Queen Alicent’s other sons had been growing older as well. Prince Aemond, despite the loss of his eye, had become a proficient and dangerous swordsman under the tutelage of Ser Criston Cole, but remained a wild and willful child, hot-tempered and unforgiving. His little brother, Prince Daeron, was the most popular of the queen’s sons, as clever as he was courteous, and most comely as well. When he turned twelve in 126 AC, Daeron was sent to Oldtown to serve as cupbearer and squire to Lord Hightower.

That same year, across Blackwater Bay, the Sea Snake was stricken by a sudden fever. As he took to his bed, surrounded by maesters, the issue arose as to who should succeed him as Lord of the Tides and Master of Driftmark should the sickness claim him. With both his trueborn children dead, by law his lands and titles should pass to his eldest grandson, Jacaerys…but since Jace would presumably ascend the Iron Throne after his mother, Princess Rhaenyra urged her good-father to name instead her second son, Lucerys. Lord Corlys also had half a dozen nephews, however, and the eldest of them, Ser Vaemond Velaryon, protested that the inheritance by rights should pass to him…on the grounds that Rhaenyra’s sons were bastards sired by Harwin Strong. The princess was not slow in answering this charge. She dispatched Prince Daemon to seize Ser Vaemond, had his head removed, and fed his carcass to her dragon, Syrax.

Even this did not end the matter, however. Ser Vaemond’s younger cousins fled to King’s Landing with his wife and sons, there to cry for justice and place their claims before the king and queen. King Viserys had grown extremely fat and red of face, and scarce had the strength to mount the steps to the Iron Throne. His Grace heard them out in a stony silence, then ordered their tongues removed, every one. “You were warned,” he declared, as they were being dragged away. “I will hear no more of these lies.”

Yet as he was descending, His Grace stumbled and reached out to right himself, and sliced his left hand open to the bone on a jagged blade protruding from the throne. Though Grand Maester Mellos washed the cut out with boiled wine and bound up the hand with strips of linen soaked in healing ointments, fever soon followed, and many feared the king might die. Only the arrival of Princess Rhaenyra from Dragonstone turned the tide, for with her came her own healer, Maester Gerardys, who acted swiftly to remove two fingers from His Grace’s hand to save his life.

Though much weakened by his ordeal, King Viserys soon resumed the rule. To celebrate his recovery, a feast was held on the first day of 127 AC. The princess and the queen were both commanded to attend, with all their children. In a show of amity, each woman wore the other’s color and many declarations of love were made, to the king’s great pleasure. Prince Daemon raised a cup to Ser Otto Hightower and thanked him for his leal service as Hand. Ser Otto in turn spoke of the prince’s courage, whilst Alicent’s children and Rhaenyra’s greeted one another with kisses and broke bread together at table. Or so the court chronicles record.

Yet late in the evening, after King Viserys had departed (for His Grace still tired easily), Mushroom tells us that Aemond One-Eye rose to toast his Velaryon nephews, speaking in mock admiration of their brown hair, brown eyes…and strength. “I have never known anyone so strong as my sweet nephews,” he ended. “So let us drain our cups to these three strong boys.” Still later, the fool reports, Aegon the Elder took offense when Jacaerys asked his wife, Helaena, for a dance. Angry words were exchanged, and the two princes might have come to blows if not for the intervention of the Kingsguard. Whether King Viserys was ever informed of these incidents we do not know, but Princess Rhaenyra and her sons returned to their own seat on Dragonstone the next morning.

After the loss of his fingers, Viserys I never sat upon the Iron Throne again. Thereafter he shunned the throne room, preferring to hold court in his solar, and later in his bedchamber, surrounded by maesters, septons, and his faithful fool Mushroom, the only man who could still make him laugh (says Mushroom).

Death visited the court again a short time later, when Grand Maester Mellos collapsed one night whilst he was climbing the serpentine steps. His had always been a moderating voice in council, forever urging calm and compromise whenever issues arose between the blacks and the greens. To the king’s distress, however, the passing of the man he called “my trusted friend” only served to provoke a fresh dispute between the factions.

Princess Rhaenyra wanted Maester Gerardys, who had long served her on Dragonstone, elevated to replace Mellos; it was only his healing skills that had saved the king’s life when Viserys cut his hand on the throne, she claimed. Queen Alicent, however, insisted that the princess and her maester had mutilated His Grace unnecessarily. Had they not “meddled,” she claimed, Grand Maester Mellos would surely have saved the king’s fingers as well as his life. She urged the appointment of one Maester Alfador, presently in service at the Hightower. Viserys, beset from both sides, chose neither, reminding both the princess and the queen that the choice was not his to make. The Citadel of Oldtown chose the Grand Maester, not the Crown. In due time, the Conclave bestowed the chain of office upon Archmaester Orwyle, one of their own.

King Viserys did seem to recover some of his old vigor once the new Grand Maester arrived at court. Septon Eustace tells us that this was the result of prayer, but most believed that Orwyle’s potions and tinctures were more efficacious than the leechings Mellos had preferred. But such recoveries proved short-lived, and gout, chest pains, and shortness of breath continued to trouble the king. In the final years of his reign, as his health failed, Viserys left ever more of the governance of the realm to his Hand and small council. Perforce we ought to look at the members of that small council on the eve of the great events of 129 AC, for they were to play a large role in all that followed.

The King’s Hand remained Ser Otto Hightower, father of the queen and uncle to the Lord of Oldtown. Grand Maester Orwyle was the newest member of the council, and was thought to favor neither blacks nor greens. The Lord Commander of the Kingsguard remained Ser Criston Cole, however, and in him Rhaenyra had a bitter foe. The aged Lord Lyman Beesbury was master of coin, in which capacity he had served almost uninterrupted since the Old King’s day. The youngest councillors were the lord admiral and master of ships, Ser Tyland Lannister, brother to the Lord of Casterly Rock, and the Lord Confessor and master of whisperers, Larys Strong, Lord of Harrenhal. Lord Jasper Wylde, master of laws, known amongst the smallfolk as “Ironrod,” completed the council. (Lord Wylde’s unbending attitudes on matters of law earned him this sobriquet, Septon Eustace says. But Mushroom declares that Ironrod was named for the stiffness of his member, having sired twenty-nine children on four wives before the last died of exhaustion.)

As the Seven Kingdoms welcomed the 129th year after Aegon’s Conquest with bonfires, feasts, and bacchanals, King Viserys I Targaryen was growing ever weaker. His chest pains had grown so severe that he could no longer climb a flight of steps, and had to be carried about the Red Keep in a chair. By the second moon of the year, His Grace had lost all appetite and was ruling the realm from his bed…when he felt strong enough to rule at all. Most days, he preferred to leave matters of state to his Hand, Ser Otto Hightower. On Dragonstone, meanwhile, Princess Rhaenyra was once again great with child. She too took to her bed.

On the third day of the third moon of 129 AC, Princess Helaena brought her three children to visit with the king in his chambers. The twins, Jaehaerys and Jaehaera, were six years old, their brother, Maelor, only two. His Grace gave the babe a pearl ring off his finger to play with, and told the twins the story of how their great-great-grandsire and namesake Jaehaerys had flown his dragon north to the Wall to defeat a vast host of wildlings, giants, and wargs. Though the children had heard the story a dozen times before, they listened attentively. Afterward the king sent them away, pleading weariness and a tightness in his chest. Then Viserys of House Targaryen, the First of His Name, King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm, closed his eyes and went to sleep.

He never woke. He was fifty-two years old, and had reigned over most of Westeros for twenty-six years.

Then the storm broke, and the dragons danced.

* Hereafter, to avoid confusing the two princes, we will refer to Queen Alicent’s son as Aegon the Elder and Princess Rhaenyra’s son as Aegon the Younger.