Game of Thrones: The Road to Pirate King

Chapter 177 Flames - The Mad King's Past and Present

Amidst the shattered, flickering illusion of flames, the scene abruptly shifts, dragging Euron into another long-forgotten memory.

The middle-aged King Aerys Targaryen rode a magnificent warhorse. Though traces of gloom had appeared between his brows, he exuded more of a king's confidence and unquestionable majesty.

He traveled to Duskvale in person because Count Dennis Darklin had openly refused to pay taxes to the Iron Throne.

Iris II firmly believed that with the supreme authority of the king, he only needed a Kingsguard and a few dozen elite guards to intimidate the enemy and force them to submit.

But in the cold, gloomy hall of Duskvale, the negotiations quickly devolved into a heated argument. King Iris II's orders clashed fiercely with Count Dennis's firm rebuttals, neither side willing to back down.

Finally, Iris II's patience ran out, and rage completely consumed his reason. He abruptly stood up, pointed at Count Denis, and roared at the few guards behind him, "On my command! Arrest this traitor immediately! Execute him on the spot!"

He completely forgot—this was not King's Landing, but Duskvale, where the Darkling family's power was deeply entrenched; he was not surrounded by a vast army, but only a pitiful guard; the kingly majesty he thought no one dared to challenge had lost all its magic at this moment.

The response to his roar was not the actions of the guards, but a cold gesture from Count Dennis.

In an instant, the Darklin soldiers, who had been lying in ambush, surged out from all sides and easily suppressed the king's feeble resistance. Aerys II, the king of the seven kingdoms, went from being the one who gave orders to being a prisoner in the blink of an eye.

An even more brutal scene unfolded before his eyes—Sir Garwin Gott, a loyal Kingsguard, was forcibly held down by Sir Simon Hollard, Earl of Denis, before he could even draw his sword. A flash of cold light, and Ser Garwin Gott's head was severed from his body, right before Aerys II's horrified gaze!

At this moment, the king's dignity was utterly trampled, and the seeds of madness were quietly sown.

In the fragmented, flickering memories of flame, time flies by swiftly—

Aerys II, once the ruler of seven kingdoms, is now the lowest of the low in the damp, dark prisons of Duskwood. Earl Dennis Darklin shows him no favors because of his royal status; on the contrary, he inflicts the most humiliating treatment: imprisoning him in the dirtiest, most foul-smelling cell; providing him with food worse than pig swill; and allowing the cruel and perverse jailers to torture him at will—whipping him with salt-soaked leather whips, branding his skin with red-hot irons, even holding him down and urinating on his head—

Count Denis attempted to break Iris's spirit through various means, forcing him to submit completely and sign a humiliating treaty.

But he never expected that the extreme physical torture would not break Iris's spirit, but would instead push his mind to another extreme—Iris II had gone "mad".

In Euron and Gwendolyn's consciousness, seemingly transformed into the perspective of a raven, they followed Aerys II, who had also become a spiritual raven, as they flew over the towering, frigid Wall and arrived at the legendary Land of Everwinter.

There, they saw an endless, silent army of ghouls, and felt a chilling dread of death. A crazed and persistent voice, like a leech, relentlessly assaulted Iris's ears and gnawed at his mind: "Burn them all—"

"Burn them to death—"

"Only flames—"

As if to convince Iris of this, the vision allowed him to witness the dead rise from the dead, fearless of swords and blades, only to turn to ashes in the green flames of wildfire.

"Burn! Burn them! Burn them to death! Burn everything!"

Every day, Aerys II endured physical torture at the hands of Dennis Darklin and the jailers in the real world; every night, his soul suffered endless torment in a nightmare of ice and fire beyond the North.

Six months later, when the daily torment reached its peak, King Iris II finally lost his mind completely. When he was released from Duskvale, he was no longer the arrogant but still rational king he once was.

A true "mad king" has been born.

He firmly believed that fire was the only answer to purify the world and combat the eternal winter.

He wanted to burn all those he deemed deserving of death.

Flames engulfed the previous scene, ashes scattered, and a new scene gradually coalesced in the distorted heat.

This time, what emerges is the current Iris II, who has been completely consumed by madness.

Iris II was trapped in a web of nightmares and delusional fantasies from which he could not extricate himself.

In a vivid and terrifying dream, Aerys II saw Cersei Lannister—Tywin's daughter—wearing the Targaryen crown and sitting arrogantly on the Iron Throne forged from black swords!

It was this terrible omen that caused Aerys II to fly into a rage and refuse outright when Tywin Lannister proposed a marriage between Rhaegar and Cersei Lannister. He stared at Tywin with eyes burning with madness and contempt, his voice sharp and biting: "You are my most trusted servant, Tywin, I never deny that. But there is no reason for a servant's daughter and his master's heir to be together!"

In another, older, yet more intense dream, Aerys II saw it clearly—a dragon, a three-headed dragon!—the sacred symbol that should have been the exclusive power of the Targaryen family. Their figures surrounded a Targaryen woman with long silver hair and of impeccable blood, against the backdrop of a distant city-state across the Narrow Sea.

This vision convinced him that the true dragon would eventually return, but it must be united with the oldest and purest bloodline.

It was this obsessive belief that drove him to send his most trusted brother, Stephen Baratheon, Duke of Storm's End, and his wife, Cassandra Ismon, across the ocean to Volantis, determined to find a queen of ancient and noble lineage for Prince Rhaegar, hoping to give birth to the prophesied "dragon."

In his dream, Iris II saw one of his sons, wearing a crown, at a grand wedding, only to be poisoned to death by a traitor. From that moment on, he refused to let anyone near him, forbidding anyone to cut his hair or nails. A voice told him that no one around him could be trusted!

The flames twisted and spun again, drawing Euron and Gwendolyn's consciousness into a vortex of another dimension.

Once the scene stabilized, they found themselves suspended in a cold and secluded stone chamber—a place they recognized as being deep within Harrenhal.

Inside the stone chamber, Aerys II, the "Mad King," faced his son and heir, Rhaegar Targaryen. The flickering candlelight cast the long, twisted shadows of the father and son across the rough stone wall, like ghostly figures.

Aerys II's voice, hoarse and urgent, broke the silence: "Do you remember the prophecy passed down through generations of the Targaryen family—A Song of Ice and Fire?"

Rhaegar's expression was solemn and reverent as he answered without hesitation, "I always keep it in mind, Father, and I firmly believe it. At first, I believed I was the prince of prophecy—then I thought that this responsibility might fall on the shoulders of my offspring. I have long decided to name my eldest son Aegon, because dragons have three heads. We need three children, just like the three-headed dragon on our family crest, and Aegon will surely become the prince of prophecy."

Aerys II abruptly interrupted him, his eyes flashing with fanatical green light: "Then divorce Elijah Martell! She cannot bear you the prophesied prince; she can no longer have children!"

Rega stared in shock, his eyes widening, instinctively resisting: "This—we swore an oath before the Seven Gods—"

Aerys II waved his hand impatiently, as if to sweep away all obstacles: "I have understood the true meaning of 'A Song of Ice and Fire'! Fire is the true dragon blood of us Targaryens! And ice—" he paused deliberately, emphasizing his words, "is the blood of the Starks of the North!"

"The blood of the Starks of the North?" Rhaegar murmured, repeating the phrase that had been frequently haunting his dreams these past few days.

A wild yet beautiful figure suddenly appeared in my mind.

"That's right!" Aerys II's voice became resolute. "You are fire, and the Stark blood of the North is ice. You must marry Lyanna Stark!"

Upon hearing the name, a flicker of undisguised, even relieved joy crossed Rega's face, but he immediately thought of reality: "Then—what about Ilya?"

"Divorce!" Iris II's voice was cold and ruthless. "You must divorce her after the tournament!"

The immense pressure and his inner desires battled fiercely within Rega, and he tried to buy himself a moment's respite: "Father, please let me—think, I need time—"

"Your marriage is not for your personal pleasure!" Aerys II roared, completely cutting off his escape route. "It is for the survival of the entire Seven Kingdoms! There is no room for further thought! This is the decision!"

The flames suddenly exploded, and countless sparks scattered like frightened moths, abruptly pulling the two people, who were immersed in the illusion, back to reality.

Euron and Gwendolyn awoke at the same time, panting heavily, as if they had just struggled out of deep water.

Inside the stone chamber, all the candlelight and the flames in the fireplace were leaping erratically, casting their shadows on the walls, dancing like ghosts.

Gwendolyn's red robes fluttered, her body was covered in fine beads of sweat, and her cheeks were flushed with the passion and mystery of her voyeurism.

Euron leaned down and gently kissed her lips, his fingers lightly tracing her smooth back, and whispered, "Are you tired?"

Gwendolyn shook her head, her red hair clinging to her sweat-dampened forehead, her eyes still reeling from the shock she had just experienced: "Not tired."

After a moment of silence, Euron's gaze fell upon the still restless flickering flame, and he asked, "You say—what we just saw, was it all real?"

“The sacred fire never lies—” Gwendolyn’s tone was firm, yet tinged with a deep worry. “However, the truth it reveals can be misunderstood or misinterpreted by mortals. Like Aerys II, who was a pitiful man who completely misinterpreted the prophecy—how lamentable.”

She nestled her burning cheeks against Euron's chest, a clear look of confusion in her eyes: "It's too shocking."

We glimpsed a long-buried past, sensed a turbulent present, uncovered a shocking secret, and even stepped into fragments of the Mad King's dream—I was just wondering," she looked up, meeting Euron's eyes directly, "who possessed such power to drag Aerys II into such a deep and terrifying dream?"

Euron knew the answer likely pointed to the legendary Three-Eyed Raven, but he couldn't reveal this profound secret to the priestess of the Lord of Light in his arms. He simply smiled meaningfully, his fingers tracing her arm, and steered the conversation elsewhere: "Perhaps—we should seek the answer directly from the Lord of Light himself within the flames?"

Gwendolyn: "...

Inside the stone chamber, only the flames and other things crackled and popped.