The silence in the back alley persisted for a long time.
The air was thick with the smell of charring and an intangible, yet more nauseating, sense of emptiness left behind by the complete erasure of life.
The torchlight flickered dimly amidst the lingering smoke and dust.
The black-armored Soldiers still stood in silence, but the knuckles of their hands gripping their weapons were pale from excessive force.
Aegon's gaze swept calmly across the scene, finally settling on Viserys, who sat slumped at the edge of a charred pit, clutching a cold golden crown to his chest, his eyes vacant and lifeless.
That old crown of Queen Rhaella shimmered with a sorrowful and ironic luster under the firelight.
"Karl," Aegon spoke, his voice breaking the suffocating silence.
The garrison commander immediately stepped forward, striking his right fist to his chest: "Your Grace."
"Take him away," Aegon said, his chin giving an almost imperceptible nod towards Viserys. "Post a guard. Don't let him... do anything foolish."
"Yes!" Karl responded in a low voice, gesturing for two of his steadiest Soldiers.
The two men approached carefully. Without rough movements, they silently but firmly helped Viserys to his feet.
Viserys offered no resistance. His unfocused eyes didn't even flicker. He just clung desperately to the cold crown in his arms, as if it were the only thing he could still hold onto, and allowed the Soldiers to support him as he staggered with unsteady steps towards the other end of the alley.
His silhouette, stretched long by the firelight, appeared hunched and insignificant.
Aegon watched the figure disappear into the shadows of the corner. Then, he turned around.
Daenerys still sat slumped on the cold, filthy cobblestones not far away.
She made no attempt to stand. She just hugged her injured ankle, her body trembling slightly. Her silver hair was disheveled over her shoulders, stained with dust.
Her head was bowed, but Aegon could see her tightly pressed, bloodless lips.
Aegon walked up to her and stopped.
Then, he extended his hand.
His knuckles were prominent, still carrying the faint scent of smoke and dust.
Daenerys seemed startled by the hand suddenly presented before her. She jerked her head up.
Her violet eyes were brimming with tears, like two pools of shattered amethyst, clearly reflecting the torchlight and Aegon's impassive face.
She tried to speak. Her lips trembled a few times, her voice as faint as a mosquito's hum, thick with tears:
"Aegon... my brother, he..."
Aegon said nothing.
He simply watched her quietly. His deep violet eyes were like still pools, offering no explanation, no comfort, no impatience.
He just maintained the gesture of his outstretched hand, as if waiting, or as if using this silence to tell her something that could not be expressed in words.
Daenerys looked at Aegon's outstretched hand, then at his calm eyes. Finally, as if using the last of her strength, she bit her lower lip and gently placed a hand—covered in dust, its palm scraped and oozing blood, cold and trembling—into his palm.
His hand was warm, strong, carrying a reassuring steadiness.
That warmth seeped through her cold skin, strangely dispelling some of the chill deep in her bones.
Aegon's hand closed slightly, pulling her steadily to her feet.
The moment Daenerys put weight on her right ankle, a piercing pain shot through her. She couldn't suppress a pained gasp and swayed.
Aegon seemed to have anticipated this. The instant she rose, his other hand naturally reached out to support her arm, allowing her to lean against his body for balance.
His movements were not gentle, even somewhat stiff, but the supporting strength was solid and reliable.
Throughout, he did not speak a single word.
He offered no explanation for taking her away, asked no questions about her injury, made no comment on all that had just transpired.
He simply, with action, silently and inexorably, turned and led her away, step by step, from this district still permeated with the aura of death and destruction.
Daenerys was almost half-supported, half-carried forward by him.
Her bare feet trod on the cold, rough cobblestones. Every movement of her injured ankle made her suck in her breath from the pain, but Aegon's pace was steady, his speed controlled perfectly for her to keep up.
Leaning against his side, she could feel the solidity of his arm beneath his clothes and the steady beat of his heart.
This strange intimacy and silent support somehow calmed a fraction of her chaotic, terrified mind, leaving only numb pain and a heavy, bewildering emptiness.
They did not return to Daenerys's room, nor even head in the direction of the main residence building.
Aegon led her through several deserted, silent corridors to a seemingly ordinary study deep within the residence.
There were few books here, the furnishings simple.
Aegon released his hold on her arm, walked to a massive oak bookcase, and pressed his fingers against the spines of several heavy tomes in a specific sequence.
A faint mechanical click sounded.
The heavy bookcase slid slowly inward, revealing a narrow, downward-spiraling stone staircase set into the wall behind it.
Daenerys was stunned. She forgot the pain in her foot, just staring dumbly at the secret passage hidden behind the bookcase.
Aegon took a lit torch from a copper ring on the wall. He glanced back at her, offered no explanation, and stepped down the stone stairs first.
His figure was soon swallowed by the spiraling steps, leaving only the flickering shadow of the torchlight cast upon the stone walls.
Daenerys hesitated for a moment. She glanced back at the silent study, then looked down the dark passage. Finally, gritting her teeth, enduring the intense pain in her ankle, she leaned against the cold stone wall and followed him down, step by step.
The stairs were steep. Her injured foot made her progress slow and difficult, but Aegon ahead seemed to deliberately slow his pace. The torchlight remained consistently ahead, neither too far nor too close.
Only the sound of their footsteps echoed in the enclosed, spiraling stone staircase, mingling with the crackle of the burning torch.
The air grew warmer, the smell of sulfur more pronounced.
Daenerys's heartbeat quickened involuntarily.
A strange premonition, mixed with fear of the unknown and an indescribable thrill, rose within her.
The stairs finally ended.
Ahead was a heavy oak door.
Aegon reached out and pushed it open.
Warmer, drier air, rich with sulfur and ancient scents, washed over them.
Beyond the door was a stone chamber far more spacious than imagined.
At the center and along the walls of the chamber were dozens of tiered shelves carved from single blocks of obsidian.
And what lay upon those shelves made Daenerys's breath catch in her throat and her pupils dilate instantly.
Eggs.
dragon eggs.
Varying in size and color.
Like congealed blood, dark green like deep pools, black as midnight, pale as bone, bronze with rust-like markings... They slept silently, shimmering with a mysterious luster under the firelight.
Over a hundred dragon eggs rested quietly on the obsidian shelves. Under the illumination of strange crystals embedded in the chamber walls, emitting a steady, warm glow, they shimmered with a restrained, mysterious radiance.
The air was as warm as a mother's womb. The sulfur scent was mixed with an indescribably ancient and powerful aura of life.
Daenerys clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle a scream.
Her eyes widened, violet orbs filled with utter astonishment. Instantly, she forgot her tears, her foot pain, everything.
The unimaginable sight before her assaulted all her perceptions.
Aegon had walked to the center of the chamber.
He released his hold on Daenerys, placed the torch in an iron ring on the wall, then slowly turned, surveying the room full of dragon eggs.
The firelight illuminated the contours of his profile, its lines sharp and cold, yet now strangely tinged with an indescribable... depth, and a loneliness bearing an unimaginable weight.
"Found in the Valyrian Ruins," he finally spoke. His voice was exceptionally clear and calm in the vast, life-echoing chamber. "One hundred and seven."
He paused, his gaze sweeping over those dragon eggs with dull colors and no luster, like ordinary large stones.
"Most are dead. Their magic has been dormant for too long, turned to true stone. Perhaps only the gods know what they once were."
He moved, walking to one side of the chamber, stopping before a deep green dragon egg with ornate golden spiral patterns swirling across its shell.
"But some..." Aegon reached out, his fingertips touching the deep green shell with extreme gentleness, his movements carrying a near-reverent caution.
"...still retain a trace of warmth. Like embers about to die out, buried under thick ash. Very faint, very fragile, but... it's still there."
He withdrew his hand, turned, and looked at Daenerys, who still stood at the entrance, immobilized by the sight before her, barely able to breathe.
"Come here," he said. His tone was no longer a command, but a calm invitation.
Daenerys seemed drawn by his voice, or called by the room full of dragon eggs. Unconsciously, she stepped closer, her injured ankle seemingly less painful.
She walked to Aegon's side, standing before the deep green, gold-veined dragon egg.
"Your hand," Aegon indicated.
Daenerys hesitated, then raised her uninjured hand—still cold and trembling. Under Aegon's calm gaze, she slowly, gently, touched her fingertips to the deep green shell.
Hum—
Scalding! An intense, unmistakable pulsation, strong enough to almost throw her back, like the heartbeat of a slumbering giant beast awakening, surged through the skin, bone, and veins of her fingertip, crashing powerfully into her heart!
"Ah!" Daenerys gasped softly, but this time not from pain or fright.
She did not pull her hand back. Instead, as if seized by the sensation, she involuntarily pressed her entire palm tightly against it.
She felt it. The embers beneath the ashes. Faint, but truly existing.
Aegon watched quietly the silent, wordless exchange between her and the dragon egg. An extremely complex glint flashed in his eyes.
After a long while, Daenerys slowly opened her eyes, her hand still against the egg. She turned her head, her tear-filled gaze looking at Aegon.
Aegon walked to the other side of the chamber. His fingers brushed the surface of a pale, lusterless dragon egg that resembled an ordinary stone. His voice sounded again, calm, yet carrying a deep, fate-stating weight:
"About Viserys. I know you want to ask."
Daenerys's body trembled. She looked at him.
"I will not kill him," Aegon's voice echoed clearly in the chamber. "Not out of mercy. Mercy is a luxury in this world, and we Targaryens can no longer afford it."
He raised his head, his gaze slowly sweeping over the room full of dragon eggs, symbols of the Dragonlords' past glory and present decline.
"It is because Targaryen blood has been spilled enough."
He turned to face Daenerys. The torchlight cast a long shadow behind him, almost engulfing her slender figure.
"What remains of the true bloodline of House Targaryen now? You, me, and that man lost in old dreams, clutching our mother's crown, thinking he can reclaim everything."
"Dragons require blood to ride. true dragons need their kind to endure."
"Killing him would be easy," Aegon's tone was utterly flat, yet it sent a bone-chilling cold through Daenerys.
"But with each person less who carries the blood of the true dragon, our family's hope of resurgence grows dimmer, more fragile. In the future, there is one less person who can mount a dragon, master fire, and protect all this."
He paused, his gaze settling on Daenerys's face, looking deep into her violet eyes. His tone took on a barely perceptible, almost weary complexity.
"Therefore, the Perfume Garden—I will grant it to him as his domain. Along with an honorable but powerless princely title."
"He likes to drink? Let him drink his fill there. Likes to dream? Let him dream as he pleases."
"Guards, servants, fine food and wine. To live out his life safely, in comfort."
"That," Aegon said finally, his voice decisive, brooking no argument, "is the line I can draw. And it is the best outcome he... can receive, after attempting betrayal and inviting destruction."
Silence fell in the stone chamber. Only the faint, constant life-pulse of the hundred-odd dragon eggs flowed slowly in the warm, dry air.
That pulse seemed to narrate the rise and fall of a family, a cursed history, and a difficult, heavy choice concerning bloodline, duty, and the future.
Daenerys stood there dumbly, one hand still pressed against the scalding dragon egg, the other hanging limply at her side.
Her tears had dried, leaving cold tracks on her face. She looked at Aegon, at this figure not much older than herself, yet already bearing the heavy fate of their entire family.
She looked at the room full of slumbering or dying hope, then remembered her brother's vacant eyes and the cold crown...
In the end, she said nothing. She just slowly withdrew the hand from the dragon egg and clenched it into a tight fist.
Then, she looked at Aegon—her nephew by blood, yet now more like the pillar of their family—and gave an extremely slow, extremely slight nod.
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