Life at the prince's residence was rapidly becoming an exquisite form of torture for Viserys.
He lived in the finest room, wore the softest silk, and enjoyed the sweetest, richest red wine.
The maids always kept their eyes lowered in deference, and the guards always stood outside his door.
Everything was perfect, as perfect as a painting hanging on a wall.
Beautiful, motionless, and separated from him by an unbridgeable distance.
He was restless.
He did not understand.
Aegon had soldiers, a dragon, a fleet, and even enough gold hauled back from the Iron Bank to pile into mountains.
Why hadn't he marched west already?
Why was he still dawdling on this damned side of the Narrow Sea? Why spend every day listening to officials report on taxes, dock repairs, and grain prices?
Westeros was right there. The Iron Throne was right there. The heads of the Usurper and the traitors should have been set ablaze with dragonfire, one by one!
Yet Aegon had vanished without a trace.
The servants only said he had gone on an inspection tour, with no set date for his return.
He had left his king here like a superfluous house dog waiting for its master to return.
Even more unbearable were the two old maesters sent to him, with their graying hair, clouded eyes, and smell of paper and ink.
They appeared punctually every day, droning on in sleep-inducing voices about the genealogies of the Seven Kingdoms' nobility, the transformations of the Free Cities...
Study? Did he need to study such things?
Kings were born to rule! A king needed only to sit upon his throne, listen, and issue commands!
Calculations, copying, balancing accounts-those were tasks for servants and petty clerks!
Aegon was humiliating him, treating him like a child who needed to be