Young Griff's gaze was nailed to Jon Connington's face, a storm raging in his bright blue eyes.
Confusion, fear, pleading-all finally gathered into a searing knot of anger on the verge of exploding.
The corner of his mouth twitched. It looked less like a smile than a dying spasm.
"The real... Aegon Targaryen?" he repeated, his voice like grit scraping sheet metal. "Then... what about me?"
He staggered half a step, leaning forward as though reaching for one last piece of driftwood, his gaze boring into Jon's eyes.
"Lord Griff, tell me-who am I?"
His voice suddenly rose, slicing through the courtyard's deathly silence.
"Wasn't it you who told me I was Aegon Targaryen?!"
He swept an arm toward the Lysene nobility around them, who lowered their heads and averted their eyes, then jabbed his finger back at Jon. His fingertip shook violently.
"All of you, for nearly twenty years! You all told me I was Aegon!"
His chest heaved. The last of his forced composure shattered, leaving only the pallor and flush of someone stripped bare.
"You taught me to write that name, to recite its history! You told me the Iron Throne was my duty, my blood!"
"You said my father was Rhaegar, my mother was Elia, that I was the spark they left behind... the last hope of House Targaryen!"
A sob broke into his voice, but he swallowed it by force, turning it into an even deeper tremor.
"Now you point at this man." He whipped his head around to glare at Aegon, only to flinch before those cold purple eyes. His gaze fled back to Jon's face, filled with desperate accusation.
"And tell me he's the real one? Then what am I? Have these twenty years been a play where I was the only one