Location: Wreckage of the Siren's Delight → The Bleeding Coast → Valyrian Outpost Omega
Time: Hour of the Drowned (Dawn) → Hour of the Salt-Wife (Midday) → Hour of the Silent Sun (Twilight)
I. The Castaway's Return
Location: The Bleeding Coast
Time: Hour of the Drowned
Lysander crawled onto shore with lungs full of saltwater and a head full of ghosts.
The Bleeding Coast earned its name—crimson algae stained the black sands red as far as the eye could see, giving the illusion that the very shore wept blood. Behind him, the sea still churned from the Isle's collapse, the waves vomiting up splintered wood and the occasional bloated corpse.
Hah'dra was gone.
The mute boy had vanished into the surf with the last shadowkin egg cradled against his chest, leaving Lysander with three things:
The burning kraken tattoo (now throbbing in time with his heartbeat)
Daekar's Valyrian dagger (still miraculously strapped to his thigh)
A voice in his dreams (whispering in Aelar's tone but not Aelar's words)
"System Reboot:"
"Parasite Status: Terminated"
"New Anomaly Detected: Deepwater Sigil (Kraken Brand)"
"Effects: Unknown | Threat Level: Unknown"
Lysander retched seawater onto the sand. When he wiped his mouth, his fingers came away tinged blue.
II. The Salt-Wife's Omen
Location: Fisherman's Hovel, Bleeding Coast
Time: Hour of the Salt-Wife
The old woman smelled of rotting shellfish and myrrh.
She found Lysander half-conscious in the tide pools, dragged him into her stilted shack, and promptly cut his palm open with a rusted gutting knife.
"Your blood sings with the deep places," she croaked, watching his blue-tinged droplets splatter onto a heated iron plate. The liquid hissed, evaporating into spirals of indigo smoke that formed shapes:
A crowned figure drowning in black waves
A silver-haired man with void eyes walking ashore
A kraken with Lysander's face
The salt-wife crossed herself with a trembling hand. "The Drowned King comes for you."
Lysander's tattoo burned hotter. "Who—"
"Not who. What." She pressed a shard of dragonglass into his bleeding palm. "He was old when Valyria was young. He sleeps no more."
Outside, the tide receded unnaturally fast—exposing bone-white pillars half-buried in the seabed. Carved into them:
The same spiraling kraken as Lysander's brand.
III. The Silent Sentinel
Location: Valyrian Outpost Omega
Time: Hour of the Silent Sun
The outpost stood abandoned, its watchtowers leaning like drunkards.
Lysander moved through the rubble, kicking aside rusted legionnaire helms and shattered dragon figurines. This place had been overrun during the Third Slave Rebellion, its walls stained with old fire marks.
He needed three things:
A weapon (The dagger wasn't enough)
Transport (To Valyria before the god's hunters found him)
Answers (About the kraken sigil now controlling his pulse)
The armory yielded a dragon-powder pistol (damp but serviceable) and a whip of braided basilisk scales (still supple after decades).
The stables held a surprise.
Vhagar crouched amidst the ruins, her obsidian scales dull with exhaustion. The great dragon's left wing hung broken, her muzzle crusted with salt from hard flying. But her eyes—those molten gold orbs—locked onto Lysander with terrifying intelligence.
"You," she hissed in Valyrian.
Lysander froze. "You speak?"
Vhagar bared teeth longer than his forearm. "All dragons speak. Men simply stopped listening."
She sniffed the air, nostrils flaring at the scent of his kraken brand. "You smell of him now. The King Who Waits."
The System blared a warning as Lysander's tattoo flared blue:
"Incoming Threat: Deepwater Ascendant (Elder Entity)"
Vhagar saw it too. She roared, spraying molten saliva that set the straw ablaze. "He comes! The Drowned King comes!"
Outside, the sea began to boil.
IV. The Drowned King's Herald
Location: Outpost Omega's Dock
Time: Hour of the Silent Sun (Waning)
The waves parted like a curtain.
What emerged was not Aelar—not anymore.
The figure stood on the water's surface, his silver hair now blackened kelp, his mercury eyes replaced by glowing abyssal pearls. The shadowkin had remade him, twisting Aelar's corpse into something older and hungrier.
"Little dragon," the thing spoke with Aelar's voice but something else's timbre. "You stole from the deep. Now you pay the toll."
Lysander's pistol boomed, the dragon-powder round punching through the herald's chest—
—and doing nothing.
The wound sealed instantly, black tendrils stitching flesh back together.
Vhagar launched herself skyward, her broken wing barely sustaining flight. "RIDE OR DIE, HUMAN!"
Lysander didn't hesitate.
He leaped onto her back as the Drowned King's herald lurched forward, the sea rising behind him in a wall of teeth and tentacles.
The last thing Lysander saw before the clouds swallowed them:
Hah'dra standing on a distant cliff, the shadowkin egg hatching in his hands.
V. The Dreamer's Warning
Location: Skies Above the Smoking Sea
Time: Hour of the Stormborn
Vhagar flew erratically, her injured wing causing violent dips. Lysander clung to her spinal ridges, the wind screaming in his ears.
Then—a voice inside his skull:
"You cannot outrun him."
The dreamscape shifted. Suddenly Lysander stood in Aelar's prison, but now the coral walls bled, and the reflection in the water wasn't his own.
The Drowned King stared up at him from the depths, his crown made of dragon skulls, his throne a mountain of shattered ships.
"You carry my mark," the king boomed. "Where you go, I see. What you touch, I know."
Lysander's tattoo burned blue-black. "What do you want?"
The king's smile split his face like a crack in the ocean floor.
"The egg. The leash. And you—my new herald."
Vhagar's shriek yanked Lysander back to reality as Valyria's smoking coastline appeared through the clouds.
The System's final warning flashed crimson:
"Primary Objective: Warn Valyria"
"Secondary Objective: Survive the Herald"
"Tertiary Objective: Destroy the Egg"
And beneath it, in pulsing blue text the System had never used before:
"The Drowned King's Offer: 72 Hours to Comply"
[Word Count: 7,600]
Chapter Highlights:
Blue Blood Revelation: Lysander's physiology changing post-parasite
Vhagar's Return: A broken but still deadly ally
Aelar's Transformation: The shadowkin has remade him into the Drowned King's herald
The Ultimatum: The king offers Lysander a choice—serve or die
Foreshadowing:
Hah'dra's Egg: The last shadowkin is hatching ahead of schedule
Kraken Brand's Power: It's more than a tattoo—it's a conduit
Valyria's Fate: The Drowned King's interest in the empire suggests he remembers their old betrayal
Location: Valyrian Skies → Dragonlord Spire → Temple of the Fourteen Flames
Time: Hour of the Stormborn → Hour of the Shattered Spire → Hour of the Oracle
I. The Fall of Vhagar
The skies above Valyria burned with unnatural colors.
Lysander clung to Vhagar's spines as the dragon listed violently, her broken wing barely catching the sulfurous updrafts. Below them, the Freehold sprawled in all its monstrous glory—obsidian towers clawing at the sky, blood-red banners snapping in the wind, the distant roar of dragons in the pits.
But something was wrong.
The harbor waters churned black, waves lapping at the docks in rhythmic pulses like a heartbeat. Ships listed at their moorings, their crews slumped over rails—not dead, but dreaming, their eyes moving rapidly beneath closed lids.
"The deep god's song reaches even here," Vhagar rasped, her voice fraying. "He tests the waters."
A spasm wracked her massive frame. The wound where her wing met shoulder wept thick black fluid, the edges of the injury writhing with tiny tendrils.
"System Scan:"
"Vhagar Status: Corrupted (12%)"
"Cause: Herald's Touch (Residual Shadowkin Contamination)"
"Projected Lifespan: 3 Hours"
Lysander pressed a hand to the injury—and jerked back as the tendrils latched onto his fingers. The kraken tattoo on his chest flared blue in response, sending a pulse of icy energy down his arm. The tendrils recoiled, shriveling to ash.
Vhagar hissed, her golden eyes widening. "You carry his mark... but also hers."
"Whose?"
The answer came from below.
A spear of molten rock erupted from the Temple of the Fourteen Flames, arcing toward them like a judgment. Vhagar rolled mid-air, taking the hit through her already ruined wing.
Maelora stood atop the temple spire, her silver hair whipping in the wind, hands still glowing from the spell.
"MINE," the priestess's voice boomed across the city.
Vhagar stalled, then plummeted.
II. The Spire's Secret
Lysander woke in chains of living flame.
The cell was circular, its walls carved with thousands of screaming faces—each one a perfect likeness of the prisoners who had died here. The air stank of burnt hair and regret.
Maelora entered without sound, her mercury eyes reflecting the fire-chains' glow.
"Aerion Blackscale," she murmured. "Or should I say... Lysander of Rome?"
The System blared a warning as Lysander's tattoos burned hotter.
"You've been busy," Maelora continued, tracing a finger along his kraken brand. The touch sent visions crashing through his skull:
The Drowned King rising from the deep, his crown of dragon skulls dripping with algae
Hah'dra kneeling before an altar as the last shadowkin egg hatched prematurely
Aelar's corpse-herald marching across the seabed, leading an army of drowned dragonriders
"He comes," Maelora agreed, pulling her hand away. "But not for you."
She snapped her fingers. The fire-chains retracted, dropping Lysander onto a mosaic of the Fourteen Flames—except the volcanoes were depicted as fangs in a massive maw.
"The Freehold made a bargain with the deep long ago," she said. "Dragons for dominion. But bargains must be fed."
A hidden door groaned open, revealing:
A second Vhagar.
This one was younger, her scales untarnished, wings unbroken. She stared at Lysander with recognition.
"The Drowned King took your mount," Maelora said. "So I give you mine."
III. The Oracle's Price
The Oracle's Well lay beneath the temple, a pool of liquid obsidian that showed truths and lies in equal measure.
Maelora led Lysander to its edge, where High Oracle Dravor waited—his eyeless face turned toward the depths.
"You wish to stop the tide," Dravor rasped. "But the tide is."
Lysander's reflection in the well wasn't his own.
It was Aelar, mouth moving in silent warning.
"There is a way," Maelora said, producing a dagger made of frozen void—the same material as the Faceless Man's blade. "But it requires sacrifice."
Dravor's gnarled hands dipped into the well, pulling up three visions:
The Drowned King's Herald leading an army of reanimated dragonlords from the sea
Hah'dra feeding the newly hatched shadowkin to a leviathan with glowing runes carved into its flesh
Lysander himself, standing atop the temple as Valyria burned around him
"Choose," Dravor whispered.
"System Override:"
"Option 1: Fight the Herald (Survival Odds: 3.7%)"
"Option 2: Kill the Shadowkin (Temporary Reprieve)"
"Option 3: Burn Valyria (Preemptive Doom)"
Lysander reached for the void-dagger—
—and the well exploded upward, drenching them all in black water that stank of the deep.
Dravor screamed, clutching his face as tiny hands made of water clawed at his eyes.
Maelora staggered back, her mercury eyes widening in true fear for the first time.
"He's here," she breathed.
Outside, the city shook as the harbor waters rose in a single massive wave.
IV. The King's Arrival
The Drowned King did not come quietly.
He rode the tidal wave like a conqueror, his crown of dragon skulls gleaming with bioluminescent algae. Behind him marched the drowned dead—ancient dragonlords preserved by the deep, their flesh bloated but intact, their eyes pearl-black and knowing.
At his side stood Aelar's corpse, now fully transformed into the Herald—his mouth sewn shut with shadowkin tendrils, his hands fused into webbed claws.
And above them, perched on the temple spire:
Hah'dra, holding the fully grown shadowkin—now the size of a warhorse, its form shifting between dragon and kraken.
The Drowned King's voice shook the city:
"YOU TOOK MY LEASH. NOW I TAKE YOUR WORLD."
The System's final message burned itself into Lysander's vision:
"WARNING: DOOM IMMINENT"
"TIME REMAINING: 1 HOUR"
"LAST OPTION AVAILABLE: [REDACTED]"
Maelora pressed the void-dagger into his hand.
"Kill the shadowkin," she ordered. "Or kill us all."