Darkness.
Then—pain.
Viserys gasped as the wyrm's throat convulsed around him, muscles squeezing like a furnace's fist. Acid burned his skin. What was left of his clothes turned to ash and fell from his body. The stench of sulfur and rotting meat filled his nose—thick enough to choke on.
This is how I die.
The thought came with startling clarity. Not on a throne. Not with a sword in his hand. Eaten alive by a fucking worm.
Thankfully, it looked like his Targaryen genes had saved him from burning alive. It was literally a furnace in here—any other man would've turned to ash.
Then the system flared to life in his mind, its blue interface cutting through the black:
⸻
[EMERGENCY PROTOCOL]
Condition: Critical
Warning: Dragon eggs detected—reacting to ambient magic.
⸻
He twisted, hissing as his bare shoulders scraped against the wyrm's rib-like cartilage. There—lodged in the folds of the beast's stomach—were the eggs.
Of course.
The damn things had survived. And they were glowing.
Cracks spiderwebbed across their shells, pulsing with the same rhythm as the wyrm's grotesque heartbeat. The heat here wasn't just burning them—it was feeding them.
The system chimed again:
⸻
[Heir of Flame: Final Stage]
Sacrifice Required: 15,000 Dragon Points to catalyze hatching.
Accept?
⸻
Viserys bared his teeth. "Fucking do it."
The moment the points drained, the world split.
Light—blinding, golden, alive—erupted from the eggs. The wyrm screamed, its body thrashing as the shells shattered. Viserys threw up an arm, but it was too late—
BOOM.
The explosion tore the beast apart from the inside.
⸻
Daenerys P.O.V
(Mixed with Viserys near the end for intensity)
She was still screaming when the fire erupted.
One moment, the wyrm was there—monstrous, victorious. The next, its body burst, showering the battlefield in gore and flame. Daenerys shielded her face, her breath catching—
—and then she saw him.
Viserys.
Naked. Unharmed.
And in his arms—dragons.
Three of them, small and shrieking, their wings still slick with birth-fluid. The red one clung to his shoulder, hissing at the world. The green twisted toward her, its eyes locking onto hers with eerie focus. The black, largest of the three, watched the survivors with a stillness that felt ancient.
Kinvara was the first to move. She fell to her knees, her voice breaking. "Azor Ahai."
The words rippled through the survivors like a wave. The Fiery Hand followed. Then the Agema. Their weapons clattered to the ground. Even Illyrio dropped with a grunt, his jowls trembling.
Daenerys didn't kneel. She ran.
She crashed into Viserys, her fists balled in his hair, her face pressed against his chest. She didn't care that he was naked, that she was crying, that the dragons between them squawked in protest. He was alive.
"You idiot," she choked out. "You stupid, reckless—"
Viserys laughed—a real, wild sound—and cupped the back of her head.
"I told you," he murmured into her hair. "Fire can't kill a dragon."
Behind them, Kinvara rose, her voice trembling with zeal.
"The Lord of Light has blessed us! The prince that was promised walks among us!"
Viserys met her gaze over Daenerys' shoulder. For a heartbeat, his expression was unguarded—amused, almost arrogant in his triumph. Then it smoothed into something regal. He extended a hand, and the red dragon unfurled its wings, screeching like a challenge.
"All of you here today were witnesses to the start of a new age. An age of dragons. An age of freedom. An age of light. When I was eaten by that firewyrm, its stomach burned everything—my shirt, my shoes, my pants, all the bodies of the men and women it had devoured—but it didn't burn me. It rebirthed me. It brought back my dragons."
He raised his hand. Blackfyre materialized in his grip, its blade igniting in flames. It surprised him that he assumed it was just one of the priests' fire magic.
"I am not just Viserys Targaryen. Not just Azor Ahai. Not merely the prince that was promised."
He paused.
"I am the son of R'hllor. Your messiah. Your god in human form. Serve me as you would serve my father, and I will deliver this world to you—the enlightened few. I will save this world from the darkness to come."
You might think he was actually telling the truth. If you were like these people—fanatics—maybe even someone like Illyrio would believe some of it. He had just been eaten by a giant firewyrm and then exploded it from the inside out and stepped out with three dragons. Even a skeptic would admit his words had some merit.
Did they?
No. He had just pulled this shit out of his ass.
He was still scared shitless from being eaten alive. Like any man would be.
But he'd gotten a second chance at life. And he had almost lost it. Thanks to the system, he survived—for now.
But he wasn't going to lose the opportunity to gain something as powerful as fanatic loyalty just because he was afraid. Just because he feared death.
He would use those raw emotions. He would pour them into something else—into this speech. Into divinizing himself before them.
As he finished speaking, the survivors erupted into cheers. But Daenerys, still pressed against him, felt his heartbeat—fast, alive, human—and wondered if anyone else saw the way his fingers trembled.
⸻
Elsewhere
The letter crinkled in Varys' grip as he read it for the third time.
⸻
To the Master of Whisperers,
You once served the dragon. Serve it again. When I come for the Iron Throne, the realm will bleed. Stand with me, and you and your little birds will keep their tongues—even after trying to assassinate me. Stand against me, and I will burn your little birds alive and have you watch, and you will burn too.
I may sound like a madman—like my father—but I am not. I care about my family, and you threatened the only family I have left, as well as me. I'm being merciful by offering you a way to keep your life and do a great service to the realm by siding with its rightful ruler. Not some fat, drunken lecher who's dragged the crown into debt.
—Viserys Targaryen, Rightful King of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men, Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, and Protector of the Realm
⸻
The candle flame danced as he held the parchment over it. The wax seal—a three-headed dragon—melted first.
"Trouble, Lord Varys?"
Littlefinger's voice was honeyed poison. He leaned against the doorframe, his smile a knife in the dark.
Varys let the last of the letter burn. "The winds are changing," he said lightly. "Best we adjust our sails."
But his mind was already racing.
Just a few months ago, the boy had been an arrogant brat. But from the look of this letter—and what Jorah had told him—the boy had killed Khal Drogo with some sort of magic.
And that was never good news.