The winds of Dragonstone forever carried the scent of sea salt and sulfur.
On the western side of the castle, in the chamber of Jacaerys.
Jacaerys stared at himself in the silver mirror.
He suppressed the anger burning within him, staring at his one eye.
He hated that surname—Velaryon.
It was the Sea Snake's name, the name of Driftmark, something forced upon him by others and used as a fig leaf.
Silently, he spoke within his heart.
"I am a Targaryen."
He whispered it into the empty air.
His mother's words had always echoed in his ears, ever since he could remember: "You are a Targaryen, my firstborn, Jacaerys."
"In your veins flows the blood of Aegon the Conqueror."
"One day, my life shall reach its end, and you shall be crowned king…"
But mirrors do not lie.
Brown hair, brown eyes, a flattened nose.
Those features were nailed to his face like a curse.
At every court and noble feast, the looks cast upon him—probing, mocking, pitying…
He could hear the unspoken words: the Strong bastard.
'Die! Go die!! All of you dog-bastards, go die!!!'
Vaemond's vile old face rose in his memory, the spittle flying from his mouth as he roared "bastard" before the Iron Throne.
The cold contempt in Aemond's eye when he called them "Strong."
Aegon's careless mockery.
Daeron's "one eye" at the feast in Storm's End.
Helaena… Helaena's gentle yet distant gaze.
And the Hightowers—Otto, Alicent… all of the Greens.
They all deserved to die.
Usurpers.
Thieves.
They were stealing all that was rightfully his mother's, stealing all that was rightfully his.
He was no Strong.
He had tamed Vermax—the young green dragon had answered his call.
Dragons answer only to Targaryen blood.
That was iron law, a rule set down by the gods.
By what right did those silver-haired, purple-eyed arrogant bastards question him?
Because they looked more like Targaryens?
How much humiliation had he swallowed all these years?
He practiced smiling, practiced his manners, practiced keeping his back straight when others pointed and whispered.
He had thought that if he married Helaena, the king's daughter, a pure-blooded Targaryen, these doubts would fade into nothing.
Their children would bear silver hair and purple eyes, and all rumors would end.
But now?
The betrothal had been annulled—his grandsire, King Viserys, had annulled it.
He and his brothers had been tossed about like refuse by Targaryens and Velaryons.
His own dragon, Vermax, had been detained in the Dragonpit at King's Landing.
And now he had become the jest of all Westeros—a deluded bastard whose betrothal had been refused, who had now even lost his own dragon.
No!
He would not be merely a jest!
He would make them pay!
Every one who had mocked him, every one who had questioned his blood, every one who stood with the Greens.
When the Blacks won this war—when the dragons of the Blacks burned their armies—he would silence these bastards.
With fire and death, he would silence them.
"My lord."
The voice came from the doorway, carrying a trace of cautious softness.
Jacaerys turned. His right eye—his only remaining eye—fixed upon her.
Saera stood at the threshold, her silver hair like moonlight, her violet eyes deepened further in the dark.
Behind her stood her two brothers, Valos and Miraxes, likewise silver-haired and violet-eyed, their postures straight.
These were the bastards of Princess Saera…
He did not yet know how the three had come here, but his mother, Princess Rhaenyra, had taken them in.
And then… bestowed them upon him.
To serve as attendants, to attend him.
Rhaenyra had perceived the growing gloom in her eldest son these past days, and so she had granted these three bastards to Jacaerys.
She hoped that with more people at his side, her eldest would no longer brood all day.
And Jacaerys understood his mother's intent—understood that Rhaenyra was the only kin who cared for him.
Saera was twenty-five, a full ten years his senior. She had once been a courtesan of some renown within the Black Walls of Volantis and knew every art to please a man.
Silver hair, violet eyes—she bore the most standard Targaryen features, the very things he could never possess.
As he looked into those violet eyes and saw the reflection of his brown hair within them, for a moment he felt he was trampling upon something, defiling something.
He would take vengeance upon those lofty silver-haired, violet-eyed Targaryens of the Greens.
The blood they cherished was no more than a plaything in his hands.
"My lord," Saera called again.
"You have stood long at the window. The sea wind is cold—take care you do not catch a chill."
Jacaerys's right eye fixed upon her.
This woman was too adept at reading faces.
It was a skill she had learned in Volantis to survive.
"Saera."
"I am in a foul temper…"
A brief pause. Saera's expression did not change. Then she turned to look at her two bastard brothers.
The two men exchanged a glance and silently withdrew from the chamber, closing the heavy wooden door behind them.
When the sound of footsteps faded into the far end of the corridor, Saera returned to Jacaerys's side.
She did not touch him at once. Instead, she removed the silver hair net from her long hair, letting it fall like a waterfall down her back.
Hatred? Desire?
Or some darker thing—some dependence he himself dared not name?
He did not push her away.
...
Two quarters of an hour later, Jacaerys stepped out of the chamber, his collar fastened once more with meticulous care.
Saera followed behind him, her hair pinned up again, a flush upon her face.
Valos and Miraxes waited at the bend of the corridor, their expressions calm, as though nothing had occurred.
At times, Jacaerys wondered whether the two brothers truly cared for their sister's lot.
Or whether, in their struggle to survive in Volantis, they had already learned to treat everything as a thing to be traded.
"I am going to see Lady Mysaria," Jacaerys said.
"You will follow."
He descended the spiral stone steps, his boots striking the ancient stairs with hollow echoes.
The three bastards followed behind, their footsteps light as cats.
At times, Jacaerys wondered—if these three bastards of Saera were to tame dragons and mount their backs, would they be as quiet, as obedient, as deadly?
...
Mysaria's chamber lay deep beneath Dragonstone.
It had once been a cellar for salted meats and casks of wine, before she fled King's Landing and remade it into the heart of the Blacks' network of whispers.
When Jacaerys pushed the door open, a complex scent washed over him.
"Little Jace." Mysaria lifted her head at the newcomer. She did not rise, nor did she use honorifics.
That was her privilege. She had long been Prince Daemon's paramour—or partner.
She was also one of Princess Rhaenyra's few female confidantes.
She was the Blacks' long-cultivated "spider" in King's Landing.
She had the right to call the three brothers by their childhood names.
"Lady Mysaria." Jacaerys halted. The three behind him stopped within the shadow by the door.
Mysaria's gaze swept across the bastards.
"The rest of you, leave."
"Shut the door."
Saera looked toward Jacaerys.
He nodded.
The heavy door closed. Only the two remained within the chamber.
"Sit." Mysaria gestured to the chair opposite her and poured a cup of dark green liquid from a clay jar, pushing it across the table.
"Mint tea, with a little honey."
Jacaerys did not touch the cup.
Mysaria, a woman well past thirty who yet retained her allure, wore a plain dark-grey gown, though around her neck hung a string of colored glass beads so cheap as to be laughable.
Those beads had been given by the first patron she took in the pleasure gardens of Lys.
She had worn them ever since, to remember where she had clawed her way up from.
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