KING'S LANDING, 132 AC

And yet, Aegon had desires. Desires that seemed to numb his feelings. It was almost as if he had only stopped visiting the brothels to make sure his wife was not a whore who slept with other men. After coming to understand that she was truthful, the prince found himself in the arms of his favourite brothel worker every other day, his longing for sex outshining the love he harboured deep inside his heart.

He was addicted to it. But how could one not be addicted to such a pleasurable thing? To do such an act and be free of everything surrounding you? Aegon feared he was too far gone to live without it, as it had replaced the love he had once longed for. That put him in front of a serious choice.

Would he dedicate himself to his wife and their unborn child, or would he rather frequent establishments to be satisfied?

“You were gone for quite some time, my prince,” Aedna commented when her best customer showed up, at last. The name, both a title and a nickname, was something she herself had come up with, after he had told her about how no one respected him, which had been at the very start of their so-called relationship.

“I had important business with my family,” Aegon simply muttered, discarding his cloak in the corner before he approached the whore. He embraced her in his arms and kissed her lips, even if his own were meant for someone else.

“But I must admit, I have missed you,” the prince whispered between the kisses, earning a rewarding smile from Aedna.

“Tell me, what do you need tonight?” the whore asked him, her hands already working their way to his trousers while her eyes stared at Aegon’s who was mesmerised, impatiently awaiting the long missed pleasure.

“Everything you can give me, I am starving.” Aegon almost growled, for he could not bear it anymore. He needed this, his body needed this to feel alive and well. Why had he waited so long in the first place? His poor Aedna, how she must have been with other men, those that could not treat her the way he could.

The prince was never one to force himself on the women he spent the night with. Although he did not ask their preferences, since his own were relevant, he knew when one was comfortable and when one was not, last not proven by his wife that had not screamed in pleasure when they had engaged during their wedding, but rather out of pain.

Whenever Aegon heard someone scream in pain, it automatically made him be in pain as well. What an odd thing it was to feel other people’s emotions so greatly. Which was the main reason why the prince only desired to lie with whores that shared his interests. If one moaned so loudly because he was doing things the right way, it felt so much more rewarding than when someone was begging him to stop, since that only filled him with guilt.

Such things made Aegon feel sick. Hurting others made him feel like a monster. Though, perhaps he was one, perhaps he was destined to harm those he cared about, no matter how much it pained him.

The prince never had dark thoughts except for when he was in brothels. They awakened something inside him, some animalistic side of him that he almost feared. That animal always wanted more. One time was not enough, two, three, never was anything of the right amount. He always stayed until late hours and returned to his own chambers in the Red Keep like an empty form that had lost all kinds of humanity.

Mayhaps that was the price one paid when they engaged in these establishments. The gods were always watching, as his mother liked to say, and that was their punishment for him. Aegon carried a guilt heavier than any other he had carried before.

After all, his marriage had been one blessed by a Septon of the Faith. So the gods had to be aware of the sins he was committing every single day. They knew he had betrayed the faith he had never chosen for himself in the first place.

“What’s wrong?” Aedna asked the prince while they were doing the act, carefully pushing him off of her so their eyes could meet again. Maybe his eyes could give away the troubles of the prince, the woman hoped.

Aegon only groaned in annoyance, avoiding her gaze as he reluctantly sat up to move beside her, staring at the wall ahead of them.

“If you feel guilty for not coming for weeks, then you do not have to. I am not angry at you, Aegon,” the whore started, before being waved off by the prince, which only added to her confusion.

“How many times have you finished?” he  merely asked, as though trying to count something, deeply in mind.

The question caught her off guard. In all those years that Aegon had visited her, he had never asked such a question. It had never been of any relevance how often either of them had released. What only had mattered was the pleasure both of them had received, for that was what their whole relationship consisted of.

“Or how many times have I finished?” Aegon inquired soon after, finding the silence of Aedna a bit too long for his taste.

“Inside me? Thrice,” she replied, staring at him, rather lost, finding no answer in his empty eyes.

“You are scaring me,” Aedna almost whispered, wrapping her arm around his shoulders to turn him around to her, but Aegon only stared at the wall.

“Thrice,” the prince only repeated, huffing amused. Only then did he face his favourite whore, offering her an eager smile. “I recall my best was five times. Perhaps I should make a new best,” he announced, crawling back to Aedna’s legs again, despite her remaining loss for words.

He had changed. He was not the same anymore, there was no desire in those eyes, just emptiness – nothing.

Mentally, Aegon was somewhere else. A rarity for the sessions he had with her.

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Although Aegon did break his record, he returned to the Red Keep a different man. He did not even recognise himself when he stared at the mirror, seeing anything but his face, ranging from Sunfyre to the head of a pig.

And when the reflection of the pig grunted at him, Aegon jumped back in fear. It could not be himself. This was not him. All this was just some sick sorcery played by his own mind. Images of him and Aedna resurfaced in his head, how they had done all kinds of things with one another, before those images started showing his wife instead.

Viserra – sweet innocent Viserra. He did not deserve her, he should have never spoken to her, never even looked at her. She stuck to him like a stupid street dog, leaving him no peace in his mind. And the babe – a responsibility Aegon could not bear nor face.

But the worst thing was her smile. That genuine smile directed at him which meant no harm, only comfort. It was Viserra’s smile that forced the prince to throw up everything he had consumed in the evening. He left a big pool of liquid on the floor, something the maids would only be too happy about, since he did these things almost daily.

Aegon tried to sleep in his bed and find at least some calm, but nothing helped. Instead, things only worsened, for he heard his mother’s voice, yells, accusations, sometimes even how she slapped him.

This neverending nightmare tormented the prince to such an extent he stood up from his bed. Aegon went to the window of his chambers and stared downward, imagining how it would be if he was found lying on the ground.

Perhaps his suffering would end, then. No one would be there to humiliate him, and he would rest peacefully with the stranger, released of all duties he did not desire.

But he quickly pushed that thought aside, stepping away quickly in fear of his own imaginations. The prince ran a hand over his face, trying to find a way out of this cycle.

Besides the window, there was only another way out of this room. The door was shut, but Aegon could quickly open it and, perhaps, have a walk across the Red Keep, simply to clear his mind of these images.

When he pushed it open, it revealed no other than his friends, Martyn, Leon and Eddard, who seemingly were having a much more relaxed time than him. But their cheerful behaviour only put the prince off more. It almost angered him. With each laugh, the ringing in his head grew louder and the urge to leave a second pool of vomit felt more and more necessary.

Martyn noticed that behaviour, quickly catching on the unimpressed look of his friend.

“Are you well?” the knight questioned, but was yet again met with ignorance. Aegon did not wish to speak to those… whatever they were, but at that moment they were anything but his friends.

There was a need to simply shut everything out and leave it be. He did not wish to hear a thing, no laughs, no cries, no breathing. Complete silence.

Only one place could grant him that. The skies above everyone that were merely distressed by the small birds reaching as high as a tree only. Where Sunfyre could reach there were no such little creatures. And his dragon would understand him, and comfort him.

Aegon almost ran to the courtyard, as far as his body allowed him to due to his physical appearance of a half dead man. It had not been the acts he had engaged in that had transformed him into this lesser being, it had been his own mind.

Because of that, it was rather unlikely he would be free to go to the dragonpit on his own if he were seen by his grandsire or his mother. They cared so much for him like he was a vase that could break apart when the lightest feather touched it. But they did not do so because of their love for him, rather because he was of use to them as the future King, something he himself had not even been consulted about. What if he did not want that position?

For some time, the prince did not even understand where he was. All hallways seemed to get narrower with each step as if to crush him, destroy him. The pillars came alive, moving around with free will. And they walked towards him, as though to circle him.

Aegon looked around, seeing nothing but pillars. When sudden faces emerged from the stone, his eyes widened only further. At this point he was scared his eyeballs would fall out and blind him eternally, although that seemed like the lesser suffering in that moment.

Seven pillars, seven faces. Seven words they uttered.

We have rendered our judgement about you.

What kind of sorcery was this? Or was it the Targaryen inside of him? Was he mad? Aegon had never been mad, not to this extent. But it scared him to no end. Perhaps he was more of a Targaryen than he had ever thought.

Despite never having been a proper follower of any faith, the prince had never been actually frightened. Was it normal to have visions like these? Surely he was not losing his mind, was he?

Then again, there were those of his kind that dreamt of things that became reality. But such madness like speaking pillars with engraved faces could not become real, it could never see the light of the day, or he would run to his mother and cling onto her robe for protection as tears ran down his face.

The air outside offered the prince little comfort, as he sought the carriage that could bring him to the dragonpit. Though, mayhaps, it was a mistake to seek out what made him a Targaryen. Perhaps it was a mistake to try to do anything related to the name of a Targaryen.

Yet, the Faith of the Seven was not something the Targaryens had founded. It were the Hightowers who were so bound to their gods that they listened to them for every second trouble plaguing them.

“I need a carriage… to the dragonpit,” Aegon mumbled, hoping any of the passing guards would hear him, though he simply stood there like he was invisible. Their ignorance only supported that thought, as the prince rubbed his face again to make sure he was still where he thought himself to be.

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In all honesty, he could not remember if he had been with Sunfyre or not. Even though Aegon remembered spending time with his dragon not long ago, he could not confirm whether it had been that day or a few days before that he had been there. At night, he tried to sleep, despite all the scary images he had seen during the day.

“There is nothing wrong with me… I am well… I am tired and I simply want to sleep…” he muttered to himself over and over again, like a spell that was supposed to cast him asleep.

Counting dragons before sleep was childish, and Aegon was not a child. Nor would he call for his mother to sing him a lullaby, for she would not even do that in the first place. Aegon was a grown man, he could bring himself to sleep on his own. Relying on those childish methods would only madden him further.

“You? Well?” a voice in the dark questioned him, waking the prince from his trance. He jumped up from his bed, trying to figure out the source of the intruder.

“Who are you? Where are you?” Aegon asked, scared like a little boy all over again. Making the mistake of staring at the mirror at night, he could have sworn he had seen himself, with longer hair and a younger face, just like when he had been three-and-ten. He quickly turned his head to see whether his hair was really that long, only to find it being the same length it had been for the last few years – short.

Only a ridiculing laugh came in response. The prince clung to his sheets as though they would protect him.

“I have gold, I have wine, you can have some of it if you only leave my chambers.” Aegon’s voice trembled.

But all he got was another laugh, a laugh that was far crueler than the first, only adding to the fear of the boy shaking uncontrollably, his bare back sometimes hitting the cold wood of the head of the bed, sending a shiver down his spine.

“Gold, wine, why not buy a whore?” The shadow spoke, revealing itself at the end of the bed, a cloaked figure that stared at Aegon, though its face was covered.

“You can have a whore as well, just– please–” the prince almost pleaded desperately, just wanting the figure to be gone.

“You think that is what I need? Do you really think I came here to be served wine and whores? Do you not recognise me? Do you not recognise any of us?”

Tears ran down Aegon's face as six other figures appeared. Seven. This number had been haunting him the whole day, giving him no peace, no rest, no calm – only fear.

“We have rendered our judgement about you,” another said, walking closer to Aegon’s bed, stopping at his right side.

The thought that some stranger was right next to him, his cold breath lingering on his skin, froze the prince entirely.

“This is not real,” Aegon attempted comforting himself, trying to breathe through the sobs he released.

“Of course this is not real, Aegon!” the first shadow yelled, forcing the boy to wince, hitting the board behind him.

“It would do you well to listen,” another shadow added, walking to the other side of Aegon’s bed. The four remaining figures approached the bed as well, circling him entirely.

There was nowhere he could run to, no place to escape to. He was trapped with these people or shadows, whatever they were.

Aegon had had nightmares before, flying with Sunfyre before falling down because he had not properly secured himself, or drinking wine and choking because someone had poisoned it. But they did not compare to this, for this felt much too real and life threatening. There he had known it was just a dream, something he had made up, but this? This was frightening beyond all measures.

“You have always been a lost cause,” the figure opposite Aegon started again, leaning forward.

Aegon could feel the cold breaths, of all the seven that stood there, even though only three of them spoke. This was too real to be just a dream, this was far more than that.

“Am I dead? Is this death?” he asked, his last resort being that he was punished for what he had done in life, that now after he had passed he was being held accountable for all the crimes he had committed.

The one on his left laughed this time, sending another shiver down the prince’s spine.

“Your time has not come yet, boy,” it only mumbled, before leaning forward as well, so close Aegon should have recognised the shadow. But this one’s face was covered by a veil as well.

“And how would you know? Maybe I am dead and you are just– playing games with me,” he whimpered, trying to move away from the figure, which only brought him closer to the one that stood at the other end.

The figure that had last spoken to him held out its hand to Aegon. It was thin, almost bone-like, like that of a man who had not eaten in years, rotten and yellow from all illnesses there were. When Aegon did not take it, the shadow pulled it away as quickly as it had offered it, before wandering to the veil covering its face, slowly pulling it off to reveal itself.

In the dark light, Aegon could only see the face if either the figure leaned forward or if he moved back closer to it, though he was afraid of either happening. There were still six others watching them.

The shadow recognised Aegon’s fear, which was why it slowly leaned forward to reveal its face, only for it to be Aegon himself, with the same short hair, the same big eyes, the same bags under them.

“Because you would believe yourself, wouldn’t you?”

Aegon did not remember screaming as loudly as he did then, which caused the shadow to retreat, only for all the others to disappear alongside the first.

Only a small wince, one that the prince had believed to be his own, was heard.

“The maids said you were feeling unwell,” Viserra muttered, standing just where the shadow had stood moments before.

Her husband stared at her, unsure of what to do. Was he supposed to ask her about what had happened or just leave it be? But it had been too real to be left unseen by her, if she had been here for a few minutes already.

He almost jumped at her, clinging to her arms as his eyes, wide with fear, looked up at hers, innocent and untainted by the ugly sins he had committed.

“You saw them as well, did you not?” Aegon begged, hoping she would tell him he was not as mad as he thought himself to be at that point.

Yet Viserra only furrowed her brows, looking down at her husband in confusion. Her lips parted ever so slightly as they always did when the girl did not know what to say.

“Saw whom?” she questioned carefully, removing Aegon’s arms from her so that she could sit down next to him and meet him face to face.

The confirmation that he remained the only one to see those creatures heavily worried the prince. Was he mad? Had he truly become a mad man? Was this what happened after doing the act? Did people lose their mind because of its pleasure?

His eyes wandered between his wife’s face and her swollen belly, where his own child was already growing for the fifth moon. In only four he would already see the babe and call it his own. But how did that small thing come to life? What had Aegon done for it to exist? No less than what he had done with Aedna.

And yet the gods had not visited him since Aegon and Viserra had conceived their child.

This gave him an idea. If he committed with Viserra to the same he had done with Aedna in the noon and nothing happened, then it truly must have been the Seven coming to punish him for his sin.

“Do you wish to do the act now?” Aegon asked, his eyes wandering back up to Viserra who, to his surprise, seemed rather opposed to his idea.

“I am with child, Aegon,” she almost whispered, worried for his condition. He could not truly be that lost in mind, perhaps he had slept too little or drunk too much.

“Some people do the act even when they are with child,” he mumbled, his hands wandering down her belly to her legs as they slowly lifted her nightgown and crept back up.

“Aegon, please,” Viserra panicked, her own petite hand attempting to move her husband’s hand away.

Quickly realising what he was doing, Aegon nearly flinched away from Viserra, disgusted by his own doings. What had befallen him? What sickness, what sorcery was this?

“I– I am unwell,” he stuttered, looking at his hands to see whether they were still his own or if they had turned into pig’s trotters.

“Then tell me what bothers you,” his wife replied, slowly taking his hands in her own, offering him a small reassuring smile with a hint of fear.

What kind of husband was he that his own wife was scared of him?

“I am seeing things. Terrible things, Viserra,” Aegon admitted, avoiding her gaze in shame of his actions.

“What things?” Viserra asked, trying to understand what exactly he implied, though he only shook his head.

“No, I don’t want you to have bad dreams of them.” In truth, he was scared of admitting to the horrors he had encountered, and if Aegon had shouted in fear like a small boy, how would his wife react to what he had seen?

“Were they that bad?” The girl did not know what to do. After all, it was her first time being married to a man plagued by visions. No one had prepared her for that.

“Just– stay with me,” Aegon whispered, clinging onto his wife as she stared into the dark surrounding them. He even thought one of the shadows had breathed on his shoulder again, sending another shiver down his spine.

There was nothing left for Viserra than to stay with her husband, oblivious to the sins he had committed that day, oblivious to what punishment he had endured for them.

Careful not to harm the babe, the Serene Princess shifted closer to Aegon, wrapping her arms around him to provide at least some sort of comfort.

“Grandmaester Orwyle said I am not with one, but with two children,” she muttered, deeply in thought about the revelation.

Aegon looked up at his wife, his lips forming a wide, almost proud smile. Perhaps he could redeem himself as a father of two, and the Seven would forgive him. And knowing that Viserra had always wished for a big family, she must have been just as happy.

Only, what Aegon did not know, for which he was not to blame, as he was not a Maester, was that a five and ten year old woman, bearing two children, was far more likely to be taken by the Stranger than he could think.