When we finally entered the King's private chambers, Father moved with an odd, frantic urgency that was entirely uncharacteristic of his usual measured demeanour.
He bypassed his large oak writing desk entirely, stepping toward the bare stone wall beside the hearth. Viserys and I exchanged deeply confused glances. Mother, however, merely stood near the centre of the room, leaning upon her cane and watching him with patient silence.
Father ran his aged fingers along the mortar until he found a specific seam. With a sharp push, a loose block of stone slid inward, revealing a small, dark hollow. From the hidden cavity, he extracted a tiny, stoppered glass vial filled with a clear liquid.
"What are you doing, Father?" I asked, entirely bewildered by the clandestine display.
He did not look back at me. "Patience, Baelon. All will be revealed soon."
He moved to his desk, picking up a silver goblet filled with drinking water. With steady hands, he unstoppered the vial and let a single, precise drop of the clear liquid fall into the cup. He swirled the water gently, then picked up a dry writing quill.
Instead of the nib, Father dipped the feathered end of the quill into the diluted mixture.
He unrolled the Imperial missive upon the desk. With deliberate strokes, he wiped the damp feather back and forth across the seemingly blank expanse of parchment at the bottom of the letter, just below the Emperor's signature.
Once the bottom of the parchment was thoroughly dampened, Father lifted it and moved toward the lit candle resting on the edge of his desk. He held the parchment carefully over the open flame, letting the heat lick the back of the paper.
For a moment, nothing happened. And then, the parchment began to change.
The heat reacted with the damp, alchemical mixture. Dark, crisp lines of text began to burn their way into visibility upon the blank surface, slowly spelling out a hidden, secondary message.
Viserys let out a sharp, shocked gasp. "By the Gods..."
I stared at the newly revealed ink, a cold shiver racing down my spine. The trick itself was a clever bit of espionage, but that was not what truly unsettled me.
As I watched my father calmly extinguish the candle, my mind raced with a singular question: How in the Fourteen Flames did the King of Westeros know exactly how to decipher a hidden message from the Emperor of Rome?
We all focused intently upon the hidden message that was bleeding through the parchment.
'To Jaehaerys Targaryen,
If you are reading this, then it means you know something of the higher mysteries. It warms my heart to know that you Dragonlords have not completely lost your touch with the powers that forged your beasts. Although, considering my past dealings with Visenya, this should hardly be a surprise.
The words written above were the machinations of my son, Octavian. I, on the other hand, possess a much more pliant disposition towards people of magic. Yes, Daemon intends to intercede and participate in the war for Qohor. He has chosen to fight against Rome, and he will pay the price for this folly.
The ransom for his rescue will be as your family is so fond of saying—Fire and Blood—except I only wish to claim a measure of your blood. The remaining ingredients of this ransom will be discussed once a member of your family arrives at Ctesiphon.Remember that all this can be resolved peacefully, or I can simply siphon Daemon until he becomes a withered husk of his former self. Caraxes is involved in this bargain as well.
From,
Harry'
Every word of that hidden script sent a fresh chill down my spine. The insinuations made within the secret message—and its terrifying implications—carried consequences stretching back decades. We all continued to stare at Father, though Mother shared a much deeper understanding with him, the two of them exchanging a grim nod.
"How long?" I asked vehemently, unable to hide my outrage. "How long have you two been keeping secrets of this magnitude from the family?"
My father looked me in the eye, saying nothing. The silence stretched, causing Viserys to shift anxiously on his feet.
"It was a mistake of youth, compounded by time and our improved position within the realm," Mother said softly, stepping into the breach. "Your father and I discovered far too late just how crucial magic had been to us Valyrians and our dragons. By the time we truly understood, the only living practitioner in our family had already passed."
"Visenya," I whispered, the name tasting like ash.
"Yes. Queen Visenya had been an ardent follower of the Fourteen Flames since her maiden days," Father relented with a heavy sigh. "It was only after Maegor died and I ascended the Iron Throne that we discovered letters hidden in her chambers upon Dragonstone. They were all written in a cipher we were unable to crack. It was only when we dug deeper that we realized they all ended with the exact same sequence of runes. Your mother and I deduced it must be the name of the sender. Yet, despite our tedious searching, we never found the key to the cipher."
"But one day, by pure happenstance, I was having Visenya's chambers restructured for my own use when a mason knocked a stone loose from the hearth," Mother continued, her voice dropping to a faint whisper. "From within the cavity fell Visenya's private journal. She wrote much of her life in it, along with the dark arts she practised. Sadly, they were mostly her musings, not complete instructions. However, folded within this journal was a torn letter, accompanied by a glass vial. The letter simply read, 'Wet and burn me'—and it was marked with the exact same cipher. But this time, the cipher was accompanied by the true name of the sender."
Father brought the Imperial missive back into the candlelight. Sure enough, if one combined the first word following every full stop in the letter, it spelled out the exact same instruction. Before they could speak further, I connected the final, terrifying dots.
"Harry," I breathed in sudden realisation. "But this would mean Queen Visenya was in continued communication with the Emperor of Rome."
"We did not know until today that he was the Emperor," Father clarified. "Visenya's journal holds many mentions of him—of how he taught her, and how he helped her advance her understanding of blood rituals and sacrifice. We were able to decipher a few of the letters they exchanged based on the limited cipher key we extracted from that original torn letter. Even so, many parts of her writings still remain a mystery to us. Eventually, as the matters of the realm took precedence, and with no immediate threat to our survival, we decided to seclude this dark aspect of our heritage."
"Until now," I said, a bitter agitation bleeding into my voice.
Father merely nodded.