Night fell, and rain poured down.
Fat raindrops battered the tiled roofs, streets, and sea of the Lys City-State, raising an endless, unsettling clatter.
Heavy, lead-gray clouds hung low, almost brushing the city's spires. Lightning tore through the sky from time to time, briefly illuminating this city of desire, distorted and unfamiliar behind the curtain of rain.
Near the Perfumed Garden stood a relatively secluded but elegant courtyard.
Since that "tournament," Dorian Antaryon, the Governor of Lys, had witnessed the lingering influence of the Targaryen name, and his attitude toward Viserys and his sister had subtly changed.
Although he still made no firm promise of support, he at least provided respectable lodgings, food, and clothing, and no longer openly slighted them.
This courtyard, with its small fountain and rose bushes, was now the siblings' home in Lys.
"Aaargh!"
In his bedroom, Viserys Targaryen jerked upright in bed with a short, pained gasp.
He panted, his violet pupils dilated with terror in the darkness. Cold sweat soaked his thin silk nightshirt, plastering it to his skeletal body.
Blood.
He had dreamed of blood.
Blood everywhere.
A boundless sea of thick, dark-red blood, reeking of rust and brine, swallowed everything.
He saw shattered shipwrecks bobbing in that bloody sea, countless twisted human shapes struggling in its waves, screaming without making a sound.
The towering walls and towers of the Lys City-State floated above the crimson expanse like a mirage, likewise drenched in blood and on the verge of collapse.
Then he saw that figure.
A figure clad in pitch-black armor walked toward him from the depths of the bloody sea and driving rain, step by step, steady and unstoppable.
The face was obscured by the helmet's shadow and the downpour. Only a pair of bone-chilling purple eyes pierced the layers of rain,