Aenar had never seen his father look at him like that. Prince Daemon Targaryen had many kinds of faces, proud, sad, excited, many, but the face he was making right now, Aenar had never seen his father look so worried and in disbelief.
"What are you talking about?" Daemon asked, sounding like he was trying to keep himself from sounding too worried. "Who you were before this life?"
"That's who I was," Aenar said quietly. "Before I became your son. Before I opened my eyes as Aenar Targaryen."
Daemon's confusion deepened, etching lines across his forehead that made him look older than his years. "Who is Rhaegar Targaryen? There's never been a prince in our family with that name." His voice sharpened, taking on a protective edge. "And why are you bringing your mother into this? What does Lyanna have to do with these delusions?"
A bitter laugh escaped Aenar's throat before he could stop it. The sound startled a night bird from its roost, its wings beating against the silence as it fled. "The gods love their jokes. Or perhaps it's fate that I'd have the same mother in both lives. Different fathers, different worlds, but always Lyanna Stark's son."
"You need rest." Daemon moved closer, and Aenar could smell the wine from the feast still clinging to his father's clothes. "The conquest, the stress of ruling Tyrosh—it's affected you more than we realized. Let me call for the maesters—"
"Maybe I have gone mad," Aenar interrupted, surprising himself with the admission. The rough bark of the weirwood pressed against his palm as he steadied himself against the ancient tree. "Maybe I've been mad for the last seventeen years, carrying memories that shouldn't exist, knowledge of things that haven't happened yet."
Daemon looked even more concerned now, and he seemed like he wanted to call the guards.
"I died before, Father." The words came easier now, like poison being drawn from a wound. "Seventeen years ago, I died in another world, another time. And I woke up as your son, born to a woman who shouldn't have existed in the histories I knew."
Daemon's jaw tightened, his protective instincts flaring at the perceived slight against his late wife. "Careful how you speak of your mother, boy. Lyanna was—"
"The most wonderful mother I could have asked for," Aenar finished softly. "Better than I deserved, certainly better than the one I didn't even know in my first life." He gestured to the ground beneath the heart tree. "Sit with me. Please. This will take time to explain, and I'd rather not have you looming over me like you're about to call me mad and call for a Maester to heal me somehow."
For a moment, Daemon remained standing. Then, with movements that reminded Aenar of Caraxes when the dragon was uncertain, his father lowered himself to sit beside him, their backs against the weirwood's pale trunk.
"Tell me everything," Daemon said simply, though his voice carried the weight of a man preparing to hear his son's descent into madness.
Aenar drew in a deep breath, tasting the night air heavy with the perfume of night-blooming flowers that the queen had ordered planted throughout the keep. Where to begin? How to make the impossible believable?
"I lived once before," he started, watching his own hands as if they belonged to someone else. "I was born as Jon Snow, the bastard son of Lord Eddard Stark of Winterfell, in the year 283 After Conquest."
Daemon's head turned sharply. "You're trying to tell me you're from the future?"
"In a way." Aenar picked up a fallen leaf, turning it over in his fingers, noting how its veins looked like tiny rivers in the moonlight. "I remember growing up in Winterfell, always the bastard boy, always on the outside looking in. Usually bastards never had the luxury of living in castles, yet Ned Stark claimed me as his son."
The leaf crumbled between his fingers as he continued. "I had siblings—well, cousins, though I didn't know that for most of my life. To me, they were simply my brothers and sisters. Robb..." His voice caught on the name. "Robb was more than a brother. He was my best friend, my companion in every adventure, every trouble we found ourselves in. We learned to fight together, to ride, to be men. He was my friend for a very long time..."
A smile ghosted across his lips as more memories surfaced. "And Arya—gods, Arya. Wild as a wolf pup, always where she shouldn't be, always fighting against what ladies were supposed to be. She had our father's eyes, grey as storm clouds, and a spirit that couldn't be tamed. I gave her a sword once, had it made specially for her. She named it Needle."
Aenar chuckled. His eyes burned with the effort of holding them back. "Strange to speak their names aloud after so long. Sansa with her dreams of knights and songs, though life taught her harder lessons than any of us deserved. Bran, who loved to climb, who I watched fall and break, only to become something... more. Little Rickon, too young when everything went wrong, too young when—"
He stopped, unable to continue that particular thread of memory.
Daemon still looked at him with concern, but now he was paying attention. "If your parents were this Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark, why were you raised as Lord Stark's bastard?"
"Because Robert Baratheon would have killed me," Aenar replied flatly. "He'd already killed Rhaegar at the Trident, crushed his chest with that war hammer of his. The realm believed Rhaegar had kidnapped and raped Lyanna, but the truth..." He shook his head. "The truth was they loved each other. Married in secret. She died birthing me in a tower in Dorne, made Lord Stark promise to protect me. The only way he could was to claim me as his bastard, his moment of dishonor during the war."
Daemon looked worried, and there was anger growing in his eyes, but he still didn't say anything.
Aenar's fingers found the silver direwolf pendant at his throat, tracing its familiar lines. "Even as a boy called Snow, I loved dragons. I would dream of them, great wings blotting out the sun, fire hot enough to melt steel. When I was old enough to read properly, I devoured every book about House Targaryen I could find. Eventually, I read one called Fire and Blood—a complete history of House Targaryen's rise..." His voice dropped to barely a whisper. "And fall."
Daemon's eyes widened. "Fall?"
"The dragons died away," Aenar said, meeting his father's gaze directly. "Every last one. And without them, without the dragons, House Targaryen became just another noble house. Exiled, hunted, reduced to begging for armies across the Narrow Sea."
"That's impossible." Daemon shook his head violently. "Dragons cannot be killed so easily. The only ones we've lost were Meraxes to a lucky scorpion bolt through the eye, Quicksilver when Maegor and Balerion—" He paused, understanding beginning to dawn. "And now Seasmoke to that filthy wildfire trap. But we have more than twenty dragons. How could they all die unless..."
Daemon's eyes widened a little; he seemed to have understood what could have caused the Dying of the Dragons: "War. A war between dragons."
Aenar nodded slowly. "It will be remembered as the Dance of the Dragons. The war that killed not just dragons, but the very ability to hatch them. A war between Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen, your niece, the named heir—and King Aegon Targaryen, Second of His Name."
Fury flashed across Daemon's face, hot and immediate. His hand clenched around Dark Sister's pommel until his knuckles went white. But instead of the explosion Aenar expected, his father forced himself to take a breath, then another.
"Tell me about your life," Daemon said finally, his voice rough with suppressed emotion. "This life as Jon Snow. Start from the beginning. Help me understand how my son believes he lived and died as someone else."
Aenar was not sure if he should start from the beginning, perhaps it would be better to start from the day he met Daenerys, or maybe the day he, Dany and Rhaenys sailed towards Westeros to reclaim their Throne with Fire and Blood, but then, with the wolf pendant on his palm, he looked up, the face of the Weirwood tree was looking down on him, and he knew where to start.
"I remember the first time I held a sword," Aenar began, his voice steadier now. "Robb and I were seven..."
The yard at Winterfell rang with the clash of steel on steel, breath misting in the cold northern air as two boys circled each other with practice swords. Jon Snow, thirteen years old, parried Robb's overhead strike and stepped inside his guard, bringing his wooden blade to rest against his brother's ribs.
"Dead again," Jon said with a grin that made his purple eyes shine.
Robb Stark groaned dramatically, dropping his sword to clutch at his side. "You always do that same move! One day I'll remember to watch for it."
"You've been saying that for three years," Jon replied, helping his brother to his feet. They were of a height now, though Robb was broader in the shoulders, taking after the Tully side of his heritage with his auburn hair and blue eyes.
From the covered walkway above, a sharp voice cut through their laughter. "Robb! You're meant to be studying with Maester Luwin, not playing with—" Lady Catelyn Stark paused, her gaze sliding over Jon as if he were no more than a training dummy left in the yard. "Not wasting time with swords."
Jon felt the familiar tightening in his chest. He stepped back automatically, creating distance between himself and Robb.
"Mother, we were just—" Robb began, but Catelyn had already turned away.
"Now, Robb. The maester is waiting."
Robb shot Jon an apologetic look before trudging after his mother. Jon remained in the yard, practice sword hanging loose in his grip, watching them disappear into the Great Keep.
"She never accepted you?" Daemon's voice cut through the memory, bringing Aenar partially back to the present.
"Never," Aenar confirmed. "To her, I was the proof of Ned Stark's one dishonor, the threat to her own children's inheritance."
The sound of lighter footsteps made Jon turn. Arya stood at the edge of the yard, her face scrunched in anger, grey eyes blazing with indignation.
"I hate her sometimes," she declared, marching over to him. At nine, she was all knees and elbows, her long face promising the beauty she'd never live to become. "The way she looks at you, it's not right."
"Arya," Jon warned, glancing around to make sure no one had heard. "You shouldn't say such things about your mother."
"She's not your mother, and she makes sure everyone knows it." Arya picked up Robb's discarded practice sword, testing its weight. "Teach me that move you used on Robb."
"Ladies don't fight with swords."
"I'm not a lady," Arya declared firmly. "I'm a wolf."
They spent the next hour training, Jon patiently correcting her stance, her grip, the angle of her strikes. She was quick, quicker than Robb, with an instinctive understanding of balance and movement.
"When I'm older," Arya said between breaths, "I'll go with you to the Wall. I'll be the first girl in the Night's Watch."
Jon's heart clenched. "The Wall is no place for you, little sister."
"I don't care, you will be there. That's all I care about,"
Before Jon could respond, Bran's voice called from the godswood wall he was climbing. "Jon! Father's back from Last Hearth! He's got Jory and twenty men with him!"
Seven-year-old Bran scampered down the wall with the agility of a squirrel, his auburn hair wild from the wind. Jon's stomach tightened with a different kind of anticipation. Lord Stark had been gone a fortnight, dealing with wildling raids.
They made their way to the main courtyard where Ned Stark was dismounting, his face grim beneath the travel dust. His grey eyes found Jon immediately, and something in his expression softened.
"He knew," Daemon interrupted again. "Your uncle. He knew who you were."
"Every day of his life after my mother died," Aenar agreed. "The weight of that lie ate at him."
"Father!" Sansa's voice rang out as she emerged from the keep, every inch the proper lady at eleven. Behind her came Lady Catelyn with little Rickon on her hip, the three-year-old reaching for his father with chubby hands.
Ned embraced his trueborn children first—of course he did—but his eyes kept finding Jon over their heads. When the greetings were done, he approached.
"You've been practicing," Ned observed, noting the sweat still drying on Jon's face.
"Every day, Lord Stark."
"Good. A man needs to know how to defend himself and his family." He paused, then added quietly, "Walk with me to the godswood after supper. There's something I would discuss with you."
Jon nodded, his heart leaped a little like a little boy. Private conversations with Lord Stark were rare, usually reserved for Robb as the heir.
That evening, supper in the Great Hall followed its usual pattern. He caught Arya making faces at him from her seat, trying to make him laugh while Septa Mordane wasn't looking. Sansa sat properly, conversing with Jeyne Poole about fabrics for new dresses. Robb was deep in discussion with Theon Greyjoy about hunting.
When the meal ended, Jon slipped out quietly, making his way to the godswood. Lord Stark was already there, standing before the heart tree with its carved face and red eyes.
"Do you ever wonder about your mother?" Ned asked without preamble.
Jon's breath caught. They never spoke of this. "Every day."
"I..." Ned started, then stopped, his jaw working as if fighting against words that wanted to escape. "She was beautiful. And fierce. She would have loved you beyond measure."
"Was she a lady?" Jon asked. He wanted to believe that she was a Lady, a proper highborn Lady.
Ned's smile was sad. "The finest lady I ever knew." He reached out, gripping Jon's shoulder. "You have her spirit, Jon. Her wolf's blood. Sometimes when you smile..." He trailed off, lost in memory.
"Why won't you tell me her name?"
The grip on Jon's shoulder tightened. "Because some secrets are safer buried. Because knowing would put you in danger you can't imagine." Ned's grey eyes met Jon's, and for a moment, Jon saw fear there. "Trust me in this, Jon. Please."
Not 'son' never 'son' always Jon or boy when he were younger.
"I trust you, Father," Jon said.
Ned pulled him into an embrace, and he murmured into Jon's dark hair. "My blood. Remember that, no matter what anyone says. You are my blood."
The memory faded, leaving Aenar sitting beneath the heart tree in King's Landing, tears running freely down his face now.
"He loved you," Daemon said quietly. "This Ned Stark. He loved you as his own."
"More than," Aenar whispered. "He loved me enough to stain his honor forever, to let his wife believe he'd betrayed her, all to keep his sister's son safe." He wiped his face with his sleeve. "And I threw it in his face when I learned the truth. Abandoned his son—my brother—in the middle of a war because of what I was, and what he was, because sometimes, things don't end well."
"You were young," Daemon offered.
"I was selfish." Aenar's voice turned bitter. "And Robb died without me there to guard his back."
Daemon did not say anything, and then after a long minute of silence, Aenar continued with his story.
"The day Robert Baratheon came to Winterfell changed everything," Aenar said. "Three hundred men, wheelhouses, and enough Lannister gold to buy a small kingdom."
The king's party stretched along the Kingsroad like a gilded snake, banners of gold and black fluttering in the cold northern wind. Jon stood with his siblings in the courtyard, placed carefully behind the trueborn children where bastards belonged. The first glimpse of King Robert Baratheon made his stomach turn.
The man who'd killed Rhaegar Targaryen at the Trident was fat as a prize pig, his face red and bloated above a beard gone grey. His royal clothes strained against his massive belly, and when he dismounted—requiring help from two squires—the ground seemed to shake.
"Fat as a pig in royal clothes," Aenar confirmed to his father's disgusted expression. "The great warrior who'd won the throne through strength of arms couldn't climb stairs without losing his breath."
Behind the king came the queen, and Jon understood immediately why men called Cersei Lannister beautiful. Golden hair, emerald eyes cold as winter lakes, a smile that never touched those eyes. Her children followed—Prince Joffrey with his cruel smirk, Princess Myrcella, Prince Tommen plump and shy.
But it was the Kingslayer who drew Jon's attention. Ser Jaime Lannister looked like a knight from songs—tall, golden, dangerous. His hand rested casually on his sword pommel as his eyes swept the courtyard, dismissing everyone and everything as beneath notice.
Then came the Imp.
Tyrion Lannister was everything they said—twisted legs, mismatched eyes, a head too large for his stunted body.
"From the beginning, I never trusted any of them," Aenar told Daemon. "Except Tyrion. The dwarf of Casterly Rock, the shame of Tywin Lannister. He was the only one among them with any real intelligence or honor."
That night's feast was a study in excess. Robert drank himself stupid, pawing at serving girls while Queen Cersei watched with disgust. Prince Joffrey tormented Tommen until the younger boy nearly cried. And through it all, Lord Stark sat at the king's side, grey-faced and uncomfortable, while Lady Catelyn played the perfect hostess.
Jon had been relegated to the far end of the hall, but that suited him fine. It let him observe without being observed. He watched Jaime Lannister's hand never stray far from his sword. He watched the queen's lips move as she counted cups of wine. He watched Tyrion drink more than any man that small should be able to hold.
Later, in the yard, he found the Imp pissing off the edge of the armory roof.
"You're Ned Stark's bastard," Tyrion called down, his voice only slightly slurred.
"I am." Jon saw no point in denial.
"And I'm Tywin Lannister's bastard, in all but name." Tyrion finished his business and climbed down with surprising agility. "Tell me, Snow, what do you think of our glorious king?"
Jon knew it was a test, maybe a trap. "He's the king."
Tyrion laughed, a bitter sound. "Diplomatic. You'd do well in the capital." He studied Jon with those mismatched eyes. "Let me give you some advice, bastard. Never forget what you are. The rest of the world won't. Wear it like armor, and it can never be used to hurt you."
"The day I left Winterfell was the same day Father—Lord Stark—left for the South," Aenar continued, pulling himself from the memory. "I was to join the Night's Watch. He was to become Robert's Hand. We stood at the crossroads where the Kingsroad split."
Morning mist clung to the ground as two parties prepared to separate. Jon sat his horse, dressed in black already, though he'd not yet taken vows. Ghost stood beside his mount. Lord Stark approached on his destrier, and for a moment, Jon thought he might finally hear the truth.
"Next time I see you," Ned said, his voice thick with emotion, "we'll talk about your mother. I promise."
Jon nodded, throat too tight for words. They clasped hands, and then Ned Stark rode south. Jon never saw him alive again.
"The man betrayed you," Daemon said sharply, anger flashing in his violet eyes. "He sent you to freeze at the Wall, let you believe that was your only path, and couldn't even tell you the truth before you parted."
"Lord Stark did what he thought was right," Aenar replied, though the old bitterness still lingered.
"Why do you defend him?" Daemon demanded. "He should have told you who you were, given you the choice of your own path."
"Because he was afraid," Aenar said simply. "Robert would have killed me. Even the hint of another Targaryen, especially Rhaegar's son, would have sent him into a rage. Ned chose my life over the truth."
Daemon's expression remained skeptical. "Then how did you learn it?"
"At the Wall, there was a maester. Aemon Targaryen."
Daemon's eyebrows shot up. "A Targaryen at the Wall?"
"Over a hundred years old when I met him," Aenar confirmed. "Blind, frail, but his mind sharp as Valyrian steel. He'd refused the throne multiple times, joined the Watch to remove himself from the game entirely. He feared others would use him to usurp his younger brother, Aegon the Fifth."
Aenar chuckled softly. "The man was brilliant. Blind as a bat, but he could see more than most men with eyes. He took a liking to me from the start, said I reminded him of someone, though he couldn't place who."
The stairs in the Lord Commander's Tower were worn smooth by centuries of use, and slick with ice that morning. Jon's foot slipped on the third step from the top, sending him tumbling down in a cascade of limbs and curses. His head struck stone, and darkness claimed him.
When he woke, Maester Aemon's old hands were moving across his body, checking for breaks. The old man's fingers were gentle but thorough, pressing against ribs, testing joints, feeling along bones.
"Hmm," Aemon murmured, his sightless eyes staring at nothing as his hands reached Jon's face. The fingers paused, traced the line of his jaw, the angle of his cheekbones, the bridge of his nose. "Interesting."
"Maester?"
"Your bone structure, young Snow. Very interesting." The old hands continued their exploration. "Tell me, what color are your eyes?"
Jon frowned at the strange question. "Purple, Maester. They're... purple." The admission felt strange on his tongue—he'd spent years trying to downplay this obvious sign of his difference.
"Purple?" Aemon's fingers found his temples, pressing gently. "And no one has ever questioned this? A Stark bastard with Valyrian eyes?"
"Lord Stark said my mother had purple eyes. That it happens sometimes, in the North. Old blood mixing strangely."
"Did he now?" The old man's voice carried gentle skepticism. "And everyone simply... accepted this explanation?"
Jon's jaw tightened. "People see what they expect to see. I'm Lord Stark's acknowledged bastard. That was enough for most."
"But not for you." It wasn't a question. Aemon's fingers continued their exploration of Jon's face. "You've wondered, haven't you? How a Northern woman came to have purple eyes to pass to her son?"
"There's Valyrian blood in you, boy." The words were soft but certain. "I can feel it in the bones of your face, the set of your features. And purple eyes in the North? Dragons know dragons, even blind old dragons."
Jon pulled away. "You're mistaken. I'm Ned Stark's bastard. My mother was some woman he met during the war. Lord Stark told me—"
"Lord Stark told you what he needed to tell you to keep you safe," Aemon interrupted gently. "Tell me, Jon Snow, in all your years at Winterfell, did anyone else ever have purple eyes? Any visiting Northerners? Any distant Stark cousins?"
Jon fell silent. He'd wondered about this very thing countless times, searching every face that came to Winterfell for eyes like his own. He'd found none.
"We talked for hours," Aenar told Daemon. "I kept insisting there had to be another explanation. Maybe my mother had been from Lys or Old Volantis, some merchant's daughter. But Aemon kept pressing."
"Purple eyes in the North would have been impossible to hide," Daemon said. "How did no one question it?"
"They did, constantly. But Lord Stark's word was law in the North, and he said I was his blood. Most assumed my mother must have been some foreign woman, which only added to my shame. The bastard with whore's eyes, some called me when they thought I couldn't hear."
"He asked about my father's siblings. Asked if any Starks had ever traveled south, had connections to Targaryens. When I mentioned Lyanna..." Aenar shook his head. "His whole demeanor changed. He asked when I was born, about Robert's Rebellion, about where Ned Stark had been when he found me."
"Your father," Aemon said carefully, "found you in Dorne, didn't he?"
Jon's world tilted. "How could you know that?"
"Because that's where Lyanna Stark died. Where three of the Kingsguard made their last stand protecting something—or someone—important enough to die for." Aemon's blind eyes seemed to see straight through him. "Think, boy. Why would the Kingsguard be there instead of with their king? What could possibly matter more than protecting Aerys?"
"The prince," Jon whispered, understanding beginning to dawn. "They were protecting the prince's..."
"The prince's son. The heir. The boy with purple eyes who Ned Stark claimed as his bastard to save from Robert's wrath." Aemon reached out, finding Jon's hand with uncanny accuracy. "You were never Ned Stark's shame, Jon. You were his greatest act of love—protecting his sister's son with his honor as the price."
"No. No, that's not... I'm not..."
"You are," Aemon said gently. "You're Rhaegar's son."
"For a long time, I believed I was born of rape," Aenar admitted to Daemon. "Everyone said Rhaegar had kidnapped and violated Lyanna. But Aemon insisted his grand-nephew was no rapist. He said Rhaegar was gentle, bookish, melancholy. A man who loved songs more than swords."
"And you believed him?"
"Not then. Not fully. It wasn't until later, when I found..." Aenar paused, organizing memories from a lifetime ago. "When I found proof they'd married. When I learned the truth of their love. But that night with Aemon, learning who I was, it changed everything. I couldn't take the black knowing I was possibly the rightful king of Westeros. I couldn't swear away my claims when I didn't even understand what those claims were."
Daemon was quiet for a long moment, processing everything his son had told him. "So you left the Wall?"
"After Ned Stark was executed, yes. I went to Robb first, but..." Aenar's voice turned bitter. "But learning I was a Targaryen. I wanted to tell someone, and I told Robb. Everything changed after that, he became more distant towards me, things changed and they kept getting worse...So I left to find my aunt across the Narrow Sea. To find Daenerys."
"Tell me about this Daenerys," Daemon said, settling more comfortably against the weirwood. The initial shock of his son's impossible tale was giving way to genuine curiosity.
Aenar's expression darkened. "According to what she told me, her early life was misery. Her brother Viserys—weak, cruel, mad with entitlement—sold her like a broodmare to Khal Drogo when she was barely three-and-ten."
Daemon's face twisted with disgust. "Sold his own sister? To those horse savages?"
"For an army he'd never get," Aenar confirmed. "Viserys thought he was clever, trading his sister's maidenhead for forty thousand screamers. He died with molten gold poured over his head, courtesy of Drogo."
"Good," Daemon said flatly. "A brother who'd sell his sister deserves worse than death."
"I searched for her for over a year," Aenar continued, picking at a piece of bark that had fallen into his lap. "Following rumors and whispers across Essos. The Mother of Dragons, they called her. Breaker of Chains. Khaleesi. I finally found her in Meereen, sitting on top of a pyramid like a queen of old...And the rumors about her—they were true?"
Daemon leaned forward, interested despite himself. "What rumors?"
"That she'd hatched three dragons from stone eggs." Aenar watched his father's eyes widen. "Walked into her husband's funeral pyre and emerged unburnt with three baby dragons clinging to her."
"That's..." Daemon paused, searching for words. "How? A frozen dragon egg is just a stone, there's nothing there to hatch?"
Aenar shrugged, remembering the countless theories he'd heard over the years. "No one knew for certain. The Red Priests claimed it was R'hllor's will, destiny made manifest. Others said it was blood magic—Drogo's death, the witch Mirri Maz Duur's life, her unborn son's sacrifice. Some insisted it was simply the return of magic to the world." He met his father's eyes. "We'll never know the truth. Perhaps that's how it should be—some mysteries deserve to remain mysterious."
"And when you met her?" Daemon prompted. "How did that go?"
Aenar laughed, and his father smiled a little, but his smile turned to shock when Aenar added. "She tried to have me executed."
"What?"
"When I told her I was her nephew. Rhaegar's son she never knew existed—she called me a liar and a pretender. Ordered her Unsullied to take me to the dungeons." Aenar's hand unconsciously moved to his throat, remembering the spear points that had pressed against his skin. "If not for Ser Barristan Selmy, she might have fed me to her dragons that very day."
"Who was Ser Barrisan Selmy?"
"He was a loyal Kingsguard of Prince Rhaegar and he had traveled to Essos to serve his true Queen after Prince Joffrey told him he was no longer suited to wear the White Cloak. He took one look at me and told Daenerys I looked exactly like a young Rhaegar, if Rhaegar had dark hair instead of silver." Aenar smiled sadly. "Strange to be recognized by a man who'd known a father I'd never meet."
Daemon absorbed this, then asked, "So how did you finally convince her?"
Aenar chuckled, though there was little humor in it. "By accident, really. At that time, Daenerys was keeping two of her dragons locked beneath the pyramid. Rhaegal and Viserion. They'd... killed a child. A three-year-old girl, burned to bones. Dany was devastated, terrified of what she'd unleashed on the world. So she chained them in darkness."
"She chained dragons?" Daemon's voice was sharp with disapproval. "Dragons aren't meant for chains. They're not pets or weapons to be locked away when inconvenient. To imprison them in darkness..." He shook his head. "That's slow murder."
"I told her the same, though not that first day. I was still trying to convince her not to execute me." Aenar picked up a small stone, turning it over in his fingers. "She was desperate for proof of my identity. Finally, she said if I could tame either Rhaegal or Viserion, she'd believe my claim."
Daemon frowned. "She didn't know? Just because someone has Valyrian blood doesn't mean they can bond with any riderless dragon. The dragon chooses its rider, not the other way around. Especially a chained dragon. It's not like approaching a hatchling."
"She wasn't raised like us, Father," Aenar said. "No maesters teaching her how dragons lived and worked. She learned everything through trial and error, through instinct and necessity. She wanted to believe me—I could see it in her eyes, the hunger for family—but she'd been betrayed too many times to accept my word alone."
Aenar closed his eyes, letting the memory wash over him.
The pyramid's lower levels stank of dragon. Two Unsullied led Jon down stone steps, their faces expressionless beneath spiked bronze helmets.
"The Mother of Dragons says you may choose," one informed him in accented Common Tongue. "Rhaegal or Viserion. One chance only."
They reached a massive iron door, thick as a man's torso. Beyond it, Jon could hear something moving—the scrape of scales on stone, the rattle of chains, a low rumble that seemed to come from the earth itself.
The door opened, revealing darkness so absolute it seemed solid. The Unsullied thrust torches into brackets on either side of the entrance, the light barely penetrating the vast space beyond. Jon could make out two pairs of eyes—one bronze-gold, one green-bronze—reflecting the firelight like molten metal.
"Choose," the Unsullied said again.
Jon stepped forward, and immediately both dragons reacted. Viserion, cream and gold even in the darkness, pulled against his chains with a shriek that made Jon's ears ring. But Rhaegal... Rhaegal went perfectly still.
"The moment I entered that chamber, I knew," Aenar told Daemon. "Rhaegal was watching me. He was green and bronze, beautiful in the way that dangerous things often are. Named for my father—my first father—though Daenerys couldn't have known that when she named him."
Jon approached slowly, his heart hammering so hard he wondered if the dragon could hear it. Rhaegal's great head lowered, nostrils flaring as he scented this stranger who carried familiar blood.
"Hello," Jon said softly in High Valyrian, the words Maester Aemon had taught him. "I am Jon. I am Aenar. I am your rider, if you'll have me."
The dragon's eyes—bronze with flecks of green—studied him for what felt like hours but was probably only moments. Then, with a movement that shook dust from the ceiling, Rhaegal lowered his great head to the ground.
An invitation.
Jon placed his hand on scales warm as sun-baked stone. The moment his skin made contact, something shifted inside him—a connection, a recognition, a coming home he'd never known he was searching for.
Above them, they could hear Daenerys gasp.
"She watched the whole thing?" Daemon asked.
"From a platform above. She saw Rhaegal accept me, saw him let me climb onto his back even with the chains still binding him. When I emerged from that chamber, she was crying." Aenar's voice softened with the memory.
"And after that?"
"After that, she believed. And slowly, we became family. The last Targaryens in the world, or so we thought." Aenar paused, his expression darkening. "Until Rhaenys arrived."
Daemon straightened. "Rhaenys? But she's here, married to Corlys—"
"Not that Rhaenys. Another one. Rhaegar's daughter with Elia Martell. The one everyone believed died during Robert's Rebellion." Aenar's jaw tightened.
"What happened between you three?" Daemon asked, seeing his son was not happy about this part of the story.
"When I first understood who she was, I was overjoyed. I had another sister, but...now a part of me wished we had never met."
Daemon looked at his son and asked. "What happened?"
Aenar, where is she? Aenar, where is our DAUGHTER!
"Rhaenys wanted to met her family, to met House Martell, and for us to have a new ally, but it brought our Doom."