In the drawing room, several golden brass bowls hit the floor almost at the same time, the sound of metal on stone ringing sharply through the house.
The rich buttered mushroom and oxtail soup, so fragrant and comforting on a cold night, was also utterly lethal.
The mushroom's neurotoxin did nothing at first. It waited, silent and patient, until the dose inside each body had already passed the point of no return. Only then did it strike. It wasn't as fearsome as the Strangler or the Tears of Lys, but for servants and a steward, it was more than enough.
Coughs echoed one after another.
The cook grabbed her own throat, clawing desperately as if she could pull the poison out with her fingernails. Nothing came up — only a thin, terrifying wheeze.
Thud. The cook's body hit the ground, followed by the laundress, then the doorman.
The fat steward watched in horror as his people collapsed around him. He hammered at his chest with both fists, but it did nothing. His body felt like it was turning to stone — first his heart, then his throat.
He raked at his neck until bloody marks appeared, but there was no relief.
"It was you…" he rasped, eyes bulging, skin gone chalk-white. His shaking finger pointed toward Viserys, who had just stepped out of the sickroom.
"It was me," Viserys answered calmly. "Viserys Targaryen the Third — a man who kills."
He had read this world's "script" once. This time, he moved first.
The steward glared at him, realizing too late that he'd been outplayed by a boy he thought harmless. He had believed himself the hunter, waiting patiently like the watching sparrowhawk. Now he saw he'd been prey from the start.
He hated himself for hesitating, for underestimating Viserys, for never seeing through the mask the exiled prince wore so well. The boy had always seemed soft, pliable, easy to push — a nobody clinging to titles in a foreign land.
Now the steward's knees buckled. He crashed to the floor, dying with greed and unwillingness still burning in his eyes.
The poison finished its work swiftly. Every servant who had touched the mushroom soup was down.
Viserys stood in the center of the ruined drawing room, heart pounding wildly. His pulse hammered in his ears, his stomach lurched, but his face stayed composed.
In his previous life — even when he'd sunk low enough to be called Beggar King — he had never actually killed anyone. He'd cursed, raged, and dreamed, but never truly stained his hands with blood.
In this life, in a world where people devoured one another in the name of power, he didn't have that luxury.
However great the risk, these people had to die.
If he lost Ser Willem's savings, he and the two girls would be cast out of the Red Door house with nothing. At fourteen, with no real skills, there'd be no future — only the slow humiliation of begging at foreign doors, trading royal pride for scraps.
That was not the life Viserys wanted.
He didn't let Rhaenys or Daenerys come out. They were too young — especially Dany. Some paths he would walk alone.
A king's road was always paved with blood.
Leaving the bodies where they lay, he turned and went back into the sickroom.
Rhaenys and Daenerys had heard the commotion. Rhaenys's face was calm; she had agreed to the plan. Daenerys only looked confused and frightened, too young to grasp what had just happened.
Even half-conscious, Ser Willem heard it. "What… was that?" he whispered. "I heard… the horn of death…"
"The servants are dead," Viserys said softly. "I chose poison." He clasped the old knight's withered hand in his own.
Daenerys stared at her brother, shocked. Her gentle, kind-eyed Viserys — killing? She didn't understand why he had done it, but she knew what death meant.
In the past, before the soul from another world had awakened, Viserys himself had told her that their mother had died giving birth to her.
"Good… good," Ser Willem breathed. His clouded eyes seemed, for a moment, to regain some light.
He knew this boy well. He had watched Viserys grow up — the spoiled younger prince, eager for crowns but untested by blood. In his last days, Willem had doubted whether Viserys had the will to truly fight for his birthright.
But now, in the final hours, the boy had chosen ruthlessness over ruin.
"Take care of them… my little princesses…" Ser Willem struggled for breath. "Forget vengeance… I only want you to live. Go far… from the Iron Throne. Hide, if you must…"
His hand trembled as he pointed weakly toward the bedside cabinet — where the money was hidden. The very money that had inspired greed and murder.
Viserys knelt beside the bed, holding on until the warmth slowly left the old knight's fingers.
After his last, halting words, Ser Willem Darry — former master-at-arms of the Red Keep, teacher of princes — slipped away forever.
There was no one left between the children and the world now. The task of House Targaryen's revenge had fallen first and fully onto Viserys's shoulders.
"Rest in peace, Ser Willem," Viserys said, solemn and sincere.
The room filled with sobbing. Daenerys cried the hardest. She had never seen her parents; in many ways, Ser Willem had been the closest thing she'd had to a father.
After a while, Rhaenys, a little taller and steadier than Daenerys, rose and opened the bedside cabinet. Inside were coins — Westerosi and Braavosi money, all of it paid for in blood.
To protect this small fortune, she had agreed with Viserys's plan to poison the disloyal servants.
Aside from the coins, there was only one other item — a fine steel dagger.
What Viserys did not find was the marriage agreement. The one signed between Ser Willem and Oberyn Martell, with the former Sealord of Braavos as witness — a document that would have bound him to Dorne through marriage.
By all rights, that contract should have been Ser Willem's most precious possession. Yet it was gone.
Viserys searched carefully. Nothing. No parchment. No seals. No trace.
"So you destroyed it… for my sake," Viserys thought silently.
The old knight must have feared that if Viserys knew of such a betrothal, he would sail straight for Sunspear in a reckless bid for allies and glory. Perhaps Willem also knew the truth — that Dorne alone could never overthrow Robert, that the new Sealord cared nothing for old promises, that everyone who had sworn support had quietly stepped aside.
The Martells feared Robert's hammer as much as anyone else. After signing, they had done nothing — gone silent, as if the pact had never existed.
Now, even their caution didn't matter. The only thing that remained in this room was a dead knight, a few coins, a dagger, and three children.
Viserys looked down at Ser Willem's still face.
"I won't run from my war," he whispered.