The last note of music from the banquet was still vibrating through the corridors of the Red Keep when Aemon slowly opened his eyes. He had not slept long—barely enough time to be carried from the great luminous halls to the princely apartments—but his body, small and still fragile, felt the fatigue of a long day full of noise, faces and burning aura.
He was only a year and a few moons, but his mind no longer had anything of an infant.
This world was not his.
And each day, he learned to live in this one.
The chamber where he found himself was silent, lit by a few candles that were finishing burning. The red tapestries embroidered with dragons danced gently under the night breeze. Outside, one could still hear the distant echoes of guests leaving the castle laughing. A tourney had just ended, a new White Knight had just been named, and the realm still lived in excitement.
For Aemon, all of that did not have the same meaning.
He watched.
He analyzed.
And above all… he compared.
For in his former life—that of which he had only fragments—a world like this could exist only in books, series or legends. Yet everything he had seen tonight was real: the people's cries, the power of the blows, the impossible speed of the knights. None of it resembled the Game of Thrones he had known in his previous life.
Too strong.
Too fast.
Too… supernatural.
As he shifted slightly, fingers still clenched on a fold of cloth, he felt a presence very near. A warm breath on his forehead.
Queen Rhaella.
His mother in this world.
— Gently, my little dragon, she murmured as she adjusted his blanket. You're exhausted, aren't you?
Aemon closed his eyes again but did not fall back asleep. He merely listened. The queen's heartbeat, constant, reassuring. The regular steps of the guards posted on the other side of the door. The muffled sound of steel sliding when one of them imperceptibly changed position.
Those sounds, he always heard them too well.
As if his body itself sought to analyze the world in order to survive.
Rhaegar slept beside him, rolled in his blanket, silver hair stuck to his forehead. He, at least, had the innocent tranquility of children. Aemon envied him sometimes.
— You are always so serious… Rhaella murmured, placing a kiss on his forehead.
Aemon knew he must not speak. He did not yet master language enough to say anything complex, and even if he could have, he would not have known what to answer.
He did not know how to explain that he was a stranger, an intruder in this tiny body.
That he had lived elsewhere—an elsewhere where men did not break the earth under their steps in battle, where warriors did not seem capable of toppling walls with bare hands, where muscled arms did not vibrate with an invisible strength he could not define.
In his former life, even the greatest works of fiction could not manage to account for this… density.
For here, everything seemed heavier.
More intense.
More alive.
A guard's heartbeat several meters away resonated like a distant drum. Emotions seemed to slide through the air like barely perceptible perfumes. And sometimes, he had the strange impression that his own body reacted to those vibrations, like a taut string appreciating a chord.
But he knew no more.
No explanation.
No knowledge.
Only sensations.
And the constant feeling that this world followed rules he had not yet understood.
The banquet ended, and with it, the frenzy of the tournament. The days became calmer again, but the castle remained alive: the knights departed, the merchants folded their stalls, the servants reorganized the corridors.
Aemon, for his part, remained in the royal apartments, but his gaze absorbed everything.
He first learned to recognize the sounds:
• the heavy step of Ser Gerold Hightower, precise as a war bell;
• the lighter but quick step of Ser Barristan, always ready to move;
• the supple but controlled movements of Ser Oswell Whent.
Even without seeing them, Aemon knew who was approaching.
The three men vibrated differently. He did not know how he was aware of it, but it was clear. As if each had a signature, a pressure in the air, an invisible weight that accompanied their gestures.
The guards of the Gold Cloaks, they, had a weaker presence, more diffuse. Human, but… not ordinary. They gave off a strength far greater than what he would have imagined for mere guards of a castle.
Aemon did not know how to name that strength.
It was not magic—at least not magic as he had known it in his world, in stories or films.
It was not either only physical power.
It was…
Something.
Something that lived in their bodies.
Something that made the air vibrate.
He also observed the servants.
They had nothing particular.
Their presence was normal.
No vibration.
No heat in the air.
Just humans.
That was where the difference became obvious.
The knights were not ordinary men.
They were living weapons.
One day, when a guard struck without thinking against a door to close it with his arm, Aemon saw the surface deform—not much, but enough for his former life to rebel.
In his other world, a human would never have been able to strike like that without breaking bones.
But here, it was nothing.
The guard did not even feel pain.
It was the first moment when Aemon knew something was deeply off.
Over the months, his body grew. His legs became sturdier, his hands more precise. He learned to walk, then to run awkwardly through the corridors of the Red Keep, always followed by two guards and at least one lady-in-waiting.
Rhaegar ran with him, laughing, sometimes slipping, often falling.
Aemon rarely fell.
His mother noticed it.
The ladies did too.
The guards as well.
— Prince Aemon has the balance of a two-year-old child, people said when he was only a year and a few moons.
The whispers multiplied.
Aemon could walk, but he did not know his limits.
He did not want to show what he knew.
What he felt.
He was not sure he could hide his maturity much longer, so he sometimes pretended to fall to remain believable. The nurses always rushed over, Rhaella worried, Rhaegar laughed even louder.
But even while hiding his reflexes, Aemon learned.
He analyzed.
He quickly noticed that the knights moved with an almost inhuman precision. Each gesture seemed studied, calculated, fluid. Not like the stunts from the series he had once seen. Here, it was real. Brutal. Magnificent.
A simple training exercise in the yard was enough to create a gust of wind capable of turning dust several meters farther.
It was not normal.
Not human.
Not… realistic.
Or else, this world was not the one he thought he knew.
He also observed the armor. Some vibrated slightly—not because of heat or movement, but as if they contained an inner energy.
The weapons of elite knights sometimes shone with a strange gleam.
Not magical.
Not mystical.
But… alive.
Aemon did not understand what he was seeing.
But he knew one thing:
this world was not the Game of Thrones of his former life.
It was a different version.
Older.
More dangerous.
More… mythical.
As he watched, an unease grew.
Neither Rhaella nor Rhaegar seemed to notice those elements. For them, the world went without saying. The guards were strong, the knights even more so, and the members of the Kingsguard were living legends.
But for Aemon, everything rang false.
Too beautiful.
Too powerful.
Too controlled.
He understood very quickly that this world obeyed different rules.
And that he could not speak.
Not yet.
He was only two years old.
How to explain to adults that he knew… something else?
That he had memories of another world?
That he understood too fast?
That he watched too closely?
He had to wait.
Be silent.
Learn.
The fear came from elsewhere: what if this world possessed dangers still unknown? If there were beings more powerful than the knights? If dragons were not the only impossible creatures?
In his former life, Westeros was a cruel world.
Here, it was cruel and supernatural.
That changed everything.
When the year elapsed touched its end, Aemon was two years and six moons. His body had grown, but his mind had above all adapted. He remained silent most of the time, learning to handle his young age like camouflage.
He had observed enough things to draw a conclusion:
This world was not the one his former life knew.
This Westeros possessed hidden forces.
Invisible rules.
And men carrying within them a power that surpassed the unimaginable.
He had seen Ser Barristan stop a beam falling from the ceiling with a single arm.
He had felt the heat that emanated from certain knights as if they burned inside.
He had heard servants speak of strange crystals belonging to the Treasury.
He had glimpsed flashes in the eyes of a few warriors during a particularly intense training.
He had understood.
He was not in the Game of Thrones of the series.
Nor even in that of the books.
He was in a different world.
A world where men carried within them a force that did not belong to ordinary humans.
A world where knights were not only soldiers, but beings capable of impossible feats.
Aemon did not know how that was possible.
Nor why he had been sent here.
Nor what awaited him.
But he knew that his role would be important.
He had been placed in the line of dragons.
He had been placed in the body of a prince.
He had been placed where everything changed.
And sooner or later, he would have to understand these forces that governed this world.
Not for him.
Not for his curiosity.
But to survive.
He raised his eyes to the window, watching the reddening sky of King's Landing.
In the air, something vibrated.
A pulse.
A tremor.
Like a breath only he could feel.
He placed a hand over his heart.
— … World… different, he murmured with difficulty, his words still hesitant.
The nurse did not hear.
Rhaegar played too loudly to care.
But Aemon, he knew.
This world was going to break him…
or shape him into something new.
And he was not yet sure he preferred one or the other.