At dawn, before the Dragonpit of King's Landing, the gathered troops had already put out the fire.
Large numbers of guards and soldiers were stationed around the Dragonpit.
Outside the Dragonpit, Vermax, his entire skeleton shattered and his body paralyzed, lay collapsed. His wings had been completely crushed. Though grievously wounded, his vitality remained stubbornly strong.
Using the only part of his body that could still move—his neck—he wriggled toward Aemond like a maggot, trying to spew out flames.
But in the next moment, Lothorne descended from the sky and seized his neck—the only part of his body that could still move—with his dragon claws. Vermax was powerless to resist, and the fire in his mouth could not be released.
"No… Vermax." Already seized by the guards, Jacaerys cried out in despair and helpless grief.
And Aemond merely watched coldly.
He did not have Lothorne execute Vermax immediately. This young dragon was remarkably tenacious. His wings were ruined, his bones shattered throughout his body, and only his neck could still move.
Aemond glanced at Jacaerys and sighed.
"A pity you followed a bastard."
Jacaerys roared in fury.
"You despicable usurper!"
Aemond turned and looked at him with a faint smile.
"I will not allow a bastard to inherit the name of Targaryen, Strong."
Jacaerys cursed wildly. The guards behind him threw several punches, leaving him dizzy and half-conscious.
"Aemond?" Helaena hurried over from behind.
"The princess is tired. Take the princess back to the Red Keep to rest." Aemond turned his head slightly and glanced at Tella in the crowd.
Tella nodded and immediately stepped forward, pulling Princess Helaena away.
"Princess, do not make this difficult for us."
Helaena wanted to call out to Aemond again, but Aemond merely gave her a cold glance.
In the end, she sighed. Knowing she could not stop him, she left with Tella.
Aemond walked to stand before Jacaerys, looking down at the dazed young man.
One of his men splashed a basin of cold water over him, forcing Jacaerys awake.
Aemond crouched down, grabbed his hair, and lifted his head, calmly staring into that single eye.
"Run," Aemond said calmly. His voice was not loud, yet it strangely pierced through the gradually thinning sound of rain and wind, reaching Jacaerys's ears with perfect clarity.
Jacaerys spat in fury. The spit landed on Aemond's cheek. Yet Aemond did not grow angry; he quietly watched the impotent rage of this defeated man.
"Keep running. Just like your mother, who only knows how to compromise and flee. Other than creating chaos and leaving a mess behind you, what else can you do?"
"Aemond!"
With his head forced upward, Jacaerys glared fiercely at the lofty enemy before him with his only remaining right eye, bloodshot and burning.
"You usurping bastard! You took my eye! You took my marriage! You took my dragon! You took everything that should have been mine!"
"And now you will not even spare my two brothers! You kinslaying bastard!"
"Kinslaying?" Aemond repeated the word softly, the corner of his mouth lifting slightly.
"Jacaerys Strong, what right does a bastard like you have to speak of kinslaying before me?"
"I have never believed that killing three Strongs counts as kinslaying."
"Besides, I have never regarded any of you as kin."
He tilted his head slightly, his gaze sweeping across the empty socket of Jacaerys's blinded left eye.
"Your eye—that was the most just punishment the gods could bestow for your mother's indulgence and the impurity of your blood. And even that blow was dealt by your brother Lucerys."
"As for the dragon?" His gaze fell upon Vermax, pinned beneath Lothorne's claws. "Since when have the dragons of Targaryen become property that bastards may covet and claim?"
"That they answered you is nothing more than an error within the bloodline. And correcting such errors is the duty born to true Targaryens."
"As for everything that belonged to you…" Aemond paused. A trace of almost pitying mockery flickered through his violet eyes.
"You have never possessed anything that was truly yours, Jacaerys."
"You are merely one of Rhaenyra's abominations—a bastard who should never have been allowed to live."
Every word struck like a poisoned needle, stabbing precisely into the most bleeding wounds in Jacaerys's heart—the ones he dared least to touch.
His body began to tremble violently.
"I am a Targaryen!" he roared hoarsely, his voice warped and broken.
"My mother is Rhaenyra Targaryen! She is the rightful heir to the Iron Throne!"
"The blood of Aegon the Conqueror and Jaehaerys the Conciliator flows within me! It was Vermax who chose me!"
"The dragon acknowledged me! Can you deny the resonance of blood?"
"You thief! To deny the truth is shameless even for you!"
"Dragons," Aemond said with iron certainty in his tone, "are sometimes misled by sinful blood."
"And to cleanse and correct such errors—to return the bloodline to purity and order—is my responsibility."
He leaned forward slightly. At that subtle movement, Vhagar seemed to sense it and let out a deep, heavy dragon's roar filled with oppressive force.
"And tonight, Jacaerys Strong, what you have done has crossed every line."
"You crept in secretly, conspired with accomplices, burned the Targaryen Dragonpit, and attacked the loyal soldiers guarding the royal city, staining your hands with the blood of innocents."
"You even attempted to steal a Targaryen dragon and overturn the rightful order."
"Treason, arson, murder, dragon theft… any one of these alone would be enough to warrant the harshest punishment."
"Legitimate? Order? Hahaha!" Jacaerys burst into a string of deranged, miserable laughter as rain ran down his twisted face.
"Your legitimacy is nothing more than stealing my mother's inheritance!"
"Your order is nothing more than seizing everything that belongs to her through conspiracy and violence!"
"I have done no wrong! Everything I did was only to take back what you stole!"
"To reclaim the blood debt from you hypocritical Targaryens!"
"My blood—and the blood of my brothers… every one of those debts will be settled with you!"
"Blood debt…" Aemond nodded slowly. "You are right. Blood debts must indeed be paid in blood."
"From Driftmark, when your brother brought ruin upon himself and left you blind in one eye, to the dragonkeepers and soldiers inside and outside the Dragonpit tonight who died because of your madness."
"And also…" he paused.
"Most important of all…"
He raised his hand again, this time pointing directly at Jacaerys himself.
"The filthy Strong blood in you—the blood that has tainted and confused the bloodline of Targaryen, that sickening blood."
"It should never have existed. Your very existence is the greatest blasphemy against the blood of Targaryen."
"Therefore, Jacaerys Strong, I sentence you to death."
"In the name of the Iron Throne and the laws of the Seven Kingdoms, in the name of the purity and duty of the Targaryen bloodline, and in the name of…"
"All the crimes and the price that you yourself ignited tonight and must bear."
"Come then, Aemond!" Jacaerys knew that words were now useless. Instead, a twisted courage surged up in him, like a dying man's last flash of strength.
"Let us duel!"
He had already decided that even if he could not win, he would at least wound Aemond.
"A knight? A duel? One against one?" Aemond smiled with contempt as he looked at this defeated cur. "Strong, you truly are laughable."
Aemond released the hand gripping his hair and rose to his feet. Tilting his head slightly, he gave an order to the guards beside him.
"Release him. Give him a sword."
The guards removed their restraints.
Then one of them threw the ordinary steel sword at his waist down before Jacaerys.
The sword was heavy. For Jacaerys, exhausted and with his heart already sunk into despair, it was almost difficult even to hold it steady.
In contrast, Aemond held the greatsword Blackfyre, which Hall was presenting with both hands.
The Valyrian steel blade glimmered beneath the slowly brightening dawn, its dark gray sheen like night itself. The faint rippling patterns flowing along the blade seemed almost alive, complementing the cold violet in his eyes.
He did not take any combat stance. He did not even properly look at the posture Jacaerys took as he gathered strength.
"Come then, Aemond!" Jacaerys roared hoarsely. Gathering the last of his strength, hatred, and despair, he gripped the sword with both hands and staggered forward in a wild charge.
The strike had no technique whatsoever—nothing but brute force and hatred—coming down toward Aemond's head in a savage cleaving blow.
He wanted to perish together with him, or at the very least leave a wound upon his body.
Just as the crude blade was about to descend—
Aemond moved.
There was no large evasive motion, no ringing clash of steel in a block.
He merely slid half a step to the left, a movement so slight yet swift as a phantom. The sword that carried all of Jacaerys's desperate will cut uselessly through empty air.
The great momentum caused Jacaerys, whose footing was already unsteady, to lose his balance completely and stumble forward.
And Aemond did not even take advantage of that moment.
Only when Jacaerys barely regained his footing and turned around in embarrassment did he swing Blackfyre.
The movement was casual.
Clack.
A light sound.
The upper half of the steel sword in Jacaerys's hand suddenly spun into the air, tracing a dull arc before falling onto the distant stone ground with a clang.
The broken edge was smooth as a mirror, reflecting his blank and stunned face.
"What…" He stared stupidly at the half-broken sword still in his hand, as if he had not yet understood what had happened.
Aemond did not even give him time to react.
The second strike had already followed.
The blade of Blackfyre precisely entered from the left collarbone and shoulder of Jacaerys, cutting in with perfect smoothness.
Pshk.
This time the sound was much duller.
Jacaerys froze in place, his single eye widened to the limit. Then his upper body slowly slid apart from his lower body along a smooth diagonal line.
Blood did not spray outward. Instead, it surged forth like floodwaters from a broken dam, instantly staining the ground and gravel beneath him red.
"Ah… gh…" The pain of being split apart finally struck. Jacaerys let out an inhuman scream as his upper body fell to the ground, his organs spilling from the massive wound.
He clawed uselessly at the ground with both hands, trying to crawl toward Aemond, his eye filled with completely collapsed madness and unwilling rage.
Aemond lowered the tip of his sword. Several thick drops of blood slid down the flawless edge of the Valyrian steel and fell into the dust.
He walked forward and stopped in front of Jacaerys's head.
Looking down at the face twisted by pain and hatred, there was no pleasure or excitement in his eyes—only indifference.
"All these years, scheming and brooding without end…"
"And that was the best strike you could manage?"
"Strong, your revenge—like your vile blood—is utterly disappointing."
"I cu… curse you! Aemond! You… will not die well!!" Jacaerys struggled to raise his head, squeezing the broken curse out of his throat with the last of his strength, his single eye fixed on his enemy.
Aemond did not respond again.
He did not even frown. He merely flicked his wrist, and Blackfyre fell straight down.
Crack.
A clean, crisp sound.
All the wailing, curses, and unwilling rage stopped abruptly.
The head of Jacaerys Strong rolled aside, the expression on his face forever frozen in extreme resentment and pain.
The headless body twitched a few times, and finally went completely still.
Aemond flicked Blackfyre, shaking off the remaining drops of blood. A sword forged of Valyrian steel would not be stained by them.
Then, with a sharp shing, he sheathed it.
He did not spare the corpse at his feet a second glance. Turning, he walked toward the people waiting for him. The morning sunlight fell across the side of his face, marked by a few flecks of blood, making those violet eyes seem all the deeper.
That coldness radiating from his whole body made every soldier present instinctively hold his breath and lower his head in awe.
After a while, Hall hurried over. He and his men had already recovered Tyraxes's head and half of Joffrey's body from Blackwater Bay.
Joffrey was completely dead.
Hall cautiously glanced at the miserable corpse split into two on the ground and the severed head that had rolled away, then respectfully asked, "Prince, shall these two… bastards' heads be hung before the walls of the Red Keep?"
"And shall Tyraxes's head also be displayed?"
"No." Aemond's gaze passed over those remains. "It is enough to hang up these two Strongs."
"Bring back Tyraxes's head and lay it to rest properly in the cellars of the Red Keep."
Dragons were the symbol of Targaryen rule. How could he be foolish enough to flaunt a dragon's head as a sign of victory?
To him, victory was the natural outcome. He would not teach the realm the notion that dragons, too, could be killed.
"And Vermax?" Rosso, captain of the dragonkeepers, glanced at the dark green young dragon being pinned down by Lothorne, letting out low whimpers because his master had died, and asked cautiously.
Even reduced to this state, the young dragon still stubbornly clung to life.
Hearing that, Aemond turned back and cast a glance at the tenacious young dragon.
His wings were utterly ruined, his bones shattered, and he lay collapsed on the ground like a maggot. Only his neck, trapped beneath Lothorne's claws, was still struggling to lift itself.
"Keep raising him. Perhaps… he may still be of some use in the future."
He paid it no further heed and lifted his eyes to the sky.
The rain had stopped completely. The dark clouds had scattered, and the morning sunlight poured down without obstruction, bathing King's Landing and distant Blackwater Bay alike in golden light.
The air was fresh, carrying the dampness after rain and a faint trace of blood.
War, in the end, had arrived in just such an abrupt way.
Viserys was still alive, and yet in a single night he had killed Rhaenyra's three Strongs.
He could imagine how mad and furious that woman would be when she learned the news.
Then let her come.
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