A heavy silence coiled through the council chamber, settling over the long oaken table like an unwelcome fog.
Viserys sat at the head, fingers tracing the carved arms of the throne-like chair, while the eyes of his councillors fixed upon him with unsettling intensity.
Otto Hightower stood nearest to him as Hand, his pale gaze cool, the rigid line of his shoulders revealing a frustration he had ceased to hide.
Grand Maester Mellos hovered beside him, stooped with age, lips pursed in habitual restraint.
Jasper Wylde, Master of Laws, sat with a squared jaw and stiff spine; Lyman Beesbury, the Master of Coin, sat beside him, unease pervading his stern features.
Ser Criston Cole, newly appointed Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, stood with arms folded, white cloak trailing in neat folds behind him, expression hard as polished stone.
Tyland Lannister, Master of Ships, lounged with feigned elegance, though the faint crease between his brows betrayed his state being anything less than calm.
"What?" Viserys demanded as he swept his gaze across them all. "Do you have something you wish to ask of your king?"
Otto straightened, the last of his courtly patience thinning from his voice. "Your Grace, it has been several moons since we have received so much as a raven regarding Prince Baelon and Princess Helaena."
Viserys exhaled, weariness tugging at his features. He could not blame the Hand. Three months of silence gnawed at even his own nerves.
The others erupted at once.
"Your Grace, any sign of their escorts?" Tyland pressed.
"Were there disturbances reported along the Crownlands' roads?" Beesbury asked, voice squeaking.
"Have the dragonkeepers seen aught amiss before their departure?" Mellos added gently.
Wylde leaned forward. "Did they flee, or were they taken?"
Criston Cole's tone was iron. "Your Grace, if they met danger, the Kingsguard must be dispatched."
Their voices overlapped, rising into a dissonant tangle until Viserys lifted one hand.
The chamber fell instantly quiet.
He nodded slowly. "Well… I do have news of the pair."
Viserys felt the weight of their gazes as the men sat up with anticipation.
Baelon and Helaena had made themselves beloved amongst his subjects: dutiful, clever, brave in ways their youth belied.
He had sent them often on errands and diplomatic missions, not merely to keep them occupied and away from the conspiracies in King's Landing.
Viserys also had the goal of making sure the pair were well respected by the various nobility of the realm, in the hopes that should he leave, perhaps some of these favours could shield them from the storms to come.
But none of that mattered now.
He cleared his throat. "They escaped three moons ago."
The silence that followed turned suffocating.
Eyes widened. Jaws dropped. Even Otto, who prided himself on composure, froze.
"Y-your Grace…?" Lyman Beesbury ventured a laugh. "This must be a jest, surely?"
Viserys met his gaze without a hint of humour.
The realisation spread around the table like a chill draft.
Otto slammed his palm against the polished wood. "Ridiculous. You mean to tell us two children fled the capital, and with them two of our dragons? And that you helped them conceal this, Your Grace?"
Viserys coughed lightly. "Three, actually. Silverwing had always shadowed Vermithor and promptly followed suit."
Otto stared, torn between disbelief and the beginnings of a headache.
"If their flight is true," Tyland Lannister interjected, "then we must act at once. They are valuable beyond measure, to the Crown, and to Your Grace personally. We cannot leave them adrift." He turned to Mellos for support.
Grand Maester Mellos nodded. "The Master of Ships speaks wisely. The Crown should move with haste, lest the young royals fall to misfortune or manipulation."
Criston Cole inclined his head as well. "I concur. The Kingsguard stands ready to retrieve Their Highnesses the moment their trail is known."
"No," Ser Jasper Wylde countered, leaning forward with unyielding conviction. "This cannot be excused as childishness or folly. They have weakened the realm by absconding with its mightiest weapons. This borders on treason. At the very least, bounties must be placed, and they should be captured upon sight."
Viserys's blood flared.
Treason? Against him? The very him who determined what treason was?
The very idea was an insult to the Crown and to the sanctity of his bloodline.
His eyes narrowed at Jasper Wylde, and he was not alone.
Criston let out a derisive snort. "Capture them? You propose capturing two Targaryen's with three dragons to their name? Do you intend to send our entire forces after them? Or perhaps, you fancy being first on the field yourself?"
Wylde stiffened but said nothing.
Viserys turned to Mellos. "Grand Maester, remind me, when my grandsire fought the Fourth Dornish War, how long did that battle last?"
"A single day, Your Grace," Mellos replied, voice low.
"And why was that?" Viserys pressed.
The old maester hesitated only a heartbeat before answering. "Because King Jaehaerys descended upon the Dornish fleet with his sons, Prince Aemon and Prince Baelon. Three dragons, Vermithor, Caraxes, and Vhagar, took to the sky together." His voice softened with awe. "The battle ended before sundown. And for half a year afterwards, charred corpses of Dornishmen still washed ashore regularly at Cape Wrath."
Wylde's face turned an alarming shade of red. This time, he wisely shut his mouth. Clearly, he understood what Viserys had meant with the question.
Regardless of whether it was treason, trying to capture the pair was a foolish venture.
Otto leaned forward again, voice carefully measured. "Your Grace… do you have thoughts on how we must proceed?"
Viserys sighed, rubbing a hand over his brow. "We cannot capture them. Not without a war effort that would break our realm before it began. And they flew deep into Essos from what my informants had spoken of, we have no hope of tracking them quickly, if at all."
He leaned back, weariness slipping through the cracks in his regal calm.
"So I suggest we leave it be. They will return when they choose to return. We can only wait, however long that may be."
With Viserys' final pronouncement, the storm of arguments about the twins guttered out at once.
One by one, the councillors shifted to safer matters: Daemon's most recent escape across the Narrow Sea, the alarming strain on the royal coffers from two years of unchecked spending, pirate raids troubling the Gullet and Blackwater Bay.
Each topic was handled with weary efficiency, but the king's mind was no longer in the room.
At last, the discussions dwindled. The scrape of chairs echoed through the chamber as the councillors bowed and departed, their voices fading down the corridor until only silence remained.
Viserys stayed seated, hands resting on the arms of his chair. The vast chamber felt larger without the small council inside, the painted walls seeming to bend inward as if listening to his thoughts.
He let out a soft sigh as he wearily slumped into his seat.
His children were both gone, both too young to be so far from home.
"Where did those two even go…?" He murmured to the empty hall.
He had expected a word by now. A raven from Pentos, perhaps Lys, or Braavos. Some hint they had settled in a free city the way Daemon had with Laena years before.
A letter, a whisper, a sighting. Anything. But the continued quiet told Viserys one thing clearly: the pair did not want to be found not yet.
He tapped the arm of his chair, the soft tok-tok echoing faintly. Despite the pallor in his face and the worry tugging at his heart, a smile crept slowly over his lips.
"I don't know when they'll return," he said, voice warming, "but I can give them a rather grand surprise…"
His thoughts drifted…no, wandered eagerly to the project he had begun two years prior.
The foundations were already laid, walls rising stone by stone. A refuge. A retreat. A place untouched by the venom of court.
The smile grew brighter, boyish even, giving a healthy flush to his skin.
There was a more secret reason he had sent the pair on distant errands, why he had kept them away from the Crownlands for so long.
He had wanted the construction far enough along before they could catch wind of it… and ruin the surprise entirely.
Viserys leaned back, imagining their faces when they saw it for the first time.
He only hoped they would come back in time to claim it.