Viserys and Rhaenys finished laying out their plan, agreeing on who would do what. Now came the hard part — waiting.
Rhaenys would use her black cat to spy, while Viserys searched for the right moment to slip the poisonous mushrooms into their enemies' food. The servants and steward, who already thought of Viserys's gold as their own, paid the three Targaryens no mind. The only one they still feared was old Ser Willem Darry.
But when it came to conspiracies, talking less was safer. Too many words could ruin everything. Viserys and Rhaenys understood that.
Rhaenys's gift as a skinchanger was rare and powerful; she was his sharpest ally. According to what little he knew, cats were proud, cruel, and stubborn creatures—something no warg should be able to control for long. Dogs were easier. Yet Rhaenys had managed to master her one-eared black cat, Balerion.
Their scheme cleverly avoided Daenerys. She was far too young—barely old enough to imagine what a kingdom or a throne even meant.
Viserys and Rhaenys, however, remembered perfectly what it meant to lose both. Before the fall, they had lived as true royals, tasting the sweetness of power and the bitterness of its absence. No one could forget what happened to Princess Elia and little Aegon—the slaughter the Lannisters left behind.
"The Mountain, Amory Lorch, Tywin Lannister…" Rhaenys recited, raising a small notebook filled with blood-red names. "We'll have our vengeance, Viserys. For my father and my mother."
She hated the Lannisters most—more than Robert Baratheon, Jon Arryn, or even Eddard Stark.
"Yes," Viserys said quietly. "Because true dragons never forget." Then, gently, "But don't let hate consume your life, Princess."
Looking at her, he thought how both of them had been robbed of their childhoods.
"You sound more like a philosopher than a king," Rhaenys teased, tucking her little book away.
Neither of them ever spoke of the Mad King. That name belonged to a legacy better left buried. Rhaenys still remembered her grandfather's disgust when he called her "that Dornish-tasting child." It was the tension between Aerys and Rhaegar that drove her parents to live on Dragonstone instead of the Red Keep.
Viserys hadn't been spared either. After the queen's miscarriages and stillbirths, he was her second healthy son — and Aerys guarded him with suffocating obsession. The Mad King wouldn't even let his younger boy attend his brother's wedding.
Queen Rhaella had done everything she could to shield Viserys — to protect him from his father's growing madness, to keep him innocent of how far Aerys was slipping. But innocence in House Targaryen never lasted long.
Viserys remembered clearly when his older brother, Jaehaerys, died. The Mad King had flown into a rage, blaming the boy's nurse and having her head cut off.
Later, paranoia drove him to believe Jaehaerys had been poisoned by the king's own mistress. She and her entire family were tortured to death not long after.
"I'm going to see Ser Willem," Viserys said, parting ways with Rhaenys.
The one-eared cat hissed sharply, unhappy that its master's friend was leaving.
"Quiet, Balerion," Rhaenys whispered, pressing the cat to her chest. It glared but obeyed.
Viserys stepped into Ser Willem Darry's room. The air was heavy with sickness and a cloying, rotten sweetness — the scent of approaching death. Once a strong, gray-bearded knight, Darry now lay gaunt and half-blind, a shadow of the man who'd wielded a sword for two kings.
His hands, still warm despite his weakness, patted Daenerys's silver hair gently. "My little princess," he called her. The girl looked up, wide-eyed and fragile.
"Brother," Daenerys whispered. "Will Ser Willem get better?"
"He will," Viserys lied softly.
He watched the girl — so small, so innocent. Born in blood and fire, orphaned before she'd ever known her parents. Of all of them, her fate had been the cruelest.
"Ser Willem," Viserys said, kneeling beside the bed and taking the old knight's withered hand.
"Your Grace," the dying man rasped. He wasn't as old as he looked — disease had aged him faster than time ever could. "Forgive me. My sight's failing. Otherwise, I'd have taught you the sword, the bow, the flail, the hammer… everything I gave your brother. You could be a great knight."
"I'll be one, Ser Willem," Viserys promised.
"May the Seven bless you, then," Darry murmured with a tired smile. "You'll be a knight beyond compare …"
Viserys knew better. He was born to study scrolls, not swing swords. His talents leaned toward the mind, not the arm.
His education was immaculate — fluent in High Valyrian, history, math, and noble etiquette — but his sword hand was weak. Ser Willem's failing health meant that all his knightly lessons were words, not practice.
Normally, boys became pages around six or seven, learning manners, skills, and literacy before graduating to the weapons training that made true knights. A prodigy like Daemon Blackfyre had been knighted at twelve after besting squires twice his age.
But Viserys had no such chance. The Mad King's paranoia had kept him isolated, deprived of danger — and of training. When Viserys was born, Aerys had even ordered all the nobly gifted items for the prince burned, fearing curses and assassins alike.
And now, in Braavos, his only would-be mentor lay dying, half-blind and broken.
"Take care of the princesses," Ser Willem wheezed. "Live, even if it means hiding your name. A Targaryen must endure, not just burn bright."
It was a simple wish — survival, not glory. The Darrys had already paid dearly for their loyalty. They'd lost half their lands, most of their wealth, and nearly all their kin.
Viserys suspected the old knight saw what he too feared — that Baratheon rule was no fleeting storm. That the Free Cities and Dorne's princes, all those who had promised help, had long since lost interest.
"I will," Viserys said. But not by hiding, he thought. Survival without strength was only delay.
"When I return to Westeros, I'll make House Tully pay," he swore. "I'll avenge your family, Ser Willem." The Tullys, who had bent so quickly, disgusted him more than the cunning Tyrells ever had.
"Go now, Your Grace," Ser Willem said weakly. "Take the princess. The air here is thick with medicine."
Viserys hesitated. Even in the knight's final moments, there was resignation in his voice. The last of the loyalists were dying, one by one — and what was left? A boy-king, exiled and untrained.
"Yes, Your Grace," the steward added from the doorway. "Let Ser Willem rest."
Viserys looked at the dying man one last time. He wanted to believe that somewhere, somehow, this loyalty wouldn't be in vain.
For Viserys, the Iron Throne was no longer just a dream — it was a debt, owed to every soul who had died believing in him.