Daenaera screams. Aegon shudders. Viserys strengthens his grip on his brother's hand.
"Nothing to worry about," Viserys says, with a reassuring smile. "Larra screamed even louder when our children were born." The smile fades as his thought turns to his absent wife, now back in her native Lys.
Viserys is already a father three times over. That first time, when the boy who would be named after his uncle was about to be born, Aegon had vowed to stay by his younger brother's side until the babe was safely delivered.
I won't abandon you. Not this time. Not again.
But his resolve had lasted only until his good-sister's screams of pain reached a certain threshold. He fled. Fled and abandoned his little brother, yet again. He fled not on the back of his dragon this time, but with his own two feet. Fled to his bedchamber. Locked the door. Closed the curtains. Snuffed out all the candles. Spent half a day curled up in bed, in the dark, shaking, with his hands covering both ears.
Larra's screams had reminded him of his mother's screams.
Mother, flee!
There is no fleeing childbirth, just like there is no fleeing a hungry, angry dragon.
He could not flee, this time. He must not. This is his wife. This is his child in her womb. Their child, the child Daenaera is risking her life to bring into this world.
He silently curses all the advisors who had fretted, pushed and prodded that it is time for him to consummate the marriage.
You need an heir, Your Grace.
Your wife has flowered, Your Grace.
She is old enough, Your Grace.
"Mother, please!" Yet she sounds like a child still, screaming for her mother.
He had waited, waited to bed her – for his own sake as much as hers, he would admit – but he had waited, and yet she seems too young still, even now.
Six-and-ten is too young to die. In childbirth. In anything.
What have I done?
He stands up, abruptly, wrenching away Viserys' hand from his own in the process.
Her mother is with her. She has no need of me here. I can do nothing for her. Nothing!
Useless. Completely useless. Just as he had been useless when the dragon came for his mother.
Mother, flee!
What is the use of that warning, when it is far too late?
He closes his eyes, sways unsteadily on his feet, as another scream pierces the air. Fire and blood. Blood and bones and flesh. Broken flesh. His mother's. Oh Mother, please. Mother Above, have mercy, please –
Mother, flee!
No, not his mother. She is safe. She is safe! She fled.
"Aegon?" Viserys is standing, both hands on Aegon's shoulders, steadying him. Viserys draws nearer, catching Aegon in his embrace, whispering in his brother's ear, "Leave, if you have to. Daenaera will understand."
Aegon pulls away, reflexively shrinking from the embrace. He steadies himself with one hand touching the wall.
I understand. I would have done the same. I would have fled too, Viserys had said, when he first returned from captivity.
His brother's understanding could not erase Aegon's feeling of guilt, the crushing guilt that he had failed his brother, just like he had failed his mother.
I forgive you, Viserys had added.
His brother's forgiveness would not allow Aegon to forgive himself.
The only one you have to answer to is yourself. The only judgment that matters is your own, not anyone else's, his father had told him, when he was a boy. The notoriously daring, dashing and dangerous Daemon Targaryen had actually meant something quite different to what his son understood those words to mean.
"Come, brother, I'll take you to your bedchamber," Viserys says, gently.
Aegon flees. This time, his feet take him not to his bedchamber, but into the birthing chamber.
Confusion greets his entrance. "Your Grace, you should not be here," the maester frets.
Daenaera has not one but two Lady Velaryons by her side; her own mother, and Aegon's half-sister Baela, married to Daenaera's own cousin Lord Alyn.
"Push, Daenaera. Keep pushing," Baela is saying. "You must keep pushing."
"It will be over soon, sweetling," her mother keeps murmuring.
"You must leave, Your Grace," the maester repeats, glancing at Aegon's pale, bloodless face.
Daenaera sees her husband. Her face is slick with sweat. Her lower lip is bleeding. "Don't go," she says. "Stay. Please."
I want to stay. Forever and ever, the girl of six who was the last maid to be presented to Aegon at the great ball had declared, after he took her on a tour of the Red Keep.
Choose her, Baela had said. She is clever, like Viserys. She is lively. She is the sun you need in this dark, dark place.
She is a child, Aegon had countered, not yet three-and-ten and already feeling like he had lived three hundred years and more.
She will not be a child forever.
"Aegon? Will you stay?" Daenaera bites her lower lip, suppressing another scream. "Please. I need you." She is crying now, crying and calling out for her husband.
"If you are leaving, then go. Now. You are agitating her," Baela warns him.
He suppresses the instinct to flee. He takes one step, then another, pushing past his fear, his doubt, his guilt, his misery and his despair, until he reaches his wife. Taking a deep breath, he takes her hand and says, "I want to stay. Forever and ever."
"You remember," she says, trying to smile, but the half-smile turns into a grimace as she screams her loudest scream so far.
"Push!" the two Lady Velaryons shout in unison.
"I see the head," the maester declares.
Daenaera is panting, pushing and panting. "Close your eyes," she manages to say between breaths.
"I have to see." To bear witness. To not look away from her pain, her suffering.
"No. It is enough that you are with me."
He holds her hand, tightly, as tightly as his eyes are closed. He opens them when the cry of another creature is finally heard. But it is her face he is staring at, not the babe's; it is the glow that spreads over her face that he concentrates on as they hear Baela says, "A boy. You have a son and heir, Aegon."
He turns his head, slowly, to look at his son. He sees blood, blood and bones and flesh, and the next scream he hears is his own.
"I should not have asked you to stay."
"It wasn't the birth. It was …" he hesitates, not finding the words.
"The sight of our son?"
He nods.
"But he is healthy. He is perfect."
"He is."
"What did you see, Aegon?"
Death. I see death. Blood and bones and flesh.
Broken flesh.
But whose? His mother's, from the guilt and memory that still haunt him? His son's, from the fear and doubt that would not leave him? His own, from the misery and despair that would not release their stranglehold on him?
Daenaera reaches out to touch his hand. He flinches, backs away, then tries to hide the gesture, but it is far too late. She has seen.
"You must rest," he tells her, caressing her hair in a gesture of atonement.
"We have not decided on a name," she replies. "Are you certain you do not want to name him after your father?"
No, the last thing his son needs is for the realm to be reminded of that other Daemon Targaryen. It will only make his path in life much, much harder. "I am certain. We will name him after your father."
"Daeron. Our Daeron."
"Daeron Targaryen. And one day, King Daeron, First of His Name," Aegon says. Daeron the Lucky, he thinks. Daeron the Unbroken, he wishes fervently.