Chapter 10: The Dragon Prince and the Grieving God

Chapter 10: The Dragon Prince and the Grieving God

The Red Keep had become a mausoleum of power. The Iron Throne sat empty, a cold and jagged reminder of a king who no longer ruled, even from his own chambers. The corridors, once bustling with petitioners and schemers, were now haunted by a nervous quiet. The only consistent sound was the distant, muffled echo of King Aerys's ravings, a mad king's monologue to an audience of flames. For Ser Jaime Lannister, the youngest knight ever to don the white cloak of the Kingsguard, this was his life now: guarding the ghost of a king and the shell of a dynasty.

He stood at his post outside the King's chambers, a golden statue of youthful perfection, his face a carefully constructed mask of noble indifference. But behind the mask, his mind was a turmoil of disgust and disillusionment. He had dreamed of this cloak his entire life, dreamed of serving a great king, of glorious battles and heroic deeds. Instead, he was a glorified jailor for a lunatic, forced to listen to the pyromancers whisper their sycophantic praises to a man who had forgotten his own name but not his love for the smell of burning flesh.

The court was terrified of the King, but they were more terrified of the god in Flea Bottom. The 'Miracle at the Sept' was a wound that would not close, a constant, humiliating reminder of the crown's impotence. Jaime had been there. He had seen the sky boil. He had seen the weirwood bloom from the pyre. He had seen a power that made the talk of dragons and swords seem like children's games. He had also seen the being's eyes, and he had not seen divine wisdom or benevolent grace. He had seen a weariness so profound it was terrifying, a sorrow that could drown worlds.

His duty kept him chained to the Red Keep, but his thoughts often strayed to the city below. He heard the stories. The cult growing around the Gray Giant. The silent, peaceful defiance of an entire district. He found a grim, secret satisfaction in it. The King, his father Tywin, the whole rotten structure of their world deserved to be shaken. He just hadn't expected the shaking to come from a drunken, grieving god who seemed to want nothing to do with it.

It was during a late-night watch, the castle shrouded in a deep, moonless dark, that Jaime saw him. It was a flicker of movement near the kitchens, a shadow detaching itself from other shadows. Jaime's hand went instinctively to the gilded pommel of his sword. His senses were sharp, honed by a lifetime of training. This was no common servant. The figure moved with a quiet, fluid grace that spoke of noble birth and martial training.

The man was disguised in the rough-spun clothes of a common sellsword, a heavy, hooded cloak obscuring his features. But as he passed under the flickering light of a torch, the hood shifted for a fraction of a second. Jaime saw a flash of silver-gold hair and the unmistakable profile of a Targaryen prince. His heart hammered against his ribs. It was impossible. Prince Rhaegar was on Dragonstone.

Jaime moved silently, melting into the alcoves and shadows of the castle, his white cloak a hindrance he cursed under his breath. He followed the disguised prince through the labyrinthine corridors of the Red Keep, down winding service stairs, and out through a small, forgotten postern gate that opened onto the city. The Prince of Dragonstone, the heir to the Iron Throne, had slipped into his own capital like a thief in the night. And Jaime knew, with a certainty that chilled him, where he was going.

He followed at a distance, a white ghost trailing a dark one. Rhaegar navigated the sleeping city with an unerring sense of direction, his path leading him steadily downwards, from the grand hills of the nobles to the cramped, stinking alleys of the poor. He was heading for Flea Bottom. He was heading for Thor.

Prince Rhaegar Targaryen felt the change in the city as a dissonant note in a familiar song. He had returned in secret, his heart heavy with a sense of grim duty. The raven from Varys had been circumspect, but Rhaegar had learned long ago to read the true message in the Spider's silences. His father had shattered. The realm was adrift. And a power of unknown origin had manifested in the heart of the capital.

He was a man haunted by prophecy. The words of the woods witch, the dream of the Prince That Was Promised, the song of ice and fire—these were the currents that guided his life. He had sought knowledge in ancient scrolls and dusty tomes, seeking to understand the destiny he believed was his to bear. He had thought the promised prince would be born of his line, a dragon with three heads. But this… this was something else. A god. A storm. A power that could reshape the world. He had to see it for himself. He had to know if this was a new sign, a new piece in the great, terrible puzzle of the future.

As he entered the streets of Flea Bottom, the atmosphere grew thick, heavy with a strange, palpable energy. It was the energy of faith. He saw the crude altars at street corners, the burning incense, the sigils of a lightning bolt crudely painted on doorways. He heard the whispers, the stories of the Gray Giant. The smallfolk he passed looked at him not with suspicion, but with a kind of communal solidarity. They were a people with a secret, a people with a protector.

He reached the street where The Grinning Pig stood and was forced to stop. The street was crowded, even at this late hour. A hundred or more people were gathered in a silent, prayerful vigil outside the tavern. At their head stood the Storm-Crier, the mummer-turned-priest, his arms raised as if in supplication to the closed tavern door.

Rhaegar watched from the shadows, his keen, intelligent eyes taking in every detail. He saw the desperation, the hope, the fear. This was not the Faith of the Seven, with its rigid structure and political machinations. This was raw, primal, a direct appeal to a power that had answered.

He had no intention of kneeling. He was a prince of the blood of Old Valyria, the heir to a line of dragonlords. He would not approach this new power as a beggar. He skirted the edge of the crowd, his movements silent and sure, and found a side alley that ran along the tavern. He scaled a rain barrel and, with the practiced ease of a man who had spent his youth in martial training, pulled himself onto the low, sloped roof. He crept across the tiles to a grimy, second-story window—the window, he surmised, of the god's own room.

He peered through the filth-streaked glass. The room was small, lit by a single, sputtering candle. The furniture was sparse and wretched. And there, sitting on the edge of a narrow, lumpy bed, was the god himself.

The sight took Rhaegar's breath away. He was a giant of a man, his frame immense even when slumped in on itself. Stormbreaker, the impossible axe Rhaegar had heard described in the reports, leaned against the wall, its metal seeming to drink the candlelight. The man was holding something in his hands, staring at it with an intensity that was far removed from the drunken apathy the spies had described. It was a small, crudely carved wooden bird.

Rhaegar had expected a monster, a radiant being, or a cunning charlatan. He had not expected this. He saw no divine majesty. He saw a man drowning in an ocean of sorrow. The grief radiating from him was a palpable force, a cold, heavy presence that seemed to press against the very glass of the window. Rhaegar, a man well-acquainted with melancholy, recognized a sorrow that dwarfed his own as a mountain dwarfs a hill. This was not the grief of a mortal man. This was the grief of a star that has watched its planets die. This, Rhaegar knew with an instinct that went deeper than logic, was real.

He had seen enough. He slipped from the roof back into the alley and walked to the front of the tavern. He ignored the gasps of the crowd and the indignant squawk of the Storm-Crier as he pushed his way through the supplicants. He threw open the tavern door and stepped inside.

The tavern was empty save for the sleeping form of the barkeep, passed out behind his counter. Rhaegar ignored him and went straight to the staircase. He took the stairs two at a time, his heart pounding not with fear, but with the thrill of impending revelation. He reached the door to Thor's room and, without knocking, pushed it open.

Thor was lost in the grain of the wood. The small, carved bird felt heavy in his hands, a weight of expectation he could not bear. He saw the little girl's face, her tear-streaked desperation. He saw the broken pieces of her old doll. This new one was a tribute, a thank you. A chain.

He was so lost in his own misery that he didn't hear the door open. He only registered the presence of another when a shadow fell across him. He looked up, his eyes slowly focusing, a flare of irritation rising in his chest. Another supplicant? Another fool coming to beg for blessings he couldn't give from a god who didn't exist?

But this was no beggar. The man standing in his doorway was tall and slender, with a strange, quiet grace about him. He was dressed in rough clothes, but they fit him with an aristocrat's ease. His face was long and handsome, framed by silver-gold hair that seemed to catch the candlelight. But it was his eyes that held Thor's attention. They were a deep, dark indigo, and they were filled with a profound, soul-deep melancholy that Thor recognized instantly. This was a man who understood sorrow.

More than that, this was a man utterly without fear. He looked at Thor, at the squalor of the room, at the terrifying axe leaning against the wall, and his expression was not one of awe or terror, but of intense, analytical curiosity.

"They call you a god," the stranger said, his voice quiet, melodic. It was not a challenge, nor was it an act of worship. It was a simple statement of fact.

Thor slowly, deliberately, placed the wooden bird on the rickety table beside him. "They are fools," he rumbled, his voice thick with disuse and ale. "Go away."

The stranger did not move. "My father is the King of this land. He believes you are a threat, a fraud, or a prize to be won. My spies believe you are a broken man of immense power. The people believe you are their saviour." He took a step into the room, his indigo eyes fixed on Thor's. "I am here to find out what you believe you are."

A prince. Thor could smell the royalty on him, an air of command and destiny that was as unmistakable as the stench of the city. He sighed, a great, weary exhalation of breath. The game had come to him. He could no longer ignore it.

"I believe," Thor said, his voice a low growl, "that I am a man who wishes to be left alone. Your father's games do not interest me."

"It is not a game," Rhaegar replied, his intensity growing. "There are prophecies. A darkness coming from the North. A prince that was promised, who will bear a song of ice and fire." He took another step, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "I have read the scrolls. I have studied the signs. I believed it was my son, that my line was the one. But you… a man who commands the storm, who creates life from a pyre… you are not in any of the prophecies. You are something new. Something that might break the wheel entirely."

Thor stared at him, and the irritation in his chest curdled into a cold, familiar dread. Prophecy. Destiny. He had heard it all before. He had been a part of a prophecy himself. The son of Odin who would lead Asgard to glory, who would stop Ragnarok. He had seen how that had ended. In fire, in death, in failure. Prophecy was a cage, a set of rails laid down by fate that led, inevitably, to ruin.

"I am not a part of your prophecy," Thor snarled, a dangerous edge entering his voice. He stood up, his full height and bulk making the small room feel like a closet. The floorboards groaned, and the air crackled with a sudden, tense energy. "I am not your promised prince. And I will have no part in your 'song'."

Rhaegar did not flinch. He stood his ground, his gaze unwavering, though his hand instinctively moved to the hilt of the sword hidden beneath his cloak. "You cannot stand apart from it. Your very existence has changed the world. You are a power now, whether you wish to be or not. You can ignore it, let the darkness come and consume us all, or you can take your place."

"My place?" Thor let out a bitter, humourless laugh that sounded like stones grinding together. "My place was on a throne in a realm that is now a smoking ruin. My place was at the side of my people as they were slaughtered. My place was to die, but I was not even granted that mercy." He took a menacing step forward, his shadow engulfing the Targaryen prince. "I have had enough of destiny. I have seen where it leads. I will not walk that path again. Not for you, not for your prophecies, not for your pathetic, short-lived world."

He was close enough now that Rhaegar could see the flecks of ancient pain in his blue eyes, could feel the immense, suppressed power radiating from him like heat from a forge.

"Then what will you do?" Rhaegar asked, his voice still impossibly calm. "Sit here and drink until the world ends? A being of your power cannot hide. My father will not let you be. The other lords will not let you be. Sooner or later, they will force your hand. They will threaten the people you have, against your will, taken under your protection. What will you do then, Lord of Sorrow?"

The question struck Thor like a physical blow. Because he knew the answer. He had seen it in himself when the Gold Cloak had struck the child. He had felt it when he stood before the pyre. His apathy was a shield, but it was not absolute. There was still a flicker of the old Thor inside him, a cursed, heroic impulse that would not let him stand by and watch the innocent suffer. He was trapped. Trapped by his own nature.

The standoff was absolute. The grieving god and the dragon prince, two beings burdened by destiny, staring at each other in a filthy room in the heart of Flea Bottom. One seeking to escape his fate, the other desperately trying to understand his.

Outside, hidden in the shadows of the alley across the street, Jaime Lannister watched the window. He could not hear the words, but he could see the tension in their silhouettes, the confrontation of two impossible forces. His prince, the hope of the realm, was conversing with a god. And Jaime, the sworn protector of the King, felt his loyalties, his oaths, and his entire world beginning to fracture. The prince was playing a dangerous game, and the god did not look like he was in a sporting mood. The real game of thrones, Jaime realised with a sickening lurch in his stomach, had not even begun.