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Their bedchamber is cold and black, the reflected light from the Blackwater offering little in the way of illumination as it dances on the wall. But Dany’s eyes have grown used to it, and in this poor light she can see all that she needs.
The bandage wrapped around her husband’s (not brother, she stopped thinking of him as that long ago) arm is conspicuous even against his pale skin, with the wrapping darkened slightly with blood. He cut himself on the throne again this morning, slicing the flesh of his arm apart with one violent gesture. She was there, just off to the side, and sat silent as the maesters attended him. She filtered out his cries of pain and indignation and focused on the murmurs of the crowd, the whispers and doubts that they could not keep silent. It upset her to hear them react in such a way and disturbed her that she found herself somewhat in sympathy.
But anyone could see that bandage, even in this closed room. It is what accompanies it that requires a keener eye, and that’s what draws her focus: the faded scars that dot her husbands’ body in a confused, crisscrossing, pattern. Some of them are light, scratches really, the majority of these caused by her nails. The deeper ones though, those were all inflicted by the throne.
It cut Viserys the first time he sat upon it. Rhagaer had taken it after the failed Rebellion, but the Stark girl’s death had cast a pale over his supposed victory. His love dead, his wife dead, his heirs dead, he only ever seemed to be playing a role.
Dany had been promised to him soon after, but a sudden sickness took Rhagaer before she reached her thirteenth nameday. That was the official narrative, of course, and the singers had spun it into a tale for the ages—the prince who died of a broken heart. A kingdom, they all sang, could not make up for a lover’s smile.
Dany was young, but she was far from ignorant. On the night he died her brother had been well enough at supper, during which Viserys kept constantly refilling his goblet. A week later, as she stood beside Viserys watching the pyre burn, she could not help but notice that the bright fever burning in his eyes was not a reflection. She had held her tongue throughout all of this and retreated inside, where it was safe.
The next day, Viserys got his crown. When the blood began to the show through the fine silver tunic he wore Daenerys shut her eyes tight, not wishing to see the crowd’s reaction. She was bound to this man now and she could feel the cut in her heart. In an instance, they had both been branded as weak.
The blood had dried when they married an hour later, in the Great Sept. Viserys had placed their mother’s crown on her head and smiled broadly. She still remembered that smile clearly. There had been something genuine about it, and she had smiled back at him for the first time she could remember.
But that moment had been fleeting, and he had cut himself more as the years went by, while the lords whispered behind his back and Dany silently watched.
Watched and hoped. The throne was rejecting him, just as it had rejected their father--that much was clear. Whether the gathered lords and ladies would do the same was hard to tell, and it was harder still to know if they placed her on the same level as her husband. She had birthed a son and he had survived, but he was sickly and weak, his blood too thin. She wondered sometimes if she would live to see him cut his self on the same iron throne.
Sometimes she would practice what she would need to teach her son. She would sit on the throne, the dragon crown heavy on her head, as careful as could be. She had never seen her own blood flow on that throne, though she knew it would if Viserys ever caught her there.
Back in the dark bedchamber, she runs her finger down one long scar on her husband’s back, and tries to steady her hand to keep him from waking.