Jeor Mormont's arrival added another layer of heavy oppression to the already thick atmosphere in the room.
The Lord Commander of the Night's Watch let his gaze drift between Maester Aemon and Lynn. His sharp, bearish eyes seemed capable of piercing through to a man's heart.
"Maester Aemon," Mormont's voice was low, carrying a hint of barely perceptible tension.
"What is this..."
Maester Aemon did not turn around.
He simply kept his blind eyes fixed on the dragon egg before the hearth, his voice terrifyingly calm.
"Jeor, you've come at just the right time."
"I need you to bear witness."
Mormont's heart sank.
The thing he feared most seemed about to come to pass.
"Witness what?" Mormont's voice was dry.
"Witness a Targaryen offering his final loyalty to this world," Maester Aemon said slowly.
Mormont's breath hitched for a moment.
He looked at Lynn's grim face, then at Aemon's resolute expression, and finally let out a long sigh.
"Aemon, are you truly... decided?"
"From the moment Lynn brought this egg back, I decided."
"This is not a whim. I returned to my chambers and thought on it for a long time."
Aemon's voice carried a calm acceptance of destiny.
"This is the guidance of the Gods, and my inescapable responsibility as a Targaryen."
Honor, duty, destiny.
For Aemon, these were greater than everything.
His ancestors knew that life was sweet, yet they faced death calmly. Perhaps that was what honor, duty, and destiny truly meant.
But Lynn wasn't having it. To hatch a dragon, he could go slaughter Viserys. There was absolutely no need for Aemon to throw his life away.
"Maester Aemon, listen to me!"
Lynn stepped in front of the old man, making a last-ditch effort.
"You know the history of House Targaryen. You know the power of dragons, but you must also know the immense risk of hatching them!"
"Throughout history, how many Targaryens paid the price in blood trying to wake stone eggs, only to gain nothing?"
"Have you forgotten the tragedy of Summerhall?"
Lynn threw out the most painful failure in Targaryen history.
Aegon V, a wise king.
To bring dragons back to the world and solve problems he could not solve alone, he held a grand ritual at Summerhall.
He tried to use wildfire to hatch seven dragon eggs.
The result? Uncontrollable wildfire consumed the entire palace.
The King himself, his eldest son, the Prince of Dragonflies, and the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard, Ser Duncan the Tall... half the loyal court died in that disaster.
And of the seven eggs? Not one hatched.
"Of course I remember."
A flicker of sorrow crossed Maester Aemon's face.
"Aegon was my little brother."
"I watched him send himself and his family to hell for that mad dream."
"Then why repeat the mistake?" Lynn pressed.
"That was a tragedy!"
"A tragedy where the lives of a King and a Prince couldn't buy a miracle!"
"Because they used the wrong method," Aemon shook his head.
"Wildfire is powerful, but it is the creation of pyromancers, a trick of mortal men."
"It is full of destruction, but devoid of life."
"Dragons need life."
"Fire and Blood."
Aemon's voice grew distant, as if recalling history long forgotten by the world.
"My brother, Aerion. Have you heard his story?"
Lynn nodded.
Of course he knew. Aerion Targaryen.
"Aerion Brightflame."
A handsome, martial, yet utterly cruel and mad prince.
"He always said he was a dragon in human form," Aemon said with a trace of mockery.
"He believed if he drank a cup of wildfire, he would transform into a dragon."
"And the result?"
"He twisted and screamed in agony as the flames consumed him from the inside out. He died a charred husk."
"Not a single scale grew on him."
Lynn fell silent.
It was a mad story, and a stupid one.
"And my other brother, Daeron."
Aemon's voice grew even sadder.
"He wasn't mad like Aerion. He was kind, and sensitive."
"He was a dreamer. He had dragon dreams."
"He dreamed of too many tragic endings."
"Those dreams haunted him his whole life."
"He was afraid. Terrified. He tried to drown the visions in wine, to escape the tragedy that was destined to come."
"People called him 'Daeron the Drunken'."
"In the end, he didn't die on a battlefield, or in a conspiracy."
"He died of a pox he caught from a common whore."
Maester Aemon recounted the tragic ends of his brothers.
Endless sorrow flowed from his blind eyes.
"You see, Lynn."
"We Targaryens are always dealing with dragons."
"We crave their power, we try to control them, but in the end, we are often destroyed by them."
"They were all wrong."
Aemon turned back to "face" the ice-blue dragon egg.
"They all forgot the words of House Targaryen."
"Fire and Blood."
"To gain the power of the dragon, one must pay the price in blood."
"And my blood holds the qualification to hatch it."
At this moment, Aemon's voice was filled with an unquestionable pride.
"Because I am Aemon Targaryen."
"Because in my veins flows the blood of kings."
Mormont listened quietly from the side.
He didn't interrupt, but his hand tightened around the hilt of his sword.
Lynn's heart sank bit by bit.
He knew he couldn't persuade this stubborn old man.
Aemon Targaryen wasn't seeking death.
He was fulfilling his final mission as a Targaryen in his own way.
Just as the atmosphere in the room reached its heaviest point.
Caw!
A rasping, piercing cry suddenly came from outside the window.
A raven had landed on the windowsill.
It was pitch black, its feathers gleaming with a strange sheen in the firelight.
It had three eyes.
The third eye, located right in the center of its forehead, was blood-red.
Like a burning ruby.
It cocked its head, and with those three eyes, it stared quietly at Lynn.
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