Outside the Dragonmont.
Viserys watched Baelor's figure.
It grew smaller and smaller until it disappeared, swallowed completely by the pitch-black Dragonmont.
The sea wind howled, whipping his silver hair into disarray.
Maester Orwyle urged him, "Your Grace, let us go back and wait. Your wounds need fresh dressings, too."
Viserys turned a deaf ear to him, pacing anxiously in place.
His boots crushed the pitifully sparse weeds underfoot. "You can leave. I'm waiting here!"
He could not sit in the Red Keep waiting for a raven to fly across the Narrow Sea, nor could he return to the towering castle with any peace of mind.
Even though he knew perfectly well that whether he stayed in the castle or waited outside the Dragonmont, there was nothing he could do to help.
Taming a dragon was a mission every Targaryen had to complete alone.
The guards moved away from the Dragonmont, but Orwyle did not leave, remaining by Viserys's side.
To distract himself, Viserys made idle conversation with Orwyle. "I think I understand my father now."
"My father told me afterward that he hadn't slept all night before I entered the Dragonpit to tame Balerion."
Orwyle flattered him. "You had a good father. You must have been very moved at the time."
Viserys paused, then suddenly laughed.
Orwyle looked puzzled.
"No, I wasn't moved." Viserys sighed. "I was only in my teens then."
His gaze rested on the Dragonmont as he hazily recalled how he had felt back then. "I... I was a little scornful. I thought they were making far too much of it."
"Besides, Father never stopped me from approaching Balerion. For all I knew, that was another of his jokes, just to see what expression I'd make."
"He always loved playing those tricks, making everyone laugh."
Viserys smiled and wiped the corners of his eyes.
So Father had spent that entire night tossing and turning in this kind of torment.
He clasped his hands and prayed devoutly to the Old and New Gods.
Since the days of Old Valyria, House Targaryen had revered the gods, but had not feared them.
The Targaryens were naturally no different.
He murmured, "All the Old and New Gods, I know I haven't been devout before now. Forgive me."
"But Baelon..."
"I've argued with Baelon, too. Sometimes he's so stubborn that he makes me too angry to speak to him for a day or two. And Baelon is always arguing with Daemon..."
"But, gods, I give you my word!"
His son.
His first son.
His eldest son.
"Ever since he was born and came into my life, every day has been better."
"Every day."
"He is merciful and kind. He has even made the savage common folk gradually grow gentler."
"I am entrusting him with the Iron Throne and the Seven Kingdoms. All the lords are waiting for him to succeed me."
"He is beyond reproach. He can shoulder the burden of the Seven Kingdoms."
Viserys's voice grew choked.
"Please grant Baelon your blessings."
He clasped his hands tightly, pleading with the clear blue sky. "Let him be surrounded by children until his hair turns white, and pass peacefully in his bed."
"I beg you."
"Please let him live past sixty, seventy, eighty!"
In Viserys's eyes, even a few more centuries of life for Baelon would not have been too much!
But fear arose in him. He was afraid his greed would anger the gods.
"I beg you..."
"Please..."
He rambled on and on, unable to control his voice.
As though only by constantly spewing something from his throat could his heart briefly escape the grinding torment.
Orwyle watched the king's trembling lips, a disdainful curve briefly lifting the corners of his own mouth.
He suppressed the anger in his heart.
Was this Viserys I putting on a show of fatherly affection?!
If he was truly worried about Prince Baelon, why had he let him tame a dragon?!
Putting Prince Baelon in such danger!
The Citadel had studied dragons extensively. Dragons brought magic, disrupting what should have been Westeros's regular seasons!
Dragons made the Targaryens arrogant and overbearing. They ruled the Seven Kingdoms, yet trampled at will upon customs Westeros had upheld for countless millennia!
Dragonfire could easily melt human flesh and reduce bones to ashes.
Forests that had grown for countless millennia, towering castles built over hundreds of years at the expense of vast labor and resources-all were destroyed in dragons' flames.
But these monstrous dragons, especially riderless ones, were not so dangerous to Targaryens.
The Targaryens had shared Dragonstone with three wild dragons for two hundred years.
They could touch riderless dragons, and even command them briefly.
They simply could not ride them.
Orwyle lowered his head, concealing his tangled, unreadable feelings.
But nothing in the world was ever foolproof, much less taming a dragon.
Maester Orwyle stared at the Dragonmont, his eyes worried.
Prince Baelon...
Baelon Targaryen had promised him a peaceful, magnificent, civilized future.
A safe, harmonious world!
He could not help believing in Prince Baelon.
It was Baelon who generously and without limit met his every need for research supplies.
Who praised the research projects the Citadel refused to recognize, and eagerly funded them.
Baelon: I don't understand it, but I've got plenty of money.
Whatever the project, I'll fund it!
It was Baelon who had pulled him onto the raised platform at the King's Landing Research Institute and announced before dozens of maesters, "This is Maester Orwyle. Every one of you is to treat him as you would me!"
When he used cows and sheep suffering difficult births to research forceps, and shepherds accused him, when everyone suspected him of being a sorcerer and of eating placentas and fetuses.
It was Baelon Targaryen who stood in front of him.
He said, "I ordered Maester Orwyle to do these things. He cannot defy me!"
"Before you curse him, curse me first!"
Baelon comforted him gently. "Don't be afraid. I'll stand in front. Before the world can hate you, it must hate me first."
And so Baelon's evil reputation as a "sorcerer" spread.
Baelon: You can't have people working for you and then dump all the blame on them.
That would be downright inhuman. What if it left them disheartened?
What harm could a few insults do me? They wouldn't kill me.
A bad reputation? I'll shoulder it myself!
You maesters just focus on your research. Don't worry about anything else!
And I'll borrow a little from Jesus while I'm at it, to comfort the researchers.
Orwyle lowered his head and prayed silently.
Viserys and Orwyle stood in the sea wind, quiet for a time.
Baelon slid down from the dragon's back.
He leaned against Vermithor's warm body and stared at the tunnel.
First came a grating scrape. Hot air poured from the opening, and an enormous dark shape moved slowly.
A dragon covered in blue scales slowly crawled out of the darkness, section by section.
An enormous body, demonic horns atop her head, yellow eyes.
Baelon recognized the approaching dragon-Silverwing.
They were all familiar dragons, connected through the family.
She was the mount of his great-grandmother, Alysanne the Good Queen.
"Roar-" Silverwing opened her vast jaws and let out a series of low, hoarse roars.
As she crawled, the sharp claws at her wingtips scored the pitch-black stone walls.
Vermithor slowly turned his head.
Out of the corner of his eye, Baelon caught sight of a massive head, its chin covered in black spikes, slowly extending toward his side.
He looked up, and dragonhide as rugged as mountain gullies filled his vision.
Above his head, Vermithor's throat rumbled, answering Silverwing back and forth as though the two dragons were conversing.
Vermithor was so close that Baelon's eardrums began to hum, his entire world shuddering with the rumbling.
So he stepped out from beneath Vermithor's chin.
Silverwing closed her mouth. His nostrils flared, and he tilted his head as though sizing up the newcomer.
Baelon exhaled and made the classic dragon-taming gesture.
The daylight was dim. Most of Vermithor's and Silverwing's bodies remained hidden in darkness, with only their fearsome heads illuminated.
Baelon stood in the very center of the light, looking up at the two immense creatures, as tiny as a lone skiff amid the waves.
He raised his right arm, slowly reaching toward Silverwing.
Silverwing let out a series of low rumbles. She lifted her head, her scales scraping audibly.
"Calm, Silverwing, calm," Baelon called in Valyrian.
Silverwing actually did slowly close her mouth and quiet down.
She studied Baelon.
Baelon stretched out his arm and waited patiently for a few seconds, just about to move closer.
Suddenly.
Silverwing lowered her head of her own accord.
She gently pressed her snout against Baelon's palm.
The terrifying dragon moved softly, like a leaf settling into his hand.
Baelon barely even felt any pressure. Perhaps it was a kiss.
A dragon's kiss?
He turned his hand over and stared blankly at his palm.
The dragon's warmth still lingered there.
He looked up at Vermithor lying beside him, tail swaying slightly, then glanced at Silverwing's lowered head.
Two dragons as massive as mountains, capable of turning castles into seas of flame.
"Ha!"
"Life?" Baelon grinned, laughing freely.
He turned his hand over, resting his palm on Vermithor's head.
"A piece of cake."
Just as Rhaenyra could stroke Vermithor and command him to be quiet, and Daemon could approach Vermithor.
Sorry.
Pure blood really did let you do whatever you wanted.
Amid Baelon's uncontrollable laughter, Vermithor beat his wings with him aboard and charged out of the Dragonmont!
Man and dragon soared straight into the heavens.
Before you continue