Chapter 7: A Shadow Wing, A Public Claim
The city of King's Landing baked under a summer sun that did little to dispel the chilling undercurrents of ambition coiling through the Red Keep. Baelon Targaryen, now twelve namedays past his unwelcome rebirth, moved through the oppressive heat with an unnatural coolness. He was taller, his slender frame hinting at a wiry strength, but it was his eyes – those pale, knowing pools of Aemma's blue, now sharpened with the chilling light of Lord Voldemort's ancient soul – that held the court's uneasy attention.
The rivalry with his half-brother Aegon, now a sturdy, boisterous boy of six, had escalated from nursery squabbles to more pointed, if still childish, confrontations. Aegon, coddled by his mother Queen Alicent and relentlessly promoted by his grandfather Otto Hightower, was being groomed with an unsubtle urgency. He was taught to see himself as the rightful heir, despite Baelon's unassailable legal standing as the firstborn son of the King. The whispers of the 'green' faction painted Baelon as an afterthought, a relic of a past marriage, while Aegon was the vibrant future.
One sweltering afternoon in the training yard, this simmering animosity boiled over. Ser Criston Cole, a knight whose star had risen swiftly under Queen Alicent's patronage and who now served as Aegon's personal sworn shield and tutor, was instructing the younger prince in swordplay. Baelon, whose own training with a more traditional master-at-arms was far more advanced, observed from the shaded colonnade, a book of Valyrian poetry open but unread in his lap.
Aegon, clumsy and easily frustrated, disarmed himself for the third time, his wooden practice sword clattering onto the packed earth. Ser Criston offered patient encouragement, but Aegon's face was flushed with anger. His eyes fell on Baelon.
"It's easy for you to sit there and read, brother!" Aegon shouted, his voice shrill. "You probably couldn't even lift a real sword!"
Baelon slowly closed his book, his gaze level. "The purpose of a sword, Aegon, is to be effective, not merely to be lifted. A skill you have yet to master, it seems."
Ser Criston Cole stiffened, his hand instinctively going to the pommel of his own sword. "Prince Baelon, your brother is but learning."
"And learning poorly," Baelon replied, his voice soft but carrying in the still air. He rose, walking gracefully onto the sun-drenched yard. "Perhaps he requires a more… stimulating lesson."
Before Ser Criston could intervene, Aegon, goaded beyond reason, snatched up his wooden sword and charged at Baelon, yelling incoherently. Voldemort, reacting with the speed and precision of a duelist facing a clumsy amateur, sidestepped the wild swing with contemptuous ease. He didn't draw the practice blade at his own hip. Instead, as Aegon stumbled past, off-balance, Baelon simply extended a foot. Aegon tripped, sprawling face-first into the dust with a howl of outrage and pain.
"Control, Aegon," Baelon said, looking down at his half-brother with an expression of utter dispassion. "Of your temper, and your footing. Both are essential, should you ever wish to survive a true conflict."
Queen Alicent, who had been approaching the yard with Helaena, witnessed the entire exchange. Her face, usually composed in pious serenity, flushed with anger. "Baelon! How dare you treat your brother so! He is but a child!"
"He is a prince, Your Grace," Baelon countered coolly, turning to face her. "And I was merely offering a practical demonstration of battlefield realities. One he seems unlikely to learn from… gentler methods." His eyes flicked meaningfully towards Ser Criston Cole, whose face was now a thundercloud.
Otto Hightower, never far when his daughter or grandsons were concerned, appeared as if summoned by the disturbance. His gaze was like chips of ice. "Prince Baelon, your conduct is unbecoming. An apology to your brother and to Ser Criston is in order."
Voldemort felt a familiar surge of defiance, the urge to unleash a torrent of scorn that would wither them all. But he was playing a longer game. He offered a shallow, impeccably correct bow. "If my methods were too… direct, I offer my regrets. My only wish is for Prince Aegon to be prepared for the burdens that may one day fall upon him." The implication – that those burdens would be far lesser than his own – hung in the air.
He then turned his attention to Helaena, who was staring at him with her usual wide, unnervingly perceptive eyes. She was clutching a small, intricately carved wooden dragon. "The little dragon falls," she murmured, not to anyone in particular, "but the shadow wing… the shadow wing grows ever longer."
Voldemort's gaze sharpened. Her pronouncements, often dismissed as childlike fancy, sometimes held a disturbing prescience. Shadow wing. He filed it away.
The incident, though seemingly minor, sent ripples through the court. The greens portrayed Baelon as cruel and arrogant, a threat to his younger siblings. His own few, carefully cultivated sources of information told him that Otto Hightower was using it to further poison Viserys's mind against his firstborn, hinting that Baelon's 'strange intensity' was a cause for concern.
But these petty squabbles were a distraction from Voldemort's true focus: the obsidian egg in his hidden chamber. In the two years since he had breached the Valyrian sanctum, his connection to it, and the power it radiated, had deepened profoundly. The glyphs on the walls had begun to yield their secrets to his relentless study, his mind, already steeped in the complexities of wizarding lore, proving uniquely adept at deciphering the ancient Valyrian magical constructs. He learned that the chamber was a 'Heart of Valyria,' a type of resonant incubator designed to amplify and nurture the potential within a unique dragon lineage. The egg itself was not merely a dragon egg, but what the fragmented texts called a 'Draconis Animus Incarnatus' – a Dragon Soul Incarnate, an egg laid perhaps once a millennium, containing not just a beast, but a nascent intelligence of immense magical potential, directly linked to the core energies of the Valyrian peninsula.
The egg had begun to change. Fine, almost invisible cracks, like a spiderweb of obsidian lightning, had started to appear on its surface, glowing with a faint, internal violet light. The slow, deep heartbeat within was stronger now, more insistent. Voldemort knew it was close.
One night, as a fierce thunderstorm raged over King's Landing, mirroring the turmoil within his soul when he first awoke in this world, the egg finally hatched. He was in the chamber, the air thick with ozone from the storm outside and the building magical pressure within. A deafening crack echoed through the confined space, and the obsidian egg shattered, not into pieces, but into a thousand shards of pure, incandescent shadow that swirled like a contained vortex.
From the heart of this shadowy cyclone, a creature unfolded. It was not a typical dragon hatchling, all gangly limbs and oversized wings. This was something sleeker, more serpentine, its scales the colour of polished night, so dark they seemed to drink the very light from the glowing glyphs. Its eyes were molten gold, slitted like a cat's, but burning with an ancient, terrifying intelligence. It had wings, yes, vast and membranous, but they seemed woven from shadowstuff itself, their edges indistinct and flowing. It was beautiful and terrible, an echo of Valyria's most potent and dangerous magic.
It fixed its golden eyes on Voldemort. There was no fear, no infant dependency. Only a profound, resonant awareness. He felt its mind touch his, not with words, but with pure, primal understanding, a wave of ancient power and shared purpose. This was not a beast to be merely tamed; this was a kindred spirit, a reflection of his own dark soul given form.
"Speaker," a voice echoed in his mind, ancient and powerful, not gendered, but vast. It was not Parseltongue, but something deeper, a direct communion of thought. "You have awakened me. We are bound."
Voldemort felt a surge of triumph that eclipsed any he had ever known. This was power. True power. He reached out, not with his hand, but with his will, his magic. "I am Baelon. And you are mine."
The creature tilted its head, its golden eyes blazing. "I am Umbraxys. And we are one."
A bond, fiercer and more profound than any Targaryen had ever known with their mount, snapped into place – not the empathy of a rider, but the shared will of two apex predators. Umbraxys was not a pet, nor a mere steed. It was an extension of his own being, a living weapon of unimaginable potential.
Keeping Umbraxys a secret was now his paramount concern. The creature, though small by dragon standards (roughly the size of a large wolfhound, but growing rapidly), radiated an aura of palpable dread and ancient magic that would be impossible to conceal from other dragons or magically sensitive individuals for long. The chamber, thankfully, was warded, its ancient glyphs designed to contain such energies. Umbraxys seemed content for now to explore its confines, its shadowy wings making no sound as it moved. Voldemort knew he would have to find a way to feed it, to sustain its growth, to master its unique abilities.
The pressure from the court to claim a 'public' dragon, however, did not abate. In fact, Otto Hightower, perhaps sensing a shift in Baelon's quiet confidence after the training yard incident, pushed harder for it, likely hoping Baelon would fail, or choose a lesser beast, further diminishing his stature compared to the future promise of Aegon.
Voldemort decided it was time. A public dragon would serve as a useful misdirection, a display of conventional Targaryen prowess that would mask the far greater power he now secretly commanded. He considered his options. Vermithor and Silverwing were ancient and powerful, but claiming them might draw too much unwanted scrutiny. The Cannibal was a legend of savage independence, a challenge he might enjoy, but perhaps too overt for now.
He chose Silverwing. Good Queen Alysanne's mount, and more poignantly, the dragon that had belonged to the line of his own mother, Aemma Arryn, through her grandmother Daella Targaryen. Though Aemma herself had never ridden, the connection was symbolic. Silverwing was old, powerful, but known for a gentler temperament than some of the other elder dragons – or so the Dragonkeepers believed. Voldemort suspected any dragon's temperament was subject to the will of its rider.
The claiming was a public spectacle. The King, Queen Alicent, his half-siblings, Rhaenyra, Daemon (who had watched Baelon with an increasingly speculative gaze since the training yard), and half the court assembled at the Dragonpit.
Silverwing was magnificent, her scales like molten silver, her eyes the colour of amethysts. She was vast, easily dwarfing Syrax or Caraxes. When Baelon approached, the Dragonkeepers tensed, ready for her to refuse or attack. She lowered her great head, her nostrils flaring, sensing him.
Voldemort felt her ancient, draconic mind, wary, proud, tinged with the sadness of long widowhood. He did not approach her with pleas or offerings. He reached out with his will, amplified by the resonant power of Umbraxys that now thrummed constantly within him, and by the Valyrian knowledge he had assimilated. He projected not a request, but an undeniable assertion of dominance, a calm, cold certainty that he was her new master.
"You will be mine," his thought echoed in her mind, not in High Valyrian, but in the primal language of power he now shared with Umbraxys.
Silverwing recoiled for a moment, a deep rumble starting in her chest. The Dragonkeepers took a step back. Then, to the astonishment of all present, the great silver dragon lowered her head further, a gesture of submission rarely seen from such an ancient beast. She nudged his shoulder gently.
Baelon, without hesitation, reached up and grasped one of her silver horns, pulling himself onto her broad back. There were no chains, no riding saddle prepared. He settled himself, his posture regal, his connection to the beast instantaneous and absolute. He urged her forward, and with a powerful beat of her immense wings, Silverwing rose into the sky, circling the Dragonpit once, a silver comet against the blue, before soaring out over King's Landing.
The reaction from the onlookers was one of stunned silence, followed by a mixture of gasps and grudging murmurs of awe. Viserys's face was a mask of pride, tears welling in his eyes. "My son!" he breathed. "He is truly his mother's kin… and every inch a Targaryen!"
Queen Alicent's smile was strained, her hand gripping Aegon's shoulder tightly. Otto Hightower's expression was unreadable, but Voldemort could sense his simmering frustration. This was not the outcome he had hoped for.
Daemon Targaryen watched Baelon's ascent with a calculating glint in his violet eyes. He leaned towards Rhaenyra, who looked both proud and somewhat unsettled. "Your little brother is… full of surprises, niece," Daemon murmured. "He commands that beast as if he were born in the saddle. Or perhaps, as if he were something more than just a boy."
Rhaenyra nodded slowly, her gaze fixed on the distant silver speck. "He is… Baelon."
When Baelon landed Silverwing, the dragon moving with a newfound responsiveness, he dismounted with an air of quiet authority. Ser Arryk Cargyll was the first to approach, his face filled with awe. "Your Grace, that was… magnificent."
"She is a fine beast, Ser Arryk," Baelon replied, his voice calm. "She will serve the Crown well."
In the days that followed, Baelon's status at court subtly shifted. He was no longer just the quiet, intense heir; he was Baelon the Dragonrider, master of the mighty Silverwing. The Hightower faction found it harder to dismiss him. Pate, his scribe, brought him whispers of Otto's increased efforts to secure a dragon egg for Aegon, to rush the boy's own presentation at the Dragonpit.
Voldemort cared little for their machinations. His true power resided not on Silverwing's back, impressive as she was, but in the secret chamber with Umbraxys. The shadow dragon was growing at an alarming rate, already the size of a small pony, its intelligence expanding daily. Voldemort began to experiment with their linked abilities. He found he could see through Umbraxys's eyes, even when they were physically separated by the stone walls of the Keep. He could draw upon the creature's primal, shadowy magic, weaving it with his own wizarding power to achieve effects he had only dreamed of before.
He was Baelon Targaryen, rider of Silverwing, master of shadows. He was Lord Voldemort, his soul bound to a creature of ancient Valyrian night. The game of thrones was becoming infinitely more interesting, and he possessed a hidden ace that would trump them all. The future was not merely a canvas; it was a conquest waiting to happen, and he now had a shadow wing, indeed, to carry him to its darkest, most glorious heights.