The darkness.
Not the simple darkness of a room plunged into night, nor the kind you feel when you squeeze your eyes shut too hard. No. A total darkness, without up or down, without ground or sky, without heat or cold. Nathaniel floated— or fell—he did not know. There was nothing to tell him whether he was moving or still. Nothing, except himself.
The silence was deafening.Even the last beep of the machines, the whisper of nurses, the rustle of hospital sheets had vanished, swallowed by that immense void.
I'm dead.
The thought came with brutal simplicity. It did not bring panic. The pain that had eaten away at his body was gone. He no longer struggled to breathe. His chest no longer ached. He was not hungry, not cold, not hurting.
He was… nothing.
Time had lost all meaning.Nathaniel could not have said whether he had been drifting in that emptiness for a few seconds… or a thousand years.
He tried to speak.
— Is anyone there?
No sound, no vibration.The void devoured everything.
A cold fear crawled into his mind.
What if this is it… death? Nothing. Just this. Forever.
He thought of Jon Snow.Of Ned Stark, beheaded before his very eyes—just once—before the screen had gone dark.He thought of characters who had lived entire stories.
I only had a prologue.
He did not know how long he drifted in that nothingness before something changed.
It wasn't a light, nor a sound.Just… an intention.A pull.
An invisible force seized him. The void tightened, and everything exploded into light.
Nathaniel blinked.Eyes. He had eyes.
A waiting room surrounded him: white neon lights, rows of plastic chairs, an empty desk.
He looked down at his fifteen-year-old body.
— Where… am I?
— Here.
The voice came from ahead.
An elderly woman, silver hair, impossible violet eyes.She trembled when she saw him.
— You're here… By the dragons, you're truly here.
Nathaniel didn't know her. Yet something about her felt anciently familiar.
— Do you… know me?
— No, my child. But I've been waiting for you.
She stepped closer.
— I prayed for my family. Before my death. After my death. I begged that one day, someone would come. Someone who didn't bear our sins. Someone who could save what little can still be saved.
— Why me? I'm nobody…
She smiled softly.
— You are the one who asked for a second chance.And I asked that one be given to my bloodline. The gods, or something else, answered.
She placed her hand on his cheek.Heat erupted inside him.An aura.A presence.A compressed force ready to devour the world.
— An aura awakened at birth, she whispered. Never seen. Never.
Cracks spread across her body.Fragments of light drifted toward him.
— I give you everything I have left… my strength, my prayers, my regrets.Live, Nathaniel. Live for yourself… and protect my family.
Her voice shook.
— Show them the greatness of House Targaryen.
She shattered into dust made of light.
The warmth.
He opened his eyes: a red blur, cries, voices, sharp smells.He tried to speak.
A high-pitched wail came out.
A newborn's cry.
— The first one is here! Quickly, he's breathing!
Another cry followed.
— Twins, Your Grace! Twins! But this one is the first-born!
Rhaella Targaryen lifted her head.Her silver hair clung to her face.Her violet eyes trembled with joy and pain.
— My son… she whispered.
The room vibrated slightly.No one noticed.
In the shadows, a man with violet eyes watched the scene.
Aerys II Targaryen.Not yet the Mad King.Unstable, yes. Nervous, yes…But capable of love.Capable of fearing for his wife's life.
He had grown to care for Rhaella, despite their forced marriage.And that night, he had been terrified of losing her.
He inhaled deeply, releasing without meaning to his Gold Aura – Level III.Powerful. Sovereign.It immediately crushed the anomalies in the air.
The vibrations became warmth.The heaviness became simple exhaustion.
No one noticed.
Aerys stepped closer to his firstborn.But stopped abruptly.
The king and the queen both thought they saw a faint shimmer—too weak to be real—an aura fragile as a breath, so thin they wondered if their eyes were deceiving them.
A ripple.Almost imperceptible.A pulse of aura.
Aerys narrowed his eyes.
He has… already awakened his aura?Impossible.
He leaned in, searching for an explanation.Rhaella, despite her exhaustion, felt it too.Her gaze crossed Aerys'.
They understood.And they knew they must not speak of it.
Aerys steadied his breathing.He smothered the surrounding aura even further, covering the moment with a veil of normality.
Rhaella nodded faintly.A shared secret.Silence.
Aerys approached at last.
— This one… already burns, he murmured.
Rhaella smiled weakly.— My… Aemon…
The maester recorded:
— Aemon Targaryen, first-born in the year 256 After the Conquest.And his younger brother: Rhaegar Targaryen.
Aerys studied Aemon, troubled.
What he sensed matched no known rank.Not Apprentice.Not Bronze.Not even an anomaly.
A nonexistent rank.An in-between.A quasi-apprentice, impossible for a newborn.
An aura already awakened.A colossal potential.
A legendary potential — if he worked to reach it.
Above them, in a realm no maester or king could perceive,a silhouette of light watched the child.
The Beloved Queen.Alysanne Targaryen.
The last remnant of her soul had fused with the infant.
He is not born legendary, she thought.But his fire may become so, if he endures, if he learns, if he fights.
In a whisper no living ear could hear, she said:
"Live, Aemon… live, and become what our blood never managed to be."
And she vanished.