Viserys Targaryen had been having the same dream for seven nights straight.
Everything in the dream was grey—no color, just endless shades of shadow and stone. He always found himself standing on a staircase that seemed to go on forever, the black stone beneath his bare feet cold and slick with moisture. Dust hung in the air like fog, and something deep below was calling to him. Not with words, but with a pull—a hook buried in his gut, tugging him down into the darkness.
On the fifth night, he'd made it thirteen steps.
On the sixth, twenty-seven.
Tonight, when his consciousness slipped back into that grey world, the stairs finally ended. A door stood before him, covered in runes he'd never seen before but somehow understood perfectly: Blood and fire, spirit and flesh, the giver shall receive a gift.
The door opened.
Viserys's eyes snapped open. He wasn't in bed. He was standing barefoot in the corridor outside his bedroom, wearing nothing but thin pajamas that did absolutely nothing against the pre-dawn chill. Through the narrow window, he could see King's Landing still asleep below, the stone walls of Maegor's Holdfast bathed in that deep blue that comes just before sunrise.
Sleepwalking. Again.
It had been happening regularly since his fifth name day two months ago. At first, Queen Rhaella and the servants had panicked every time they found him wandering the halls in his sleep. But the Grand Maester and some of the older servants—especially Sophia—had whispered that this was normal. Well, normal for a Targaryen. They called it an "ancient echo in the dragon's blood." Apparently, there was no shortage of stories about Targaryens who foresaw things or completed strange rituals while sleepwalking. Hell, even King Aerys II had been found multiple times in his youth, wandering through the ruins of the Dragonpit late at night, muttering to himself.
So the Red Keep had adapted. The guards had their orders: as long as the prince wasn't in danger, don't wake him, don't stop him—just follow quietly and make sure he didn't fall down any stairs or walk off a balcony. It was just another weird Targaryen thing.
But Viserys knew the truth. This wasn't some mystical dragon blood thing.
He was a transmigrator.
The memories of his previous life were like an old photograph left in the sun—faded, blurry around the edges, but unmistakably real. Car horns. Glowing screens. Packed subway cars during rush hour. Those fragments mixed with five years of memories from this life, leaving him feeling disoriented most of the time, like he was living in two places at once.
It wasn't until the dreams started getting clearer that he'd put it all together. He really had transmigrated. And not just anywhere—he'd ended up as Viserys Targaryen, the "Beggar Prince" from Game of Thrones. The guy who got a molten gold crown in the end.
Yeah. That Viserys.
If he wanted to avoid that fate, he needed power. Real power. And all his recent bizarre experiences—the sleepwalking, the dreams, all of it—were connected to one thing: the mysterious altar he'd been trying to activate since he'd figured out who he was.
He stood there for a moment, letting the cold morning air clear the last cobwebs from his mind. Then he turned away from his bedroom and started walking. His steps felt light, almost floating, but he moved with purpose—toward the kitchens and the old cellars beneath them.
Two guards stationed near a pillar down the corridor exchanged glances. One of them peeled off and followed at a respectful distance. This was routine by now. Just had to make sure the kid didn't break his neck on the stairs.
The entrance to the cellars was tucked behind the kitchen area—just an ordinary oak door with a rusty iron lock that looked like it hadn't been opened in years. The guard watched as the young prince stopped in front of it, staring at the lock like he was trying to figure out a puzzle.
Then Viserys did something strange. Instead of trying to open the lock, he pressed his hand against a darker wooden panel at the bottom right of the door. The rotted board gave way with barely any pressure, revealing a gap just wide enough to squeeze through.
The prince turned sideways and slipped inside with the kind of flexibility only sleepwalkers seemed to have—or really flexible five-year-olds. The guard lurched forward, startled, but all he could hear were steady footsteps receding into the darkness. He hesitated, then decided to stay put. The prince was still in the Red Keep, still technically sleepwalking. No reason to panic yet.
The smell of mold hit Viserys like a wall.
He pulled out a flint and a small candle stub from his robe—things he'd started carrying during the day, just in case. Sleepwalkers did weird stuff like that sometimes. The candle caught, and dim yellow light pushed back the darkness just enough to see.
The cellar was way bigger than he'd expected. This wasn't just some food storage area—it was a whole network of interconnected basement rooms, all carved out of the stone beneath the Red Keep.
The air was cold and damp, water condensing on the walls in tiny rivulets. The first few rooms were crammed with junk: broken furniture, rusted armor, bundles of moldy tapestries. Three hundred years of Targaryen rule meant three hundred years of crap nobody wanted to throw away.
The deeper he went, the more space opened up around him.
In the sixth room, he found the bones.
Not human bones. Dragon bones.
They gleamed dully in the candlelight, massive curved ribs arching overhead like cathedral doorways. The vertebrae stretched out into the darkness like a spine made of stone. And at the very back, half-buried in rubble, was the skull.
Even as nothing but bone, it was terrifying. The jaw hung open, and those empty eye sockets seemed to stare right through him, radiating a kind of majesty that death couldn't touch.
Balerion. The Black Dread. The dragon Aegon the Conqueror had ridden when he'd turned six kingdoms into seven. The one whose wingspan could blot out entire towns, whose fire had melted castles into slag.
Viserys had known the skull was kept somewhere in the Red Keep, but nobody had mentioned it was just... down here. Dumped in a basement like old furniture. The skull was partially buried, covered in dust and rubble, those empty sockets staring up at the ceiling like it was asking a question nobody could answer.
Then he saw it. The altar.
Three steps in front of the skull, the floor dipped down into a circular pit about six feet across. The stone was cut into geometric patterns, with a groove running through the center and runes carved around the edges—the same runes from his dream. The surface was covered in dust, but the grooves themselves were weirdly clean, like someone had just wiped them down.
Viserys moved closer, the candlelight making the runes seem to shift and writhe.
He spoke the words aloud, not in the Common Tongue, but in High Valyrian—the language every Targaryen learned from the age of three:
"Perzys se rȳ, rȳ se qilōnarion, jelmāzma se qrinuntys, nyke jorrāelagon mirre..."
With fire as the guide, blood as the medium, spirit as the sacrifice, I sacrifice all things...
The moment the last word left his lips, the runes flared to life. Not with warm firelight, but with cold, pale light—like winter stars, tinged with blue.
The mark on his chest—the one that had appeared two months ago—pulsed with heat. And suddenly, knowledge flooded into his mind. Not words, not images, but pure understanding: the altar needed offerings. Anything with magic or power could be sacrificed. The stronger the offering, the greater the gift.
Viserys looked at the candle in his hand, then at the Valyrian steel dagger tucked into his belt—a gift from his brother Rhaegar. He took a deep breath, pressed the blade against his left palm, and cut deep.
Blood welled up, hot and dark. He let it drip into the groove at the center of the altar.
"Mysterious altar," he said in High Valyrian, his voice steady despite the pain. "Viserys of House Targaryen makes this sacrifice. With fire as the guide, blood as the medium, I offer the bones of Balerion the Black Dread."
The altar blazed.
The runes didn't just glow this time—they moved, rearranging themselves across the stone like living things. The mark on Viserys's chest burned so hot he dropped to one knee, gripping the edge of the altar to keep from collapsing entirely.
In the darkness beyond the candlelight, two points of light ignited in Balerion's skull.
Not reflected light. These were coming from inside the bone—dark red, like clotted blood, burning in those empty eye sockets. They moved, slowly, focusing on Viserys.
A voice spoke. Not out loud. It resonated directly in his skull, ancient and tired, rough as grinding stone:
"Blood of Valyria... sacrifice of dragon bone... the pact is sealed."
The moment the voice faded, every rune on the altar lit up at once. Cracks appeared across Balerion's bones—thousands of hairline fractures spreading like spiderwebs—and dark red light burst from each one, streaming into the altar in rivers of power.
Viserys felt his consciousness being torn open. Something cold and ancient forced its way inside, and the pain almost knocked him out completely. But just before he passed the edge into unconsciousness, knowledge flooded in—clear and precise:
The sacrifice is complete. You have obtained a Ghost Dragon—a being existing between life and death, born from dragon bones whose consciousness has not yet faded.
And then he understood what it could do.
First: it could shift between tangible and intangible at will. Solid enough to interact with the physical world, or pure shadow to slip into dreams and minds.
Second: it fed on souls and life energy. The more it consumed, the faster it would grow. Right now, it was newborn. It would need constant feeding.
Third: it could mess with people's heads. Even as a newborn, it could disrupt memories, plant fear, or peek into surface thoughts. When it matured, it could weave false memories and briefly control minds. And at full strength? It could dominate souls completely, forge contracts of absolute obedience.
Viserys knelt there, gasping, his whole body shaking. When he finally looked up, there was a dragon-shaped shadow condensing in the air in front of him.
About four feet from nose to tail, translucent, with ghostly blue light flickering in its eye sockets. It had no physical body—light passed straight through it—but the temperature in the room dropped noticeably.
The Ghost Dragon circled him once, then hovered in front of him and lowered its head.
At the same time, Viserys felt a new space open up deep in his mind—a place where the Ghost Dragon could rest. A single thought came from it, crude but clear:
Master.
"Return," Viserys thought.
The Ghost Dragon dissolved into shadow and slammed into the mark on his chest, vanishing into that mental space.
The whole thing had taken maybe five minutes. The altar's light dimmed, the runes settling back into stillness. The red glow in Balerion's eye sockets was gone, leaving behind ordinary bone—pale, cracked, eroded like it had been sitting there for a thousand years instead of decades.
Viserys forced himself to stand despite the pain radiating through every inch of his body. His legs were weak, his palm was still bleeding, and he felt like he'd been hit by a truck.
But he was smiling.
Because it had worked. After two months of sleepwalking and cryptic dreams, he'd finally done it. The altar was real. The power was real.
And now he had a weapon nobody else could see.
He took one last look at Balerion's bones—now just rubble and dust—and turned to leave. By the time he climbed back out through the gap in the door, the eastern sky was already starting to lighten. The guard waiting outside visibly relaxed when he saw the prince emerge.
"Your Highness," the guard said carefully, noticing the haze in the boy's eyes had cleared a bit. "Are you awake?"
Viserys blinked, letting just the right amount of sleepy confusion cross his face. "I... I was out again?"
"Yes, Your Highness. But you're safe. Let me escort you back to your room."
"Thank you," Viserys said softly, letting the guard lead him through the waking corridors of the Red Keep.
Sounds were starting to drift from the kitchens—the cooks beginning their morning routines.
When Viserys got back to his room, he barely had time to lie down before there was a knock at the door.
"Your Highness, it's time to wake up." The voice was familiar—old Sophia, the maid who'd been with the family forever.
"Come in," Viserys said, pretending to have just woken up, rubbing his eyes as he sat up.
Sophia pushed the door open, carrying a basin of warm water. She walked over to the bed and started helping him out of his pajamas without comment. They were covered in dust and night dew.
"You smell like the cellars, Your Highness," she said calmly, wiping his hands and feet with a damp cloth. "Sleepwalking again?"
Viserys let her work without explaining. Sleepwalkers didn't need to explain where they went.
She changed him into a clean velvet doublet—dark blue, with a small three-headed dragon embroidered on the collar. As she tidied up the discarded clothes, her back to him, she spoke so quietly he almost didn't hear:
"His Majesty is in a foul mood today. They say something was broken in his bedroom last night. There were screams." She paused. "You should stay in your room. Don't wander."
Viserys looked at the old woman's back and realized something: in this mad palace, there were people who understood everything even if they never said a word.
"Thank you, Sophia."
Her shoulders stiffened slightly, but she didn't turn around. Just kept folding clothes like nothing had happened.
Outside the window, King's Landing was waking up. Bells rang in the distance—one chime, two chimes—the morning prayers from the Great Sept.
Viserys walked to the window and looked down at the courtyard. Servants swept the stone paths. Guards changed shifts. A black cat sat by the fountain, licking its paws.
He focused inward, sensing the Ghost Dragon in that new space in his mind.
A thought drifted back to him:
Master... I'm hungry...
Viserys touched the mark on his chest. It wasn't hot anymore, but there was a faint pulse beneath his skin, out of sync with his own heartbeat.
Like a second heart, beating in the shadows.
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