Author's Note
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all your support — whether through collections or Power Stones. 🙏Unfortunately, we did not reach the minimum required to maintain a second week of daily releases.
However, to thank you, this week I will be releasing chapters on Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday.
And the following week, we will move to a release schedule of Monday and Thursday.
I can't really give you an exact time yet: chapters will be released whenever I wake up.
I have also created a Patreon account.If some of you saw a message saying that the Patreon page was not visible, that is completely normal — it is still being validated.
I can already tell you that Chapter 21 is available there, and by the time the page is officially validated, there will be even more.In the long run, Patreon will offer up to 30 chapters in advance compared to those published on Webnovel.
Once again, thank you all for your strength and loyalty. 💛
The second day of the tournament rose in a burst of gold.
The sun was not yet high when King's Landing was already vibrating like a living organism. The alleys overflowed with people, voices, and hurried footsteps. Barrels were rolled, trestles were set up, banners were hung. The air smelled of freshly stirred dust, the aroma of meats already cooking for midday, and that particular scent of festival days: a mix of sweat, wine, hope, and accepted fatigue.
In the Red Keep, the dragons were being prepared.
In the princes' chamber, the morning light slid in pale bands across the floor and the sheets. Aemon was already awake, sitting with his legs awkwardly crossed, his little cape in a heap behind him. He stared at the open window as if, through it, he could see more than the sky.
Rhaegar, meanwhile, was still clinging to a nurse, his cheek pressed against her shoulder.
— No… sleep… he mumbled.
The nurse laughed softly.
— My prince, you must get up. You're going to see the archers. The arrows that fly, there, there… fiiiou…
Rhaegar cracked one eye open.
— Arr… ow?
— Yes, arrows, Rhaella confirmed as she entered.
The queen wore a deep red dress, simple but with a quiet elegance. In her hands she held two small white cloaks trimmed with pale fur. She approached Aemon first.
— Well then, my little dragon, ready to see the tournament?
Aemon looked at her without answering. He only raised his arms so she could put the cloak on him.
His eyes, however, said something else. They drifted toward the door.
Behind.
Farther.
Where he felt a familiar heat.
Aerys.
He did not know exactly where his father was at that moment, but his aura was already vibrating somewhere in the Red Keep.
A burning presence, impatient, taut.
Rhaella adjusted the cloak and kissed him on the forehead.
— You'll want to tell your father what you saw.
Aemon did not answer. But a clear thought crossed his mind:
I mostly want to see what you're hiding, father.
Rhaegar finally pushed himself upright, still grouchy. When they put his little cloak on, he lifted his arms above his head.
— Me… pretty?
Rhaella smiled.
— Yes, very pretty. My handsome prince.
Rhaegar immediately turned to his brother.
— Aem'… pretty too.
Aemon blinked, surprised by the unexpected compliment.
A very slight smile brushed his lips.
When the royal family appeared at the entrance to the stands, the reaction was almost physical.
A wave.
People rose to their feet. Voices surged into an immense clamor, drowning out the last notes of the trumpets. Hands reached out, hats were lifted, children were hoisted onto shoulders to see better.
Aerys walked in front, surrounded by the Kingsguard. His scarlet cloak swept behind him, his silver hair caught the light like a living flame. He seemed taller than a man, more solid than a wall, more real than the city itself.
The cries shifted, gathered:
— THE KING!
— AERYS!
— THE DRAGON!
Rhaegar, in a nurse's arms, clapped his hands.
— Da-da! Da-da! Da-da fire!
Rhaella laughed softly.
— Yes, your father is a dragon.
Aemon, for his part, did not laugh.
He felt his father's aura the moment they stepped into the arena's light.
It was like entering a burning bath.
The heat was not on his skin.
It was around him.
In the air.
In every shout.
Aerys's aura filled the space—broad, powerful, sovereign.
But the more Aemon focused, the more he felt that strange tension, that precise point where everything vibrated too fast.
A crack.
Invisible to the eye.
Impossible for him to ignore.
He tightened his fingers a little on his own cloak.
The princes were seated beside the queen, on two raised cushions. From there they could see the line of archers perfectly.
Men from every horizon pressed there: nobles in fine armor, sturdy-looking commoners, men with faces weathered by the winds of the Vale or the Blackwater, archers from the Marches, foresters from the North. All held their bow like an extension of their arm.
The trumpets sounded.
Voices went out like candles being snuffed.
Aemon felt the hush fall over the crowd like a blanket.
Thousands of people… and yet not a sound, except the wind's breath.
Then the signal was given.
The first strings drew taut.
The bows bent.
The arrows flew with a sharp, muffled sound, almost soft.
Fffft.
They streaked like shards of light.
Rhaegar opened his mouth wide.
— Arrow go fast!
Aemon followed one with his eyes.
Then his attention returned to the royal stand.
With each successful shot, with each target struck, Aerys's aura pulsed.
As if these men's success fed his own flame.
As if the triumph of every arrow strengthened his role as king.
Aemon tugged his mother's sleeve.
— Mama… look da-da.
Rhaella looked toward Aerys.
He was perfect. Upright. Proud. Attentive.
— What is it, my angel? she asked.
Aemon searched for words.
— Da-da… hot… too.
She smiled, thinking it was a child's impression.
— The sun is strong today. That's why.
No.
It wasn't that.
But Aemon did not have the words to explain that the heat did not come from the sky… but from a precise point right beside them.
The contest continued, round after round.
Archers were eliminated gradually, leaving only a handful of exceptional shooters.
Names were spoken, predictions whispered.
— That one's from the Vale.
— That one won a tourney at Maidenpool.
— That one could shoot a fly at twenty paces…
Rhaegar began to tire. He played with the fringes of his cushion.
— Again? More arrows?
— Yes, more, Rhaella answered.
Aemon, for his part, did not tire.
He watched, again and again.
He felt.
Aerys had not moved an inch.
But at certain moments his breathing grew deeper.
Slower.
Slightly weighted.
And twice, Aemon saw his hand tighten on the wooden armrest harder than necessary.
The crack vibrated.
By the end of the morning, only four men remained.
— Ser Denys Mallister!
— Brandon Royce!
— Jaremy Vance!
— Hobber Cendregan!
The names rang out through the arena.
Supporters began to shout, to bet, to slap their hands on the railings.
Denys Mallister, straight as a spear, had the face of a man who had spent his life looking far ahead.
Brandon Royce clenched his teeth, trembling with focus.
Jaremy Vance smiled, a little too sure of himself.
Hobber Cendregan, as wide as two men, had hands as big as platters.
— Big man there, Rhaegar remarked, pointing at Cendregan.
Rhaella stifled a laugh.
— Yes, he is very strong.
— He win, the little prince declared.
Aemon did not answer.
But he already knew it would not be him.
Denys Mallister's concentration formed a straight line—clean, taut, aimed at the target.
His aura was fine, rigid, perfectly aligned with his bow.
Hobber Cendregan's was a heavy, lopsided mass.
Powerful, but clumsy.
Aerys watched the finalists with growing interest.
His eyes shone with a mixture of pleasure and… something else.
A glint almost feverish.
When Mallister's turn came, the silence grew almost oppressive.
Even Rhaegar fell quiet.
Aemon felt the air change.
The crowd's emotions tightened, as if thousands of souls were suddenly holding their breath.
Denys Mallister raised his bow.
Drew the string.
Aimed.
To Aemon, his aura became a line of gold.
He released.
The arrow seemed to hang outside of time.
Then it struck the center of the target with perfect precision, so deep the wood cracked.
A heartbeat of silence.
Then the storm.
The arena exploded in howls.
People rose, clapping hands, stamping feet, slapping shoulders. Some hugged one another as if they themselves had won.
— SER DENYS MALLISTER!
Aerys rose as well.
He rose too quickly.
Aemon saw a flash cross his side, a micro-second of tension before the king recovered his composure.
To the crowd, it was only a triumphant gesture.
To Aemon, it was an invisible knife.
The crack vibrated so hard that, for an instant, he almost felt nauseous.
He grabbed his mother's hand.
— Mama… da-da… bad…
Rhaella looked down at him.
She saw him pale a little.
She thought it was a child overwhelmed by the noise.
— It's alright, my heart. We're going back.
She signaled.
The nurses came closer.
The princes were taken into arms.
Rhaegar protested.
— More! More arrows!
— Not today, Rhaella said. There will be more things to see later.
Aemon did not protest.
He had seen enough.
Too much.
His father's fire was burning too bright.
The corridor leading back to the royal apartments suddenly seemed very long.
Rhaegar kept babbling in bursts—fragments of phrases, sounds, words learned the day before.
— People… lots… very loud… Waaah…
The nurse replied with mechanical "oh yes, my prince."
Aemon remained silent.
He walked holding his mother's finger, his small steps quick to match her pace.
His mind, however, had stayed in the arena.
Even at a distance, he could still feel Aerys's heat.
It vibrated like an overfed fire being stoked again.
You're going to burn yourself, he thought, unable to say it.
Rhaella felt her son heavier than usual in her hand. She stopped for a moment.
— Are you alright, Aemon?
He lifted his eyes to her.
— Da-da… hot…
She knelt.
— He is strong, she said softly. He will be fine.
She said it to reassure him.
She said it also to convince herself.
The next day, the princes did not go to the arena.
Rhaella had been clear: the melee was not a spectacle for children that young. Even the ladies of the court, for the most part, preferred to stay away or only watch through the veil of a fan.
But noise did not respect walls.
From the heights of the Red Keep, the rumble of the melee sounded like a storm behind hills. A deep tumult, punctuated by sharper impacts, by cries, by the crowd's roars.
Rhaegar played on the floor with wooden figurines representing horses, dragons, and soldiers.
— Boom! Horse boom! There! There!
He toppled the figures onto one another, recreating without knowing it the scene he could not see.
Aemon sat by a window left slightly open.
His eyes fixed on the horizon, but what he watched was farther still.
He felt.
Four hundred auras clashed in the arena.
Four hundred.
They collided, tore, collapsed.
Some went out brutally.
Breath cut short.
Light ripped away.
Aemon did not yet understand everything death meant.
But he could feel the difference between an aura that calmed…
and an aura that vanished.
He shivered.
And behind all that chaos, one light remained stable—immense, burning.
Aerys.
The king did not fight.
But his presence dominated the melee.
Each time the crowd roared, his aura flared.
Each time a knight fell, his fire rose another notch, as if violence fed its own intensity.
Aemon clenched his fingers in the fabric of his tunic.
— Aem'? Rhaegar called, shaking his wooden horse. Look! BOOM!
The little prince did not answer.
His stomach twisted.
Dad, stop… you're going too high…
Below, Aerys sat on the raised throne overlooking the lists.
His eyes never left the arena.
He followed every burst of dust, every flash of shield, every hammer smashing a man to the ground.
Ser Gerold Hightower stood behind him, silent watch.
He saw too.
He did not see the aura, like Aemon.
But he saw the body.
Fingers that tensed.
A jaw that clenched.
Breathing that grew heavier at certain instants, for no apparent reason.
Once, amid the crash, Aerys brought a hand to his side.
Just one second.
Then he let it drop, as if nothing had happened.
Gerold clenched his teeth.
He did not dare speak.
Not here.
Not now.
On the fourth day, the melee reached its climax.
Only a handful of men remained.
The ranks, dense at first, had thinned.
Faces were covered in sweat, dust, sometimes dried blood.
Armor bore the marks of blows received: dents, gashes, chips.
The crowd was denser than ever.
People had risen earlier.
Some had slept on the steps to keep their place.
The names of the survivors circulated in the stands:
— Mallister still holds.
— A bull from the Reach, Vikary, you should see it.
— Qorgyle is an eel, you can never grab him…
Dust rose in clouds, giving the sun the look of a pale disk.
Aerys leaned forward, taut as a bow.
Gerold glanced at him.
— Your Grace…
— Silence, Hightower, the king said without looking at him. This is the best moment.
Below, blows rained down.
Ser Jason Mallister still stood, his shield split but his sword still lively.
Ryon Qorgyle circled his opponents, dodging more than striking.
Humfrey Hardyng advanced, heavy but determined.
And Lymond Vikary, broad as a wall, wielded his warhammer like an extension of his arm.
With each impact of Vikary's hammer, the arena trembled.
People held their breath or screamed, depending on whether they supported him.
Aerys straightened suddenly as he saw an opponent nearly fly under the force of the blow.
— Magnificent, he murmured.
Gerold saw his chest rise more than necessary.
That strained breathing again.
That overly bright glint in his eyes again.
In the end, only two men remained:
Lymond Vikary, bull of the Reach, and Ser Humfrey Hardyng, still standing by a kind of desperate stubbornness.
The entire crowd had risen.
The two men circled each other, looking for an opening.
Then Vikary charged.
The hammer came down.
Hardyng's shield snapped almost clean through.
A sharp crack rang out.
The knight fell to his knees, then face-first into the sand.
A suspended instant.
Then thunder.
— VIKARY!
Arms lifted, voices broke, some even began to cry with joy or rage depending on the bets.
Aerys rose too.
Very fast.
Too fast.
His face was lit by a flame almost wild.
— That's it… he breathed. That's it, Westeros.
Behind him, Gerold saw his hand go—again—to his side.
Longer this time.
Two seconds.
Three.
Fingers pressing a precise point under the ribs.
The king immediately recovered, turning the gesture into a movement of his cloak, perfectly fluid.
But Gerold had seen.
And something tightened in his gut.
At that same moment, in a room of the Red Keep, Aemon felt a jolt inside.
He was playing, seated on a rug, when dizziness brushed him.
As if the ground under him vibrated.
As if something, very far away, had crossed an invisible limit.
He placed a hand on his chest.
— Aem'? Rhaegar asked, looking at him oddly. You okay?
Aemon searched for air.
Inside him, his father's heat had just risen another notch.
The crack had sung.
A note too sharp.
A note impossible to ignore.
— Da-da… breath… he whispered.
— Daddy breath? Rhaegar repeated, not understanding. Daddy strong!
Yes.
Daddy strong.
But daddy burns.
And Aemon, too small to understand, was already big enough to be afraid.
The sun slowly descended over King's Landing, tinting roofs and walls with shades of copper and blood.
In the arena, they had begun clearing the sand, marked by footsteps, falls, and dark streaks.
The cries had moved toward taverns, streets, makeshift pavilions.
They were already telling the day's melee as if it belonged to the past for years.
Lymond Vikary's name was everywhere.
They called him the Bull of the Reach.
The most excited swore he would be no less impressive in the joust.
Aerys left his stand last.
He walked straight.
His cloak trailed behind him like a tongue of fire.
His head was high.
Gerold followed him, stiffer than ever.
— Your Grace, he said in a low voice.
— Yes?
— You should rest before what comes next.
Aerys turned slightly toward him, a smile on his lips.
— You worry too much, Hightower. Look at them.
He jerked his chin toward the crowd still dispersing, faces flushed, eyes bright.
— They didn't see a weak king today. They saw a dragon.
— They saw nothing at all, Gerold thought.
But he stayed silent.
Higher up in the Red Keep, Aemon watched the darkening sky from the window.
His small hands gripped the stone ledge.
He barely blinked.
The heat inside him calmed a little as Aerys's aura eased.
The day was dying.
But the crack remained.
The tournament had only reached the halfway point of its run.
And already, Aemon sensed dimly that something invisible had been crossed.
A limit.
A threshold.
He pressed his forehead against the cold stone.
— Da-da… hold on… he murmured.
He was only a child of one year and six moons.
And yet, deep inside him, fear had taken shape.
Not the fear of the crowd.
Not the fear of blood.
Not the fear of the tournament.
The fear of losing the fire that lit them all.
📌 Announcement — Official Discord + Early Access on Patreon
Hello everyone!
I've just created an official Discord for the novel, as well as a Patreon for those who want to support the project and get early access to the story.
✅ Patreon — Early Access
On Patreon, you will eventually get access to more than 30 chapters in advance compared to the normal release, along with exclusive posts and behind-the-scenes information about the novel.
👉 Patreon: patreon.com/empereur300
Note: If you can't see the Patreon page yet, that's completely normal — it simply means the page hasn't been approved by Patreon yet. It will become visible as soon as the approval process is complete.
💬 Discord — Community & Discussions
I've also opened a Discord server to bring the community together:
Polls (preferences, choices, and direction of certain elements)
A place to discuss the book, the chapters, and theories
A space to talk directly with me
👉 Discord: discord.gg/T97quQvCGC
Thank you all for your support, and I'm looking forward to seeing you there 🔥🐉