It began in silence, as it always did.
Not with a roar. Not with a blast of fire or a tremble of the earth. Just a pulse—a rhythm in the stone, soft and insistent. The kind of stillness that only exists before something ancient wakes.
I was already awake when I felt it. I didn't sleep much these nights, not with so many eyes on us, not with dragons growing stronger by the day. Vaedron stirred beside me, blue wings twitching in his sleep. Even he felt it—a change in the air.
I crossed the room, barefoot on cold stone, and stared into the hearth where the green egg lay half-buried in coals. Its shell shimmered faintly in the firelight: green laced with bright bronze veining, pulsing like a heartbeat beneath the surface.
A fine crack split the top.
"Dany," I whispered.
She sat up immediately. We were used to this now—the quiet call of a dragon ready to be born.
She joined me at the hearth, still wrapped in a silken robe, silver hair falling down her back. Her eyes found the egg at once.
"Rhazal," she said softly.
The name we had chosen for him together. Whispered in candlelight. Spoken against each other's lips when the world was asleep. Ours alone.
The green egg shifted again. Then cracked.
We knelt beside it, just the two of us. No guards. No servants. No bloodriders.
Drakaina watched from her perch atop the upper ledge, wings tucked, her red-black scales catching the light in pulses. Vaedron curled against the wall like a lazy cat, his eyes half-lidded but alert.
The shell split.
A flash of bronze.
Then a claw.
And then, slowly, he emerged.
Longer and leaner than the others had been. His scales shimmered wet green, with bronze patterns curled like vines across his shoulders. His wings opened, wide and trembling, already longer than Drakaina's had been at hatching.
He didn't cry. Didn't hiss. He blinked up at Daenerys and climbed into her hands like he had been waiting his whole life to find her.
She laughed, soft and raw. "He's beautiful."
"He's perfect," I said.
We fed him by hand, careful and reverent. Dany sliced meat into neat strips, and I dipped them in warm water to soften. Rhazal took them gently from our fingers, his eyes blinking slowly, thoughtfully. Already calm. Already calculating.
"He's quiet," she said.
"Like you were," I replied.
She nudged me with her shoulder.
"He's different from the others."
Drakaina had been fire and fury, bursting from her shell like she meant to burn the world. Vaedron had been clever, smug, old-souled from the moment he hatched. But Rhazal was balanced. Watchful. Something in him spoke of storms that rolled for days and struck only once.
He would not scream.
He would strike.
By midday, the entire camp knew.
A second dragon had hatched.
They didn't see him—not yet. But the sounds carried. The change in air. The way the sky itself seemed to bend toward us. People didn't need proof when their bones already believed.
The Dothraki called him the "wind serpent." The Qartheen whispered of omens. The merchants simply adjusted their offers upward.
That night, we hosted no feast. Just a quiet gathering on the highest balcony of our coastal stronghold—still unnamed, still hidden. Just a fortress of stone and flame, built with gold and whispers.
Daenerys stood with me, wrapped in a deep green cloak that matched the shimmer of Rhazal's wings. He perched on her arm, coiled and alert. Drakaina circled overhead once, casting great shadows across the cliff wall. Vaedron remained below, ever-aloof.
She did not give a speech. We didn't need one.
Instead, she simply said:
"Two have come. A third waits. The blood of the dragon has returned."
It was enough.
The men bowed. The women looked to me, then her, then back again. They whispered the word they always whispered now—
Queens.
They didn't know what we were. They didn't know we shared breath and warmth behind closed doors. That when the fire died low, I held her like a twin and kissed her like something else entirely. No one knew. And that was how we wanted it.
Let them see fire.
Let them kneel.
The rest was ours alone.
Later that night, she curled against me beneath the sheets, Rhazal asleep by our feet.
"You were quiet today," she murmured.
"I was listening."
"To what?"
"To the way they look at you."
She turned, chin resting on my collarbone. "Do they look at you any less?"
"I don't care if they do."
She smiled. "Liar."
I kissed her forehead. "Maybe a little."
Her breath warmed my throat.
"I wish we could tell them."
"Not yet."
"I know."
A pause.
"Does it feel real yet?" she asked.
"The dragons?"
"All of it."
I looked toward the glowing hearth, where the final egg—cream and gold—rested in silence.
"Almost."
She fell asleep with her head on my shoulder.
And I stayed awake.
Listening.
Waiting.
Because I knew the third would come.
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