A warning from the author, actually two, the second part of this chapter will have a lemon scene heheheđđđ it was already in the tags for those who weren't expecting it and before throwing me into the fire, read my final considerations about the fourth part and that's it, enjoy reading
The stillness of the sky above the Stepstones was torn apart by two roars that echoed like thunder from the seventh hell. Zekrom, once the Cannibal, plunged from the clouds like a living projectile, his black scales absorbing the weak sunlight, a demon come to reap. Beside him, Vhagar, the imposing ancient, roared in response, her voice a hoarse and experienced war cry that made the very waves tremble. Below, the pirate fleet, a stain of rotten wood and despair on the grey waters, seemed to contract like a single terrified organism. Shouts of alarm sounded from ship to ship, a pandemonium of ragged voices lost against the vast sea.
Aenar Targaryen gave no order. He and Zekrom were a single mind, a single will of destruction. The first blast of dragonfire was not orange, but a greenish-black plasma that gushed from Zekrom's throat like a bolt from a nightmare. It did not hit the water; it consumed an entire ship, a three-masted galley trying to turn against the wind. The wood did not burn; it disintegrated, vaporizing along with the men aboard in an instant, leaving behind only a patch of boiling liquid and twisted metal where a boat had existed seconds before. The sound was a sharp hiss, followed by a void of noise, more frightening than any explosion.
"Justice, not vengeance," Baelon's voice echoed in Aenar's mind, weak against the roar of fury in his ears. Vengeance was too small a concept for what he felt. It was a correction. A necessary cleansing of the world. A settling of accounts with the scum that dared threaten his blood.
While Vhagar, under her rider's command, poured rivers of traditional orange fire onto other ships, setting sails ablaze with flames that reached for the sky and making the surrounding water boil in fury, Aenar sought something more tactile. He felt the primitive desire to feel flesh yield, to hear bones break, to impose his strength not just with fire, but with his own hands. With a thought, he ordered Zekrom to fly low over one of the larger ships, a Myrish galley with a dozen oars trying in vain to escape the aerial siege.
"Down," Aenar whispered, and Zekrom obeyed, his night-black wings sweeping the deck, creating a gale that threw men into the sea like rag dolls and shattered the oars like twigs. Then, at the peak of the pass, at the moment of maximum chaos, Aenar simply rose in the harness and jumped.
His landing on the wooden deck was a dull, powerful thud that made the entire ship shudder as if it had hit a reef. He did not fall to his knees; he landed standing, like a war god plummeted from the heavens, immobile and imposing. The silence that followed was brief but electric, broken by screams of pure terror from the pirates' throats. Men hardened by crime, accustomed to seeing death up close, saw in Aenar's amethyst eyes something far worse: absolute annihilation, a fury that knew no mercy.
The dance began.
A burly man with a battle-axe charged at him, bellowing with hatred. Aenar did not dodge. His right fist shot out, a movement so fast it was a silvery blur. The impact on the pirate's face was not the sound of breaking bone; it was the wet, disgusting sound of a ripe watermelon exploding. Head, helmet and all simply vanished into a red mist that painted the deck behind him.
Another, smarter, attacked from behind with a short sword, trying to find a gap in his back. The blade struck Aenar's back with a metallic clang and broke in half as if it had hit Valyrian steel. Aenar didn't even turn around completely; his left elbow shot backward with supernatural force, meeting the man's chest with a dry impact. The spleen was crushed against the spinal column with a wet, decisive snap. The man fell, dead before understanding what had happened, his eyes glazed with disbelief.
The efficiency was terrifying. Each movement was economical, fatal, a studied choreography of death. A side kick that ripped an arm out at the root, hurling it into a group of pirates hesitating to advance. A seemingly casual slap that threw a man against the main mast with enough force to bend the reinforced wood and leave him slumped, his neck broken. Aenar was not fighting; he was harvesting. It was the primordial brutality of the dragon, the predatory coldness of Zekrom, applied on a human scale. He was the butcher, and the entire ship was his slaughterhouse.
Then he saw the captain. A large, bearded man, wearing a bloodied chainmail, brandishing a broadsword of quality steel. His eyes were wide, a mixture of fervent hatred and a primordial fear he tried to suppress with rage. "Demon!" the man shouted, his voice trembling but challenging. "I'll send you back to hell!"
Aenar ran towards him, not with the pirate's blind fury, but with the relentless precision of a lightning bolt. The captain unleashed a powerful horizontal blow, meant to cut him in half at the waist. Aenar, instead of dodging, moved inside the arc of the swing, his body moving counter-intuitively. His left hand, as fast as thought, grabbed the blade in mid-air, and the quality steel, under the unimaginable pressure of his fingers, shattered like glass. The captain froze, staring at the hilt of his broken sword. Before he could react, Aenar's right hand pierced the man's chainmail as if it were rotten cloth. His hand entered the captain's chest, feeling the wet heat and the frantic pulse of his heart. He closed his fingers around something warm, pulsating, and vital, and pulled.
For a moment that seemed an eternity to the horrified surviving pirates watching, Aenar held the captain's still-beating heart before his impassive eyes. Life rapidly faded from the man's face, and he collapsed in a heap of metal and flesh on the bloodied deck. Aenar squeezed the organ in his hand until it turned to pulp and let the remains drop with disdain.
The immediate fury was sated. A heavy silence fell over the ship, broken only by the groaning of wood and the muffled weeping of a man. Aenar raised his blood-free hand, and a jet of white, silent flames sprouted from his palm. Unlike Zekrom's fire, this was concentrated, a lance of incandescent purity. The fire did not spread; it consumed the entire ship in a matter of seconds, from bow to stern, reducing wood, bodies, and metal to fine ash that fell into the sea like black snow. Zekrom, hovering above like death itself, dove down and Aenar jumped back, grabbing the saddle in mid-air with a feline grace, without even looking back at the destruction he had left behind.
He repeated the ritual on a few more ships that still tried to resist or flee. Jump, reap, burn. It was a choreography of death he executed with increasing coldness. Until, upon landing on the deck of what seemed to be one of the last converted merchant ships, a smaller, faster sailing vessel, something strange happened. The silence here was different. It wasn't the silence of terror, but of expectation.
He had barely time to feel the wood under his feet when three figures moved from the shadows of the quarters. Their speed was impossible, disconcerting. It wasn't the speed of a fast or well-trained man; it was something unnatural, fluid, and predatory, like shadows coming to life. They attacked from three perfectly synchronized deadly angles â a dagger thrust straight for his throat, another for the base of his skull, a third for his kidney. It was a perfect attack, choreographed by assassins of a league the common world didn't dream existed. Against any other warrior, at any other time, it would have been an instant end.
But Aenar was no warrior. He was a dragon. His skin was not mere flesh; it was a living shield woven with the very essence of magic.
The blades struck his skin. And stopped.
There was no sound of metal tearing flesh. There was a dry, metallic clink, like three fine needles hitting a diamond plate simultaneously. The daggers, thin, sharp, and with a subtle glow denoting enchantments, did not puncture, did not scratch, did not even leave a white mark. The surprise that emanated from the three assassins was as palpable as a physical blow. Their minds, trained for impassivity, were flooded with icy shock. Their weapons, unequivocally enchanted with subtle magics to find weak points and penetrate the most robust defenses, had failed completely against something that was not simply flesh and bone, but something other. It was that microscopic hesitation, this moment of total disbelief that broke years of training, that sealed their fate.
Aenar did not move as before, with brute force. He moved like the wind itself, an explosion of movement so fast it was nearly invisible. His hands, now claws of contained energy, cut through the air. There were no spectacular or broad strokes, just two short, precise, and economical movements. A horizontal cut that passed through two necks, and a vertical one that found the third. Three heads rolled on the dirty wooden deck before their bodies knew they were dead, their faces still frozen in expressions of absolute perplexity. This time, there was no dissipation into dark smoke or illusions fading. The magic that sustained their disguises vanished along with their lives. The three bodies collapsed heavily, revealing themselves as ordinary men, with now normal and anonymous faces, marked only by the eternal shock of their final failure. The enchanted daggers, inert and common without their owners' will, lay beside their lifeless hands. Aenar looked at the corpses for a long moment, his analytical mind confirming his suspicion. Faceless Men. Or at least, sent by them. They had failed. He did not smile, but a spark of alertness ignited in his eyes. He burned the ship with a single concentrated glance, the fire consuming the bodies and the dangerous secret they carried.
The massacre ended soon after. The sea around the Stepstones was full of smoldering wreckage, floating corpses, and the heavy silence of death. Aenar, back on Zekrom, observed the destruction from above, but his mind was no longer on the annihilated pirate fleet. It was on the three who had moved like shadows. The Faceless Men faction was interested in him. It was no longer a suspicion, it was a fact. This was... intriguing. And profoundly dangerous. They would not attack like an army, but like a poison. It was a problem that would require a different solution than fire.
---
Five years had passed. Aenar Targaryen, now fifteen years old, was a dragon not just in name, but in every fiber of his being. The promise he had made to himself in childhood had been fulfilled beyond any expectation. The magic within him had not just grown; it had matured, becoming a full and powerful tide, an internal ocean over which he had absolute command. The "currents of destiny" he had once glimpsed with frustration now seemed like fragile spiderweb threads that he could break, splice, or ignore with a mere thought. The world was more malleable, more... logical from his perspective.
He was on a small deserted island a few hours' flight from King's Landing, a secret refuge he and Gael had discovered and adopted as their private sanctuary. Zekrom was hunting somewhere in the clouds above, his black form occasionally blocking the sun like a passing eclipse. On the white-sand beach, Reshiram, Gael's Grey Ghost, rested, his pale, elegant form almost merging with the coastal mist rising from the sea, an image of serenity that contrasted with the storm of primal sensations boiling inside Aenar.
Under the generous shade of an ancient, twisted tree, whose branches stretched like a protective canopy, Aenar sat, his broad back firmly against the rough trunk. Gael, no longer the frightened girl of yesteryear, but a young woman of ethereal and unsettling beauty, her skin pale as milk contrasting with the long silver hair that fell like a waterfall over her bare shoulders, knelt between his legs. The heat of the afternoon sun, filtered through the leaves, painted shifting golden patterns on her flawless skin.
"A gift for your name day, brother," she whispered, her voice a soft, intimate honey that echoed directly into his soul, before lowering her head with a devotion that was almost religious. Her lips, incredibly soft and skillful, found him, and she began to take him with a mixture of tenderness and passion that was both of a loyal servant and an equal lover. Her delicate but not weak hands rested on his muscular thighs, anchoring herself as she moved with a hypnotic slowness and absolute concentration, as if every moment, every sensation, was a prayer.
Aenar tilted his head back against the tree's rough bark, a deep, guttural sigh of pleasure escaping his lips. His amethyst eyes, which could smite a man with a glance, closed for a moment, not to block the overwhelming sensation, but to plunge into it more deeply, to savor it in its entirety. He buried one of his large hands in her silver hair, not to guide or force herâshe needed no directionâbut in an instinctive gesture of affectionate possession, feeling the silky, cloud-like strands between his fingers. His other hand rested firmly on the ground, his fingers lightly clenching against the soft, damp grass, digging small furrows in the earth.
It was a vision of paradoxical surrender and domination, a dance of perfectly balanced opposites. He, the dragon, the being of absolute power who commanded fire and life, allowing himself to be worshipped, to be served in this most intimate way. And she, the sweetest and gentlest of souls, whom the world might judge fragile, taking charge of him with a courage, a confidence, and a boldness that would never have blossomed in the natural, dark course of destiny. Every movement of her mouth, every exploratory touch of her tongue, every warm sigh against his skin, was a vibrant affirmation of a new reality, a reality he himself had forged with his will and his power.
His mind, incredibly sharp and always analytical even at the peak of physical pleasure, could not help but draw the parallel, connecting the moment's ecstasy to his greatest victory. She is the living proof, he thought, the pleasure burning in his veins merging with an even deeper philosophical satisfaction. The first, the most important, and the sweetest of all changes. In the great book of destiny he carried in his memoryâa book of tragedies, betrayals, and premature deathsâGael, his sweet, beloved sister, had a tragic and early end. She was meant to be a pale, sad shadow in the dark corridors of the Red Keep, a songbird too timid to fly, whose celestial innocence would make her easy prey for the cruelty, ambition, and depravity of others. A winter flower, beautiful and rare, cut down by the frost of reality before it could fully bloom.
The woman who now loved him with such passion, confidence, and inner strength was a miracle forged by his own unbreakable will. He had protected her not only with threats and the fear his name inspired, but had nurtured, encouraged, and, above all, strengthened her from the foundation. The dragon essence he shared with her in acts of union like this was not just about carnal pleasure or mere possessive marking; it was an act of creation. It was about infusing her, drop by drop, seed by seed, with a spark of his own supernatural resilience, his incandescent vitality. The Gael the world knew was no longer a shadow. She retained her innate gentle nature, a serene softness that was a direct reflection of Reshiram himself â a dragon that preferred the solitude of infinite skies to the chaotic noise of crowds. But this gentleness was now wrapped in a silent strength, an inner light that prevented her from being crushed. She was beloved by all at court, yes, but Aenar knew that this affection was, in part, protected by a deeply rooted, respectful fear. The fear of him. Of what he would do if that light were threatened.
When the tension in his body peaked, a wave of heat about to explode, he gently pulled her up by the shoulders, guiding her with contained strength to sit facing him, fitting perfectly in his lap. Their hips, as if moved by a single mind, began to move in a slow, deep, hypnotic rhythm, and he kissed her with a hunger that was both of flesh and soul, dominating her mouth as their bodies merged into a single pulsating entity. The scene was intense, graphic, the physical culmination of a desire that transcended the merely physical. He turned her over after, laying her on the carpet of soft grass and wildflowers, and penetrated her more deeply, watching her face contort in an ecstasy that mirrored his own. His divine arrogance manifested even here; he was a god granting pleasure to his most faithful devotee, and in this he found a supreme form of power. When his own release approached, inevitable as the tide, he pulled her against him with an almost brutal strength, burying himself to the hilt within her warm, receptive wetness.
"Gael," he growled, a primitive sound from the depths of his chest, and then released. It was not a simple spasm of pleasure, but a powerful, prolonged torrent, a flood of his vital essence.
When the last wave of pleasure abandoned them, leaving behind a trembling echo in their nerves, Gael collapsed onto his chest, panting, her body relaxed and full against his, skin to skin. He wrapped his strong arms around her, feeling the rapid beats of her heart gradually calm, falling into sync with his own, slow and powerful. The warm late-afternoon wind blew softly over their naked, sweaty skin, and the only sounds were the rustling of the leaves above and the distant, constant noise of waves breaking on the shore. It was a deep, conquered peace.
She fell asleep quickly, a slight, satisfied smile on her lips, nestled safely against his torso like a cub seeking shelter. As Gael rested on his chest, her breath warm and regular against his skin, Aenar's thought crystallized, not as a flash, but as a fundamental and powerful truth: This was the first change. The most crucial. The foundation of everything else.
The image that formed in his mind was precise, powerful, and deeply strategic: he saw the people of the court, the lords and ladies, the soldiers and servants, admiring Gael as one would admire a rare and irresistibly cute polar bear cub â a vision of innocence, purity, and serene beauty that inspired genuine, almost instinctive affection and a protective desire. They smiled at her, genuinely charmed by her quiet gentleness, by her contained laughter. But what prevented that admiration from degenerating into possessiveness, what kept that gentleness from being interpreted as weakness and exploited by the court's vultures, was the unconscious, visceral, and terrifying knowledge that behind that adorable creature, always standing, vigilant and impossible to ignore, was the mother bear. He was the mother bear. An ancient beast of absolute power and immeasurable fury, whose mere presence was a promise of annihilation to any threat. Anyone who looked at the white, harmless bear cub and, in their heart, thought of taking advantage of her innocence to advance some scheme, would be instantly struck by a icy remembrance of the colossal, mortal shadow that guarded her. Gael's sweetness was tolerated, celebrated, and even loved, precisely because it was protected by the absolute terror that he, Aenar, instilled. This perfect dynamic, he realized with a deep sense of accomplishment, was his first and most important victory against destiny. He had not just saved a life; he had created a sanctuary of innocence in a world of beasts, a sanctuary guaranteed not by stone walls, but by the icy fear his own power instilled in everyone's heart.
And this ritual of love and affirmation did not end with the first union. As the afternoon progressed towards dusk, they found each other again and again, as if trying to merge into one another forever. In moments of deep calm, he would lay her on her back on the soft grass and love her with a prolonged, almost reverent languor, exploring every curve, every contour of her body like a man who knows and venerates every inch of his most precious territory. At other times, it was she who took the initiative, her natural shyness transformed into a private, flaming boldness that existed only for him, riding him with a surprising energy that left them both breathless and chuckling softly, a mix of pleasure and surprise. There were several rounds of love, each a unique affirmation of their inextricable bond â sometimes tender and affectionate, other times wild and devouring, but always deeply connected, always reinforcing the tie that bound them. The sun began to set, painting the sky with shades of orange, purple, and gold, when the distant, familiar roar of Zekrom, more a solemn announcement than an urgent call, echoed over the island. It was time. The outside world, with its courtly intrigues, its silent betrayals, and the dangers lurking in the shadows, reclaimed them. Reluctantly, their skin still warm from the sun and marked by each other's sweat and pleasure, they dressed in silence, their gazes meeting in mutual understanding. Gael mounted Reshiram with a quiet, innate grace, and Aenar climbed onto Zekrom's back, his gaze already turning south, beyond the sea, towards King's Landing, where the great game of thrones and the specter of family war awaited them. But they carried with them the peace and strength of the island, the living memory of their union, a secret and powerful fuel for the dark challenges to come.
---
The Plague and the Purification: Oldtown
The atmosphere in Oldtown was heavy and oppressive, a thick broth of stale air that smelled of sickly sweat, vomit, bitter herbs trying to mask the stench of death, and underneath it all, the unmistakable, sweetish fragrance of decomposing flesh. The Grey Plague, one of the most feared and stigmatized pestilences in Westeros, had spread like wildfire among the poor and homeless of the city, turning the sickhouses into antechambers of the sepulcher. The air inside these places was so dense it seemed one could cut it with a knife. There, among moans of pain, final sighs, and the abrupt silence of those who departed, Sister Maegelle, one of King Jaehaerys's many daughters, moved with a serenity that bordered on the supernatural. She was an angel of death in reverse, a nun of unshakable faith. Even afflicted by the disease she herself fought, her once-beautiful face now marked by the grey scales that spread like pestilent moss over her skin, she worked tirelessly. Her fingers, already stained and rough from the grey of the plague, offered water in wooden cups, cleaned suppurating wounds with clean cloths, and comforted the dying with soft words, a faith that the disease itself and the proximity of death could not corrode.
When Aenar Targaryen entered that earthly inferno, the contrast could not have been more shocking and dissonant. He was health personified, vitality made flesh. Dressed in dark, simple linen clothes that paradoxically seemed to repel the dirt and despair around him, his physical presence imposed a momentary, heavy silence even over the constant cacophony of suffering. The sick, in their delirium, looked at him as if he were a vision, an angel of a completely different order.
"Brother, you should not be here," Maegelle whispered as soon as she saw him, her voice a threadbare, tired wire, instantly retreating into the deepest shadows of the sickhouse as he approached. The terror in her eyesâstill beautiful, despite the marksâwas not for herself, but for him. "It's contagious. By the gods, I could not bear it if you... if I were the cause of..." Her voice failed her, choked by the fear of contaminating the one she considered a living hope.
Aenar interrupted her without ceremony, not with words of empty comfort, but with a decisive action that spoke louder. His hand, strong, clean, and warm, grabbed hers, scaly, feverish, and sweaty, without the slightest hesitation or aversion. The contact was an electric shock to Maegelle, who tried to pull away instinctively, a protective reflex, but his strength was absolute, immovable as rock.
"Ant's worries, Maegelle," he said, his voice strangely calm, an unperturbed lake of serenity in the midst of the storm of agony around them. "Fire does not catch diseases. Fire consumes diseases. It is its nature."
He closed his eyes, blocking out the desolate sight of the sickhouse. Years ago, in childhood, he would have been like a flickering candle trying to illuminate a giant cavern, his magic an uncertain, tiring spark. Now, he was the very sun at the center of his own system. In his inner perception, the vision that unfolded was both terrifying and fascinating: the disease within Maegelle was not just a physical condition; it was a living entity, a web of necrotic, dark, and cold energy, deeply entangled in her vital essence, sucking her strength like a parasite and painting her flesh with the grey color of rot. His magic, he had realized, was no longer just blind, destructive fire; it was pure Will, the fundamental power of life and death shaped by his conscious desire. It was the tool of a god, not a sorcerer.
He channeled that energy, directing it with the precision of a jeweler. It was not the gentle, almost timid heat of his childhood attempts at healing. It was a white, purifying fire, a torrent of intense, concentrated light that flowed from his core, through his arms, and into his sister's weakened body through the point of contact of their intertwined hands. It was not a flame that burned in the common sense; it was a flame that restored, that burned the impurity without touching the original purity.
Maegelle screamed â a short, sharp sound that cut through the sickhouse air, but it was one of pure shock and instant relief, not pain. It was not a scream of agony, but of sudden liberation from a prison of torment. The grey scales on her face, neck, and hands did not peel off or bleed; they simply dissolved, turning into a fine, dry, harmless powder that a sudden breeze from the entrance carried away. The healthy, pink color returned to her skin in a visible wave, bathing her pale, sunken cheeks with life. The high fever that consumed her evaporated like mist in the morning sun, and the profound weakness in her limbs was replaced by a long-lost strength, a sensation of lightness. In mere seconds, she was standing, firm, panting, looking at her own hands, now clean, smooth, and their natural color, as if seeing a miracle materialized before her eyes. The disease had not retreated; it had been erased.
"By the gods," she cried, clean, crystalline tears streaming from her eyes, now clear, vivid, and filled with a long-extinguished light. "Aenar... what have you done? How is it possible... the others. Please, there are so many. Can you...?" The hope in her voice was a painful thing to hear, so raw and vulnerable.
Aenar hesitated for a brief moment, an instant of inner calculation. A cynical and powerful side within him, the voice of the dragon that looks down on humanity, questioned: Why bother? These ants are destined for dust anyway. Their lives are short and miserable. This is a battle without end. But then he looked into Maegelle's eyes, now filled with a renewed faith and a compassion that her own miraculous cure had not diminished, but exponentially amplified. That unconditional light, that love for others which he himself did not possess, touched something rare within him, a remnant of humanity he preserved only for a select handful of peopleâGael, his closer siblings, his mother. That spark of familial connection spoke louder.
With an almost imperceptible sigh, a slight movement of his shoulders that was more an acceptance of the burden than reluctance, he turned to the crowd of sick people watching them with a mixture of hope and disbelief. He did not walk to them; he simply rose to his full height, and a palpable aura of power began to emanate from his body, making the air vibrate. He raised his hands, not in supplication to the gods, but in command to reality itself. And then, a golden, warm, and comforting light, like the dawn after the darkest and stormiest night, burst forth from him. It was a light that did not hurt the eyes of the dying, but that bathed the entire sickhouse and spread beyond its walls, penetrating skin, bone, blood, and the soul of every person there. It was like being bathed in an essence of pure life.
The effect was immediate, collective, and miraculous. Violent coughs that tore lungs ceased abruptly, replaced by deep sighs of relief. Terribly high fevers that burned brains and delirious minds broke instantly, cold, sticky sweats giving way to a normal temperature and restorative sleep. The Grey Plague, in all its horrendous formsâthe scales, the sores, the weaknessâ, retreated like snow under the intense summer sun. Scales fell off like dry husks, lancinating pains disappeared as if they had never existed, and the heavy, sweet air of death was replaced by a fresh breath of pure air and reborn hope. Men, women, and children who minutes before awaited death with desperate resignation now looked at their clean hands, at the faces of loved ones beside them, incredulous, murmuring prayers of thanks and Aenar's name amid tears of joy.
The news of what had happened in the main sickhouse spread through Oldtown faster than the plague itself had spread. The murmur became an outcry, then a shout of jubilation. The Dragonate is a healer! The prince who burns pirate fleets to ash can also expel the plague! Aenar's fame, until then based almost exclusively on fear and destructive power, gained a new and deeply complex dimension. From the dirty streets, the overcrowded hovels, and even the halls of the Citadel, a new title began to emerge, given by the people in a murmur of reverent gratitude that turned into a wave: Aenar, the Healer. It was a name that echoed not with the threatening roar of dragons, but with the soft whisper of thousands of saved lives, a title that carried a different, but no less formidable, weight.
---
The Cold of Treason: White Harbor
Now years later, in White Harbor, the powerful city of the North, was wrapped in a damp, penetrating cold that seemed to love window cracks and men's bones. The Shivers, the illness that had taken his older sister, Daenerys, before he was even bornâa shadow that had hung over his familyâwas back, haunting the alleys and great halls of the city. Aenar had been sent by a personal, anguished request from his mother, Queen Alysanne, whose heart still carried the ancient wound of that first devastating loss. A mother's pain was something that even he, in his divine arrogance, could not completely ignore.
He landed with Zekrom in the green, soaked fields outside the city's great gates, the presence of the black dragon causing a contained commotion. Lord Theomore Manderly himself, a man whose proverbial joviality was deeply buried under layers of worry and fear, received him personally at the gates, his once-rubicund face now pale and lined with anxiety. The legend of the mass healing in Oldtown had run through the Seven Kingdoms like a fairy tale for adults, and now all eyesâfilled with desperate hopeâwere on him.
"Your Grace," said Lord Manderly, bowing deeply, his grave voice laden with emotion. "The city, my people... is at the mercy of the Shivers. The maesters have done what they could, but... your help is our only prayer now. Queen Alysanne said that you... that you could work a miracle." There was a skepticism mixed with hope in the man's gaze, the skepticism of a practical leader confronted with the supernatural.
Aenar nodded, his expression as impassive as a bronze mask. He offered no empty guarantees. He remembered how, years before, he had used his powers in a much more subtle and personal way, silently strengthening his brother Baelon's health, eliminating any trace of weakness, any potential for appendicitis or other trivial organic failure that could take him. He thought he had protected the Brave, made him immune to the diseases and weaknesses that plagued common men. Now, he would face another illness, but on a massive scale, a public test of his power as a healer.
The great halls of White Harbor, normally full of the warmth of feasts, bard's music, and the smell of ale and hearty food, had been transformed into silent, shadowy, and fatal infirmaries. The air smelled strongly of menthol, vinegar, and the characteristic cold sweat of the Shivers' fever. Rows of pallets stretched across the stone floor, each occupied by a trembling, sweating body. Aenar wasted no time on ceremonies or speeches. Walking through the center of the main great hall, he repeated the feat of Oldtown, but this time with a scale and precision that seemed even greater, more controlled. This time, the wave of vital energy he emitted was not just a pulse of comforting heat; it was a wave of conscious, intelligent life, a force that swept through the city like a tide of positive energy, seeking out and selectively destroying the Shivers pathogen like an army of divine antibodies, restoring the natural balance and health of the bodies. In a single day, the Shivers were eradicated from White Harbor. The gratitude of the Manderlys and their people was palpable, almost overwhelming, turning into fervent devotion. Lord Manderly, with tears in his eyes, tried to thank him profusely.
He was in the sunlit courtyard the next day, receiving the formalâand now genuinely jovialâthanks of Lord Manderly, whose color was returning to his face, when a royal messenger, covered in road dust and wearing the colors of House Targaryen, burst into the courtyard on horseback. The man was not just pale, but grey with exhaustion, and his expression was of a sorrow so profound it seemed to have hollowed him out. He practically fell from his horse and dragged himself to kneel before Aenar, his voice failing, hoarse from the forced ride.
"Prince Aenar," the man choked out, head bowed, unable to meet his eyes. "Ill news... ill news from Dragonstone. Prince Baelon... the Brave... he... he has passed away."
The air seemed to leave the world. The hot sun bathing the courtyard of White Harbor instantly lost all its heat, as if a giant cloud had covered the sky. Aenar kept his expression rigidly impassive, his features frozen in an icy mask, but a cold anticipation, sharper than any northern wind, began to form in his chest, solidifying like a sphere of ice where his heart was.
"How?" The word left his lips more like an icy accusation, a verdict, than a question. It sounded like the crack of a glacier splitting in half.
The messenger swallowed dryly, his body trembling uncontrollably. "He was on a hunt, Your Grace. Felt a sudden pain in his belly. Complained of a malaise, but paid it no mind, said it was bad food, that it would pass. In the days that followed, the pain worsened. The maesters of Dragonstone did everything, bled him, gave him the strongest potions... but... the fever won. The diagnosis was a burst belly. A general infection. They say it was quick, that he did not suffer much at the end." The last sentence was a desperate addition to soften the blow.
A burst belly.
The fury that rose within Aenar was not an explosion of flames and dramatic fury. It was an implosion, an absolute, silent vacuum that sucked all heat, all light, all sound, and all hope from around him. It was a cause of death so common, so mundane, so banal, so miserably human... and so absolutely impossible for Baelon. Aenar had healed his brother. He had felt Baelon's body with his internal perception, strengthened from within, his organs resilient as steel, his blood pure of any latent weakness or vulnerability. A 'burst belly' in Baelon was as likely as the Dothraki Sea freezing spontaneously under the summer sun. It was a contradiction of the reality he himself had created.
The air around him became tangibly icy. The day's heat died. The stones under his feet did not crack with a dramatic roar, but whispered as a black, profound frost, a crystal of pure hatred and understanding, spread from the point where his feet touched the ground, weaving a web of icy, sinister cracks that extended several meters around him, like a black spider weaving its web. The messenger recoiled, terrified, dragging himself backward in the dust, and even the burly Lord Manderly stood paralyzed, his florid face turning pale as snow, eyes wide with horror.
The truth, cold, hard, and sharp as a Valyrian steel blade, hit Aenar with the crushing force of a warhammer. It had not been an accident. And not even a direct, honorable attack, like that of the Faceless Men he had faced years ago. It was something infinitely more insidious, more cowardly, more intelligent. Someone, somewhere, had used a poison, something slow, stealthy, and sophisticated that perfectly simulated the symptoms of a natural illness, something that the maesters, in their limited, magic-devoid secular science, could never distinguish from a common fatality of fate. Someone had not only wanted to kill Baelon, the heir to the Iron Throne; they had wanted to hide the murder under the coarse cloak of bad luck, of inevitable human weakness. They had killed the Brave, the people's hero, not with a sword in the light of day, but with the grey expectation of common mortality. And that was, in a way, an even greater insult than death itself. It was a murder that spat on Baelon's memory.
The coldness that seized Aenar then was deeper, more dangerous, and more absolute than any explosive rage. It was the final understanding, the last piece of the dark puzzle clicking into place with an audible click in his mind. He could burn entire armies, heal plagues that ravaged cities, defy destiny, and crush supernatural assassins with his bare hands. But he could not control human greed, unchecked ambition, and sneaky treachery. These were plagues for which there was no easy cure, no miracle potion. For these diseases of the soul, only one remedy remained: the definitive, complete, and merciless purification by fire and blood.
The war was no longer a distant prophecy he read in ancient books, nor a dark possibility hanging over the future. It was a war declared in the shadows, and the first real, visceral, deeply personal blow had been struck. The enemy had not waited for him. They had struck where it hurt most, in his small sphere of protected affections. Aenar, the Dragonate, the Healer, had just realized that his true enemy was not blind, impersonal destiny, but the hydra-headed monster of human nature, fed by the sick ambition for the Iron Throne. Someone at court, someone with access, cunning, and a killer's coldness comparable to his own, had made the first move, stealthy, deadly, and insultingly mundane.
He looked south, beyond the massive walls of White Harbor, in the direction of King's Landing, the Red Keep, the labyrinth of lies where his family resided. The fury now simmering in his chest was not a fire, but a black, patient ice, sharp as a diamond.
And he would now make the final move. Not with the dragon's roar, but with the silence of the predator who has finally understood the ambush. With the silent, absolute fury of a dragon who had finally understood the dirty rules of the game they were playing. The rules of treachery, which he, from that moment on, would rewrite with fire, blood, and a coldness that would make Winter tremble.
Hello there , just like I said, the changes have begun Gael and Maegelle will no longer die, and regarding Baelon's death, it has two purposes: one for the protagonist and another for the story. For the MC, it's that no matter what he does or becomes, or how much men love or fear him, human greed is infinite, and they will always try to overthrow him. Even though they are ants compared to him, they can and will still conspire against him. The second is for the story: the protagonist was always thought to be king, and for that, unfortunately, his brothers would have to die. Well, at least we'll use this to have "pest control," hehehe. Here at home, we're short on mousetraps. Can any of you lend me some? đđđđđ