Chapter 136: Chapter 136: The Last Visits
For two weeks, we brought the children to Viserys.
Not every day. Not all of them at once, and never for long. Grand Maester Orwyle warned us that the king tired quickly, that too much noise confused him, and that pain made even familiar faces difficult to hold.
Alicent did not object to the visits, though I saw what they cost her. She had guarded those chambers as wife, nurse, queen, and gaoler of grief for so long that letting others enter the slow ruin felt almost like surrender.
Rhaenyra insisted gently, and Alicent yielded because she knew what was coming. The children deserved farewell, even if farewell had to be given to a man who could not always receive it.
The first visit was with Jace and Luke.
Viserys was propped against pillows, thinner than the blankets around him, his bandaged hand resting atop the coverlet like something placed there by mistake. The rot had taken more than dignity from him.
It had hollowed his cheeks, darkened the skin near his jaw, and turned each breath into labour. The maesters had washed him, changed the dressings, burned herbs, and opened the shutters for a little clean air, but nothing could entirely remove the smell of flesh losing its war.
Jace stopped just inside the room. He tried to hide it. He was sixteen and had learned enough of court to know that reactions could become cruelties. Yet I saw the boy in him falter before the prince corrected his face.
This was not the grandsire he remembered.
Jace remembered Viserys seated upon the Iron Throne, weary perhaps, but still kingly beneath crown and steel. He remembered a man who laughed at children’s boldness, who placed a hand on his shoulder during feasts, who spoke of dragons with a boy’s wonder still alive in an old king’s body. He remembered confidence, indulgence, warmth, and the strange foolish kindness that had so often made Viserys both lovable and weak.
The man in the bed looked too consumed to have ever sat a throne. Rhaenyra touched Jace’s arm. "You do not need to pretend this is easy."
Jace swallowed. "I know, Mother. I only do not want him to see me frightened."
Alicent, seated beside the bed, looked up at that. "He may not notice fear today. He has been drifting since morning."
Viserys’s eyes opened at the sound of voices. For a moment, they moved without recognition. Then they settled on Rhaenyra.
"My girl," he whispered.
She went to him at once. "I am here, Father. I brought Jace and Luke."
Viserys blinked slowly. "Jace?"
Jace came forward, kneeling beside the bed with more control than I had expected and more pain than he wanted seen. "I am here, Grandsire."
The king looked at him for a long time. "You are tall."
Jace gave a small smile that trembled at the edge. "I have been trying."
Viserys seemed to consider that answer with great seriousness. "Good. A prince should grow before the realm notices it needs him."
Luke stood behind Jace, pale but steady. Viserys looked toward him next, and confusion crossed his face.
"Laenor?" he murmured.
Luke froze. Rhaenyra closed her eyes briefly, then opened them. "No, Father. This is Luke."
The king frowned as if the room had betrayed him. "Luke. Yes. Sweet boy. Come closer."
Luke obeyed. He took the king’s remaining fingers carefully, as if afraid even tenderness might hurt him.
Viserys smiled. "You have kind eyes."
Luke’s voice softened. "Thank you, Grandsire."
"They will need kind eyes. All of them. Too many hard ones in this family."
Alicent looked away.
The visit lasted less than ten minutes. Viserys knew them for half of it, then wandered into a memory of a feast long past and asked whether Balerion had been fed. Orwyle gave Rhaenyra a quiet look, and she ended the visit before the confusion could become fear.
Outside the chamber, Jace walked several steps before stopping. "I remember him on the throne," he said.
Rhaenyra turned back to him.
"He looked tired sometimes," Jace continued, words careful because if he spoke too quickly, grief would outrun discipline. "But he was still there. He was the king. I know people criticised him, and I know he made mistakes, but when I was younger, he seemed part of the throne itself. I did not think a body could become so small while the person was still inside it."
Rhaenyra pulled him into her arms. He allowed it because the corridor was empty enough and the pain was larger than pride. Luke stood beside them, one hand pressed over his mouth. I rested my hand on his shoulder and felt how hard he was trying not to cry.
The next visit was for Rhaegar, Aerion, and Viserys.
I worried most for our Viserys. He bore his grandsire’s name with solemn pride, and at eleven he had begun to understand death in pieces large enough to wound but not yet large enough to make peace with. He entered the room quietly, eyes moving over bandages, bowls, candles, and the maester’s instruments before reaching the bed.
Rhaegar observed everything with the stillness he used when frightened by something he wanted to understand. Aerion looked angry before he looked sad, which was his usual defence against helplessness.
Viserys was more lucid that afternoon. He saw the boys and seemed to gather himself from some inward distance.
"More princes," he breathed. "I have been blessed with too many princes. That is the sort of blessing that makes maesters nervous."
Aerion stepped forward first, unable to endure silence. "Maesters are nervous because they read too much and ride too little."
Alicent gave him a startled look. Viserys laughed. It hurt him. The laugh turned into coughing, and the coughing brought blood. Orwyle moved quickly, but the king waved him off with weak irritation until the fit passed.
Aerion’s face went white. "I am sorry. I should not have made you laugh."
Viserys lifted one trembling finger. "Never apologise for giving an old man laughter. Only apologise if the jest was poor."
Aerion stared at him, then nodded with painful seriousness. "Then I do not apologise."
That made Viserys smile again, though he did not laugh. Rhaegar came next, speaking more gently. "Do you remember my dragon’s name, Grandsire?"
"Vhalalor," Viserys said after a moment. "A proud name. Old taste to it."
Rhaegar’s expression changed. Pleasure, grief, surprise, all held tightly. "Yes. You remembered."
"Dragons are easier than men," Viserys whispered. "They do not change their names every generation and call it politics."
That line stayed with Rhaegar for days. Our Viserys stood last. The king looked at him for a long while. "You carry my name."
"Yes, Grandsire."
"Do not carry my mistakes with it."
The room went still. Rhaenyra’s face tightened. Our Viserys did not seem to know how to answer, but he tried because solemn children often believed silence was failure.
"I will try to carry the good parts," he said.
The king’s eyes filled. "That is kinder than I deserve."
The visit ended soon after. Aerion spoke too much on the way out, then stopped all at once halfway down the passage. Rhaegar stayed close to him without saying why. Viserys asked me later whether names could become burdens even when given with love, and I told him they could, but burdens could also become reminders of what to do better.
He accepted that, though I could tell he would carry the question longer than the answer.
Aemma’s visit was shorter.
She brought a flower, as promised. It was small, pale yellow, and slightly crushed because she had held it too tightly on the way through the corridors. Rhaenyra had tried to explain that Grandsire was very ill, that he might look different, and that he might not speak much. Aemma listened, nodded, and then asked whether flowers worked better if they were chosen with love.
Rhaenyra told her yes because no mother should be forced to say otherwise.
Viserys was sleeping when Aemma entered. The bandages covered much of one side of his face, and the room had been dimmed because light pained him. She stood beside Rhaenyra, gripping the flower in both hands.
"He is very small," she whispered.
"He is very tired," Rhaenyra said.
Aemma approached the bed and placed the flower near his hand. "This is for you, Grandsire. It is not the biggest one, but it was the nicest."
Viserys stirred, though he did not fully wake. His fingers moved slightly, brushing the stem.
Aemma looked up at Rhaenyra with sudden hope. "He touched it."
"He did."
"Then he knows."
Rhaenyra’s voice broke softly around the answer. "I think he does."
That night, Aemma asked whether the Seven would let him keep the flower. Rhaenyra told her they would, and Aemma went to sleep satisfied that she had solved one small part of death.
Maelor was the last.
I nearly argued against bringing him. He was not yet three, and the world remained mercifully narrow for him. He knew family, food, dragons, sleep, unfair doors, and immediate wants. He did not know kingship, illness, inheritance, or farewell. A part of me wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible.
Rhaenyra decided otherwise. "He may not remember," she said, holding him outside the chamber. "But Father should see him once more if he can."
I looked at Maelor, who was trying to twist a button from my sleeve with great concentration. "This may frighten him."
"I know."
She did not change her mind.
Viserys was awake when we entered, though barely. The room was darker than before, the shutters half closed against the afternoon glare. His breathing sounded wet and shallow. The rot had reached the edge of what the dressings could hide, and though the maesters had done what they could, there was no disguising the way death had begun wearing his face before taking the rest.
Maelor saw him and went still in Rhaenyra’s arms. For one hopeful moment, I thought stillness might become simple confusion. Then Viserys turned his head.
Maelor recoiled against Rhaenyra’s chest, eyes wide with terror. "Monster."
The word was small. That made it worse. Rhaenyra flinched as if struck. Alicent, who had been seated beside the bed, pressed one hand to her mouth. Orwyle looked down. I reached for Maelor, but Rhaenyra held him tighter, not in anger, not in denial, but because he had spoken with the brutal honesty of a child who did not know he had broken every heart in the room.
Viserys heard. I wished he had not. His eyes moved toward the child, slow and clouded. Understanding came late, but it came. For a moment, the dying king looked almost ashamed.
"No," Rhaenyra whispered into Maelor’s hair. "No, sweetling. That is Grandsire. He is ill. He is very ill."
Maelor began to cry, not loudly at first, but with gathering fear. "No monster. Go away."
Rhaenyra’s face crumpled. She turned and carried him from the room before the terror could deepen. I followed her into the passage, where she pressed her back against the wall and held Maelor as he sobbed into her shoulder.
"He did not understand," I said.
"I know."
"He is too young."
"I know."
But knowing did nothing useful. It did not take the word back. It did not make Viserys whole enough to be recognisable to a toddler. It did not spare Rhaenyra from the knowledge that her youngest son had looked upon her father and seen only horror.
Inside the chamber, Alicent remained with Viserys. Later, she told us what happened after we left.
The king had wept. Not much. He no longer had the strength for much of anything. But tears had gathered at the corners of his eyes, and he had whispered that children told the truth before adults learned mercy. Alicent had taken his hand and told him Maelor was frightened because illness was cruel, not because Viserys was monstrous.
He had answered that illness had made the distinction difficult. Rhaenyra did not forgive herself for bringing Maelor, though there was nothing to forgive.
The final days blurred. We kept visiting, though the children came less often after that. Jace returned once more alone, at his own request. He sat beside Viserys for nearly an hour while the king slept and spoke only when Rhaenyra asked what he was doing.
"Remembering him before this," Jace said. "I do not want the bed to be the last thing my mind keeps."
Luke came with him the next day and read softly from a book about old dragonlords because Viserys had once liked listening to such things. The king did not wake, but Luke kept reading until his voice grew hoarse.
Rhaegar and Aerion did not ask to return, but when Rhaenyra offered, they agreed. Aerion brought no jokes that time. Rhaegar asked Orwyle whether pain medicines made dreams easier or simply less sharp. Orwyle answered him honestly enough to earn my respect and gently enough to spare what could be spared.
Our Viserys returned twice. On the second visit, the king recognised him and called him "little namesake," which left the boy silent for the rest of the evening.
Aemma sent flowers with the nurses when she was not brought in herself. Some reached the room fresh. Others were wilted from being hidden too long in her sleeve. Alicent kept them all in a cup by the window until Orwyle had to remove the older ones.
Maelor did not return. Rhaenyra stopped asking whether he should.
During those two weeks, the Red Keep moved softly around the king’s deathbed. Men lowered their voices. Doors closed with more care. The guards near the royal chambers became fixtures of white and steel.
Alicent rarely left except to wash, pray, or sit in silence where no one could ask her to be queen before she could remember how. Rhaenyra governed by day and visited by evening, carrying petitions, children’s worries, and the slow breaking of a daughter’s heart without letting any one of them excuse neglect of the others.
The last night came quietly.
No storm broke over the bay. No dragon cried out from the hill. No omen announced itself for singers to abuse later. A servant woke us a little after midnight, face pale, voice barely steady enough to say Grand Maester Orwyle requested Rhaenyra at once.
We dressed without speaking.
By the time we reached the king’s chambers, Alicent was already there, seated beside him with both hands around his. Orwyle stood back from the bed. His face told me the truth before his mouth did.
Viserys still breathed, but only just. Rhaenyra went to him. "Father."
His eyes opened. For one final mercy, he knew her.
"My girl," he whispered, so faintly I almost missed it.
She bent close, tears already falling. "I am here."
His gaze moved as if searching the room. Perhaps for faces. Perhaps for years. Perhaps for the throne he had left behind long before his heart stopped.
"You will be..." he began.
The rest failed him. Rhaenyra took his hand carefully. "I know."
Alicent lowered her head, weeping silently. Viserys looked between them, daughter and wife, past and consequence, love and failure gathered at one bedside. His breathing slowed. One breath came shallow. The next took longer.
Then there was no next. Grand Maester Orwyle waited, because men trained around death knew that silence could lie for a moment. He checked the king’s chest, then his throat, then bowed his head.
"King Viserys is dead," he said softly.
Rhaenyra did not move. For that first moment, she was not queen. She was only a daughter holding the hand of a father who had finally escaped pain and left all his unfinished wounds behind.
I stood beside her and said nothing. There would be orders soon. Ravens. Guards. Doors. Oaths. Men to summon, men to watch, men to stop before grief became opportunity.
But not yet. For a handful of breaths, the realm could wait.
The king was dead, and his daughter wept.
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