After a servant announced his arrival, Lyonel Strong was soon granted an audience with his dear friend Viserys. But when he entered Viserys's room, he found that his friend seemed to have been awake for some time.
Morning light poured through the balcony's floor-to-ceiling windows, bathing the entire room in warm, pale gold.
The curtains were half open. A sea breeze from Blackwater Bay slipped through the gap in the windows, carrying the morning chill and stirring the fine linen tablecloth.
Silver plates gleamed softly in the sunlight. Golden toasted bread, half-set honey, a small dish of butter, a steaming jug of hot milk, and several unevenly sliced pieces of cured meat were neatly arranged on white porcelain plates.
Viserys sat in a chair beside the balcony, wearing a deep black night robe. Its collar hung slightly open, revealing the old scars below his collarbones where the Iron Throne had cut him.
Yet that very tranquility only made Lyonel more anxious. The calmer everything appeared, the more it seemed to confirm his suspicions, deepening his dread.
Viserys, utterly unaware of his dear friend's troubled thoughts, was spreading honey on a piece of bread. At the sound of the door, he immediately turned his head.
"Lyonel?" His voice had the slight rasp of early morning, and the corners of his mouth lifted. "So early? Have you had breakfast? Come and join me."
Lyonel's steps faltered.
He got a clear look at his dear friend's face.
In the morning light, that face looked exceptionally pale. It was not the pallor caused by his wounds and accumulated exhaustion-in fact, the celebrations of the past few days and Daemon's return had brought considerable color back to his face. This was the ashen, bluish pallor of a sleepless night, as though all his blood had