawn inward like dying stars.
Viserys stepped back in shock.
The knights muttered prayers, one of them crossing his chest.
Then, the impossible happened.
From the black center of the swirling cloud… came a shape.
Bones.
Forming themselves out of nothing, white, ancient, inhumanly perfect. Each vertebra locked into place with a sound like steel being driven into stone. A skull took shape—not a charred skull, but pristine, regal, angular. Eyes hollow at first—
Then veins slithered through the bone like roots burrowing through soil.Muscle follows, dd-stringing across the limbs like ropes drawn taut across a war drum.
Arteries pumped. Organs bloomed like black blossoms.
Skin, pale and seamless, spread across the bones like fabric rolled over armor.
Hair returned in glistening waves of inky black. Garments of deep sable and crimson rewrapped his body—not stitched but woven from the shadows that clung to the chamber corners.
And last… those golden-red eyes opened again.
He stood exactly as he had before. Not a single wrinkle. Not a single burn.
Arthur von Hurellious had returned.
And this, to me, there was no warmth in his expression.
Viserys couldn't speak. His voice caught in his throat.
Arthur looked down at his palm, flexing his fingers, as though testing a blade.
Then, he glanced up. And spoke.
"You still don't understand… do you?"
His voice had changed. It was richer now, echoing with something more than age or power. Something cosmic.Something unforgiving.
"Dragonfire cannot kill what was born of the First Flame," he said quietly.
Viserys staggered back. "…You're not mortal."
He held up a hand, and purple-black fire danced between his fingers—fire that sang with silence, fire that pulsed with ancient hunger.
"Your fire is too young, Viserys. Too pure. You think because you hold the blood of dragons, you can burn all shadows."
He looked at Viserys again, voice growing softer. Almost sorrowful.
"It was the first to fall when the stars cracked. And now it waits… for someone who remembers the pain."
He took the ring from Viserys's hand—no resistance—and slid it onto his finger.
"The stars will burn red when I light the last pyre. And when that happens, you will choose."
Viserys's lips trembled. "…Choose what?"
Arthur turned away. His cloak whispered like smoke in the silence.
"Whether your world ends screaming… or not at all."
And like a breath snuffed out in a temple, he was gone.
No flash. No wind. Just gone.
But the embers in the chamber did not fade for hours.Nor did Viserys's shaking stop until dawn.
Would you like the next scene to be Daemon and Aemond reacting to the aftermath? Or Arthur's journey toward the Temple of Silent Flame?
Daemon stood at the edge of the balcony, the wind brushing past his silver hair, the moonlight washing over the tiles of his chamber in pale silver. His eyes, usually sharp and unyielding, now seemed distant, like a man staring into a memory he didn't remember having.
The flame in the brazier flickered once… then once more… and then suddenly—
Extinguished.
A chill passed through the room.
He didn't move at first. Only the faint shifting of his throat as he swallowed betrayed his unease.
Why was it so cold?
Daemon turned back into the room, slowly. The fireplace remained untouched—wood still glowing. But the warmth was gone. As though someone had taken a blade and carved the heat out of the very air.
His hand touched the hilt of the dagger at his belt.
Not fear. Instinct. Like a warrior sensing something just beyond the veil of perception. His breath was shallow, but steady. And still, he waited.
Then the sensation returned.
That shiver.Not on his skin. In his bones.
A feeling that something ancient had cracked open. That something that had once been buried—no, locked away—had stirred.
He shut his eyes, steadying himself.
And then the whispers began.
Faint. Broken. Not in any tongue he knew.
Daemon slowly opened his eyes again, and the reflection in the mirror across the room stopped him dead.
It wasn't him.
For half a second—no more—he saw nnothin's face, but something else. A figure cloaked in black and crimson, with golden-red eyes burning like twin suns at the end of the world.
Then it was gone.
His breath hitched.
Daemon stumbled back, crashing into a chair as the tremor passed through him. His knees bent slightly, his hand gripping the edge of the table.
"Arthur," he whispered.
He didn't know why he said the name.
It slipped from his mouth like a memory exhaled from a dream.
But in that moment, Daemon knew.
He wasn't alone.
He reached for the goblet on the table. His fingers trembled, but he drank deep. Wine burned down his throat, sharp and cold. But it didn't calm him.
The ring.Viserys had the ring.
Daemon's thoughts raced. He had recognized it earlier in the council chamber. The same signet depicted in old scrolls—black iron forged from celestial ore, bearing the sigil of House Hurellion: a spider wrapping the sun in threads of ash.
He had dismissed it then as a mere coincidence.
But now, he wasn't so sure.
He remembered the stories his grandfather had told him by candlelight. Not stories of glory. Warnings.
"If Arthur ever walks the world again, boy, the soil itself will shake to greet him."
"He was not a man. He was a storm given flesh. The blade that even kings feared to unsheath."
"And when he vanished… he did not die. He waited. For the world to forget."
And now… that chill. That shiver that had no source. That whisper without voice.
Daemon dropped into the chair, his fingers steepled over his lips. A thousand thoughts spun behind his calm expression. His heart pounded like a war drum.
Could it be true?
Was Arthur back?