The great black dragon Cannibal spread his vast wings and bore the young Aegon aloft. Against such height and speed, even the Narrow Sea seemed small enough to cup in one hand.
The world lay open before him.
Beneath the endless blue , rider and dragon flew as if they might brush the flowing rivers of stars themselves.
"Burn," he commanded. "Dragonfire."
Cannibal answered at once.
A flood of sickly green flame poured from the dragon's jaws, rolling outward in a vast torrent before bursting into a rain of emerald fire, consuming all it touched and leaving nothing behind.
This was Cannibal at the height of his power, a fully grown greatwyrm whose fire, endurance, flight, and hard-earned savagery were held in perfect balance.
The dragon roared again, a sound that shook sky and sea alike, guiding his rider through the boundless air as though the world itself lay beneath their dominion. From the heights, they were kings, gazing down upon all creation.
Only one thing marred the vision.
Aegon himself was bald, his eyebrows burned away, his body scarcely clothed. Burns marked his calves, his back, his arms, the price of daring fate itself. Yet hardship was fleeting. Destiny, once grasped, did not release its chosen so easily.
Power answered his resolve.
The bond between dragon and rider settled fully, and with it came a profound change. Cannibal was his, and Aegon could feel the weight of it in his blood, in his bones, in the deep pulse of fire that now answered his will.
He had wagered his life and won.
The first change settled upon Cannibal himself. The bond tightened, deepened, sharpening the connection between their thoughts and instincts. Only through such unity could dragon and rider unleash their full strength in war.
The second change strengthened Aegon's body. Severe burns were no small thing, and he knew how easily they could fester and kill. Heat washed through him, gentle rather than cruel, and the pain ebbed. Scars faded as though soothed by unseen hands. His skin grew whole once more, pale and unmarred, though his hair would take time to return.
For the third change, he turned his will inward.
Aegon had never lacked the capacity for strength, only the patience for its cultivation. With effort, he might once have become a capable fighter. That was no longer enough. He did not intend to be merely capable.
He intended to stand at the summit.
The change was immediate. Strength flowed into his limbs. His breath deepened. His movements felt surer, faster, deadly in a way they had never been before.
He was no longer merely a prince.
He was a dragonrider.
Cannibal, the greatwyrm now bound to him, was an adult terror of the skies, driven by endless hunger, cruelty toward the weak, and the instincts of an apex hunter. Through him, Aegon felt the world differently. Danger seemed distant, fortune nearer. His body felt hardier, his presence more commanding.
He understood why.
Every Targaryen knew the truth, though few could explain it. Between dragon and rider existed something older than words, neither spell nor contract, but a living bond. Dragon and rider shared strength and fate. They grew together, or they perished together.
The Targaryens were born of fire, and dragons were fire made flesh. That was why only they could truly claim them.
Once the bond was forged, the rider's body, fortune, and destiny were all reforged in turn.
There were precedents.
The Conqueror's eldest son had once been a frail and sickly child. When Queen Rhaenys fell in Dorne upon Meraxes, young Aenys was shattered by grief, barely eating, crawling like an infant though he was years past it. Many believed he would not survive.
Yet when he bonded with the hatchling Quicksilver, his health swiftly returned. Dragon and boy grew strong together.
Dragons, it was said, could sense the peril of their riders, even their deaths.
When Helaena Targaryen leapt from Maegor's Holdfast, Dreamfyre, chained deep within the Dragonpit, roared in fury and tore free two of her chains.
Thinking of Quicksilver stirred regret in Aegon's chest. Had that dragon lived, hatched in the early years of the Conquest, it would now be in its prime, a terror unmatched during the Dance.
Instead, it had charged into death at the Gods Eye with its rider, against Balerion. The first true civil war of House Targaryen, a mere prelude to greater horrors yet to come.
A dragon that accepted a rider would allow no other to mount it until that rider's death.
Cannibal roared, proud and resonant, and turned toward the island of smoke and stone.
The taste of Sunfyre's flesh still lingered in his memory, a rare indulgence.
Like living black flame, he tore through the sky. His roar cracked like thunder, sending ships scattering in panic below. None glimpsed more than the shadow of vast wings passing overhead, never noticing the half-naked boy astride the greatest of the wild dragons.
"The greatest joy in the world," Aegon murmured, voice lost to the wind, "is having power enough to strike back after being trampled."
The dragon slowed, gliding toward Dragonstone's outer yard.
He would no longer be Aegon the Dragonbane.
He would write his own history.
Dragonstone lay beneath a heavy pall.
Raised as a fortress and stronghold, the pinnacle of Valyrian craft, its black stone towers rose like coiled dragons against the sky. Gargoyles leered from the walls. Sphinxes and twisted beasts watched with hollow eyes. It was a castle born of fire and shadow.
Princess Rhaena paced the outer yard, her steps sharp with dread.
"Any word of Aegon and the Cannibal?" she demanded.
"None, Princess," Ser Harold answered, his voice hoarse. "The patrols saw only a massive black dragon roar atop the Dragonmont before taking to the sky. No man dared approach."
The Cannibal's reputation needed no embellishment. When many dragons once nested on Dragonstone, none challenged him. Now, fewer still would try.
He devoured hatchlings, eggs, carrion, and any fool bold enough to disturb him.
"All our forces are already mustered," Rhaena said grimly. "If this fails, I will have to beg the Arryns once more."
Searching for a dragon across the sea was madness, but Aegon was the last male of their line. She had no choice.
"Is there truly no chance my brother could tame it?" she asked the maester.
"Almost none, Princess," he replied bitterly. "The Cannibal is the oldest and most savage of the wild dragons, a hunter shaped by endless hostility."
"But Nettles tamed Sheepstealer," Rhaena said.
"By fortune alone," the maester answered. "Sheepstealer had fed long upon dragonseeds. Nettles survived through luck. The Cannibal's malice far exceeds his. Even Sheepstealer never dared oppose him."
Rhaena clutched the red dragon egg before her, fingers white.
"If it would only hatch, if I had a dragon, I could save my brother."
"There is one small mercy," the maester said slowly. "The Cannibal does not favor human flesh. If he did, Dragonstone would already stand empty. Left unprovoked, he usually ignores men."
Silence followed.
Aegon's actions had been the greatest provocation imaginable.
Then the sky broke.
A violent wind swept the yard, tearing cloaks and hair alike. Dozens of heads snapped upward.
What they saw would haunt them forever.
"A dragon," someone cried. "The Cannibal."
Vast wings blotted out the sun. The black dragon loomed above the castle, his shadow swallowing towers and stone alike. His sickly green eyes were cold, indifferent, ancient.
Guards raised spears and bows, yet none dared loose them. That would have been death.
"The prince," Ser Harold shouted. "Prince Aegon. He lives."
His sharp eyes had caught the truth.
A bald boy, unmistakable even at a distance, sat astride the king of the wild dragons, fire and destiny woven together at last.
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A/N:
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