Title: The Whisper of Wings
Title: The Whisper of Wings
Year and Month: 80 AC, 9th Moon
The world, for a being of my intellect and ambition, had shrunk to the size of a single, lavishly appointed room. The royal nursery was my gilded cage, my operational headquarters, and my training ground. Four months had passed since the incident at the Dragonpit, four months of feigning the helpless idiocy of infancy while my mind and body underwent a revolution. Every day was a masterclass in patience and subtle manipulation, a high-stakes performance for an audience of unwitting giants.
My days were structured around a routine I had carefully conditioned into my caretakers. My primary wet nurse, a stout woman from the Crownlands named Lyra, was my first successful project. In the beginning, she had been prone to mindless chatter and clumsy handling. A few precisely timed, ear-splitting shrieks when she fumbled, contrasted with beatific silence and what passed for an infant's smile when she was swift and gentle, had trained her with startling efficiency. Now, she moved with a quiet competence that pleased me. The servants learned, too. The rustle of a silk dress, the clatter of a dropped spoon—all were met with a piercing wail that only ceased when the offender was gone. Soon, only the most silent and efficient were assigned to my care. They called me the 'Quiet Prince,' a solemn, serious babe who disliked noise. They had no idea I was merely curating my environment for optimal data absorption.
My senses, thanks to the serum, were a symphony of information. I could distinguish the individual threads in the Myrish tapestries on the wall, smell the faint tang of salt on the breeze from Blackwater Bay, and hear the frantic heartbeat of a mouse scurrying behind the wainscoting. My twin sister, Gael, was my perfect foil in this controlled environment. She was a normal infant in every way—her cries were genuine expressions of hunger or discomfort, her gurgles were random and joyous, her sleep was deep and untroubled. She was the baseline against which my own unnatural stillness was measured. Her presence made me seem less like an anomaly and more like one end of a spectrum. I ensured she was well cared for. When her cries went on for too long, I would add my own calculated noise to the mix, ensuring a swift response from the nurses. Her well-being was strategically important; a sickly or distressed twin would draw unwanted attention and scrutiny to our nursery.
My physical development was a secret source of profound satisfaction. Beneath my swaddling clothes, I practiced relentlessly. I could clench and unclench each toe individually. I could rotate my wrists with perfect fluidity. My neck muscles were strong enough to turn my head with deliberate, smooth motion, a feat I used sparingly, to avoid alarming the maesters. My body was a high-performance engine, idling under a placid hood, waiting for the signal to engage.
The first major test of my performance came on a bright afternoon in the ninth moon. The air was crisp with the coming of autumn. The door to the nursery opened to admit two figures who towered over even my father. They were my elder brothers, the pillars of the next generation: Prince Aemon, the Prince of Dragonstone, and Prince Baelon, the Spring Prince.
I knew them intimately from the pages of history. Aemon, the heir, dutiful, respected, but perhaps lacking the iron will of his father. He would be killed by a Myrish crossbow bolt on Tarth in 92 AC, a predictable, almost mundane end for the heir to the Iron Throne. Baelon, on the other hand, was all fire and charisma. A warrior prince, a dragonrider, beloved by the smallfolk and the lords alike. He was the father of Viserys I and Daemon Targaryen, the man who should have been king after Jaehaerys but died from a burst belly just before his father did. Their arrival was a significant event. These were not servants to be conditioned; they were major players on the board.
Alysanne, my mother, was with them, her face alight with pride. "Aemon, Baelon, come meet your newest brother and sister."
Aemon, his face serious and his bearing regal, approached Gael's cradle first. He offered a finger, which she promptly grasped with surprising strength, causing a rare, genuine smile to touch his lips. "She has the Targaryen grip. She'll be a dragonrider for certain."
Baelon, broader and with a more restless energy, laughed. The sound was rich and confident. "Or she'll have some poor lord wrapped around her finger just as tightly. What about the boy?"
All three of them turned to me. This was the moment. My performance had to be flawless. I did not gurgle. I did not wriggle. I simply lay there, my violet eyes open, and met their gaze. I focused on Baelon first. He was the more important piece in the long game. His line was the future. I held his gaze with an unnerving stillness, a look of quiet assessment. I wanted to plant a seed of curiosity in his mind, to make him see me as something other than just another infant brother.
"Seven hells," Baelon murmured, his laughter fading. He leaned closer, peering down at me. "His eyes… it's like he's actually looking at me. Measuring me."
Aemon moved to stand beside him. "He is just a babe, brother. You're seeing things." But his own smile had vanished, replaced by a thoughtful frown as he too met my gaze. I shifted my focus to him, holding it for a second before looking away with deliberate disinterest, as if I had assessed him and found him wanting. It was a microscopic, deniable insult, but to men of their pride, it would register on a subconscious level.
"He is the Quiet Prince," Alysanne said, her voice soft. "He watches everything. Jaehaerys says he has an old soul."
"He has our father's eyes, that's for sure," Baelon said, straightening up. He grinned again, though it didn't quite have its earlier ease. "A serious little fellow. We'll make a warrior of him yet. A proper dragon for a proper Targaryen."
He seemed to have shaken off the odd feeling, but I knew my work was done. I had established a baseline: to them, I was not just Aeryn, the baby. I was Aeryn, the quiet, serious, watchful one. I had differentiated my brand.
Later, I would play my part for my parents. With my mother, I would be the perfect infant, allowing her to cuddle me, making soft cooing sounds I had learned from mimicking Gael, creating the illusion of a loving bond that she so desperately wanted. Her affection was my shield, and I cultivated it with the same care a farmer tends his crops. With my father, the game was more complex. Jaehaerys would often visit alone at night, just as he had in the weeks following the Dragonpit incident. He would stand over my cradle, his face a mask of kingly contemplation. For him, I would occasionally perform a feat of unnatural focus—tracking a moth in flight with perfect precision, or turning my head to the door moments before a servant entered. I would follow these displays with a bout of normal infantile fidgeting, keeping him in a constant state of uncertainty. I needed him to see me as powerful but controllable, a phenomenal asset to be nurtured, not a threat to be neutralized.
My true education, however, began not with my parents, but with the Hand of the King. Septon Barth was a man whose intellect I genuinely respected, even from my vantage point as a reincarnated genius. He was one of the few people in this world who might be able to see past my facade. His lessons were as unconventional as the man himself.
He would arrive in the nursery on the pretext of checking on the royal twins for the king. The nurses would be dismissed, leaving him alone with Gael and me. My sister was usually asleep during his visits, her soft breathing a gentle rhythm in the quiet room. Barth would pull up a low stool, positioning it between our cradles, and he would simply talk.
"Good morrow, Prince Aeryn, Princess Gael," he would begin, his voice a calm, deep baritone. He never used baby talk. He spoke to me as an equal, a deliberate choice I understood immediately. He was casting a line, waiting for a bite.
"His Grace, your father, has asked me to ensure your education begins early," he said during one of his first visits. "Not in letters and sums. That will come. No, he wishes you to understand the foundation upon which your house is built. The idea of power."
I lay perfectly still, my eyes fixed on his face. I gave him my full, undivided attention.
"Power, young prince, is a curious thing. The smallfolk believe it resides in a crown, or a sword, or a dragon." He gestured vaguely towards the window. "Grand Maester Elysar believes it resides in knowledge, in the linking of chains and the writing of histories. The High Septon believes it resides in the gods, a gift granted to rightful kings."
He leaned forward slightly, his eyes, dark and intelligent, locking onto mine. "They are all wrong. And they are all right. Power resides where men believe it resides. It's a trick. A shadow on the wall. And a very small man can cast a very large shadow."
He was quoting a conversation from the books, from a time that had not yet happened. The irony was exquisite. He was teaching me the theory of a game I had already mastered. I did not react, but my mind was racing. Was this a coincidence? Or was his wisdom so profound that he was tapping into universal truths of this world?
He began to speak of history, of the Valyrian Freehold. As he spoke of the Fourteen Flames, of the Doom, of Aegon's conquest, I kept my gaze locked on him, absorbing every word. I wanted him to report back to my father that I was preternaturally focused on our family's history. When he shifted topics to the Faith of the Seven, to the coming of the Andals, I would let my eyes drift away, feigning a loss of interest, perhaps letting out a small, bored-sounding sigh.
It was a delicate, two-person dance. Barth thought he was laying a foundation, shaping a young mind. In reality, I was shaping his perception of me, creating the exact profile Jaehaerys wanted: a prince deeply connected to his Valyrian heritage, the living embodiment of Targaryen exceptionalism. Barth would leave these sessions looking thoughtful, sometimes unnerved. He would report to the king that my focus was unnatural, that it seemed I understood him. And so, the legend of Prince Aeryn, the prodigy, began to be built, brick by careful brick, within the most powerful circle in the realm.
But my greatest advantage, my most powerful tool, was not my intellect or the serum coursing through my veins. It was the great beast slumbering in his stone fortress on the Hill of Rhaenys. The bond with Balerion was my secret window to the world.
When the nursery grew quiet at night and I feigned sleep, my consciousness would slip its fleshly prison and soar. The sensation was indescribable. I would leave the weak, clumsy body of the infant behind and merge with the raw power of the Black Dread.
My first flights were disorienting. Balerion's senses were a torrent of information. He saw in a spectrum of colours I had no name for, particularly in the reds and oranges of heat. He could taste the air, identifying a thousand different scents on the wind. His hearing was so acute he could distinguish the footsteps of a single person walking across the Grand Yard of the Red Keep from his perch atop the Dragonpit.
But I learned. My mind, a super-charged processor, began to filter and categorize the data. I taught myself to fly. Through our bond, I guided him. We would lift off from the dome, a black shadow against the moon, and circle the city. It was a breathtaking sight. The Red Keep was a jagged crown of stone and torchlight, the city a sprawling web of sleeping streets, the Great Sept of Baelor a ghostly white hill (though I knew it was not yet named that).
This was not for pleasure. It was for intelligence gathering. Balerion was the ultimate surveillance drone. I would have him settle on the highest towers of the Red Keep, invisible in the darkness, and I would simply listen. The stone itself carried vibrations, and my mind, linked with his ancient senses, could translate them into snippets of conversation. I heard the gossip of kitchen staff, the drunken boasts of guardsmen, the whispered secrets of lovers in the gardens. Most of it was dross, but I was building a network of information, learning the rhythms and secrets of my new home.
One night, while perched invisibly atop the Tower of the Hand, I honed in on a conversation. The voices were faint, carried on the wind from a lit window in the tower below. It was Jaehaerys and Septon Barth, their late-night councils now a regular occurrence.
"...no fever, no sickness," Barth was saying. "Grand Maester Elysar confesses he is baffled. The prince gains weight. He is the picture of health. Princess Gael is the same. But the boy… Your Grace, I speak to him of Aegon's landing, and he does not blink for a full minute. His focus is absolute. But when I mention the Starry Sept, he looks away. It is as if he is... bored by it."
Jaehaerys's voice was lower, heavier. "And the dragon?"
"The keepers say he grows stronger by the day. His appetite is immense. They found melted stone near the top of his enclosure, as if he's been practicing his flame in a way he has not done in decades. His eyes, they say, are always turned towards the Red Keep. He is watching. Waiting."
There was a long silence. I felt a surge of satisfaction. My strategy was working perfectly. I was creating an aura of mystique and purpose.
"Continue your lessons, old friend," Jaehaerys finally said. "Teach him history, teach him law, teach him what it means to be a king. My king. We must shape this… gift. We must bind him to the realm, not just to the dragon."
"And what if he will not be bound, Your Grace?" Barth asked quietly.
"Then he will be broken," the King replied, his voice as cold and hard as iron. "For the good of the realm."
The conversation ended. I withdrew my consciousness from the bond, the thrill of my success tempered by my father's final words. The sound of them echoed in the silent nursery. He was my father, my king, my protector. And he was also my single greatest threat. He would nurture me, but he would not hesitate to destroy me if he believed I was a danger to the stability he had spent a lifetime building.
I looked over at Gael, sleeping soundly, a picture of untroubled innocence. My path was a razor's edge. I had to become so powerful he could not break me, yet appear so loyal he would never feel the need to try. Lying there in my cradle, a four-month-old prince, I felt the weight of the game settle upon me. But I felt no fear. Only the cold, clear focus of a predator who has the entire board in his sight. The whispers of wings in the night were my spies, and the king's dilemma was my greatest weapon.