Viserys, once someone he could call a friend, and also his wife Rhaenys's cousin-and that eldest son of his, Aegon.
That child had ridden the black beast no one should ever have been able to tame, leading a flight of dragons down from above the clouds, and torn every notion, every expectation, every plan he had to shreds.
Seasmoke had been crippled. Laenor had wept bitterly on the beach.
And that child's dragons had cast his pride, just like Laenor and his dragon Seasmoke, out of the sky and into the sand on the shore beneath the fading sunset.
Until then, he had never seen Aegon. Standing in the shadow of the viewing stands at High Tide's harbor, his hand had trembled around his telescope-not from fear, but because he simply could not believe what he was seeing.
He had even entertained the absurd hope that the rider on that black dragon must be some bastard he did not know, some lowborn dragonseed among Viserys's servants who had stumbled into outrageous luck.
Surely little Aegon was still riding Sunfyre-that tiny figure strapped to Sunfyre's back, the little boy still shouting, "Brother, you tied me too tightly!" That had to be Viserys's eldest son.
But reality had slapped him hard across the face. When he made out those violet eyes atop Cannibal through his telescope, he had frozen completely.
The violet light in those eyes was deeper than that of an ordinary Targaryen-an unmistakable mark of the purest blood of Valyria's dragonlords.
That bearing, that composure, that undisguised certainty that looking down upon all others was his rightful place-how could some bastard of unknown origins possess any of it?
Then there was the suspicion that his ally Daemon had held back-he knew the Rogue Prince all too well.
Caraxes had spent