"We still need to make preparations, sister," Aegon said. "We will be meeting the host of the Riverlands before long."
It felt as though he could already hear the horns of fate sounding in his ears.
The decisive hour was drawing near.
The first clash would decide everything.
Lord Elmo Tully had finished calling his banners and was already on the march. The forces of Riverrun were advancing at full speed. With more than six thousand men moving through the countryside, secrecy was impossible. Before any great battle could be fought, the two armies would inevitably make contact.
This was an age of feudal lords. Raising hosts required time. Fields had to be left untended, distances crossed, winter winds endured. The Riverlands demanded patience, and the North demanded even more. Yet whatever the cost, the Riverlords were finally on the move.
"Good," Rhaena said, nodding once. "Then Dragonstone will be entrusted to Ser Harold for the time being."
"Prince. Ser Aerion has sighted the quarry you were seeking. At sea."
Ser Harold hurried into the outer yard, breathless as he delivered the news.
Aegon paused only briefly.
"Before we reach the Trident," he said, "we shall claim a small victory."
A great fish had swum into his net. There was no reason not to draw it in.
"Cannibal," he called. "Fly."
The dragon answered at once. With a thunderous beat of wings, Cannibal surged skyward, launching from Dragonstone's outer yard and streaking toward the nearby waters.
*
"Ser Aerion, what is the meaning of this?"
Ser Marston Waters, Ser Tyland Lannister, and Ser Julian Wormwood stared at him in disbelief.
One was a crippled lion, another a knight of the Kingsguard clad in pale, milk-colored scale armor, the third a landed knight of modest rank. Behind them, more than a dozen guards shifted uneasily.
They had been traveling aboard a broad, flat-bottomed merchant vessel, expecting nothing more than a dull crossing. Instead, three warships bearing the seahorse of House Velaryon had closed around them under the guise of a routine inspection. Then Ser Aerion himself had boarded with armed men and seized control of the ship.
"I mean exactly what I have said, my lords," Ser Aerion replied coolly.
"The Riverlands have risen in force, yet you claim to be recruiting soldiers for the so-called rightful king. You flee across the Narrow Sea because the realm has turned against you. You forged royal decrees and stole the Crown's gold."
"What madness is this?" Ser Julian Wormwood roared, waving the parchment in his hand. "This bears King Aegon the Second's seal. How could it be false?"
To him, this upstart bastard was either mad or deliberately seeking provocation.
"Ser Aerion," Ser Marston Waters said more mildly, attempting reason, "your grandsire still holds high station in King's Landing. For the Sea Snake's sake, do not turn this into some childish sport. Pride is one thing, but the affairs of the realm cannot wait upon youthful folly."
Tyland Lannister sighed softly.
His eyes were blind, but his wits remained sharp. This was no childish prank. Aerion had chosen a side. Yet the Sea Snake still sat in King's Landing. Who could have offered a price high enough to outweigh that fact?
Then panic broke loose.
"A dragon. A dragon. Gods above, what is that thing?"
Sailors screamed as fear rippled across the decks.
"Hold fast," Aerion shouted, halting his men before panic or violence could take hold.
A vast black shadow fell across the sea.
A roar like rolling thunder echoed over the waves.
The dragon revealed itself.
Arrogant.
Savage.
Colossal.
Its scales were black as a moonless sky. Sickly green fire burned in its eyes. Its wings stretched wide enough to blot out the sun.
"The Black Dread. Run."
Chaos erupted.
"Fool. Balerion has been dead for years."
"That is Cannibal. King of the wild dragons. Gods, his size. He is nearly as long as the Black Dread was in the Conqueror's day."
"He looks like Balerion's get. Curse it, do dragons even have bastards?"
"There are riders on his back. Two of them."
At that, Tyland Lannister's face went ashen.
The cause of the Greens was finished.
Against a dragon's sudden strike, no bribe could compete.
Tyland knew every dragon in the world. Cannibal was unlike the rest. Untamed. Savage. The most violent of them all.
But who could ride him?
"Traitor. You are a traitor," Ser Julian Wormwood shrieked as darkness swam before his eyes.
The dragon hovered above the merchant ship, its sheer mass threatening to crush the deck. Aegon and Rhaena leapt down from its back.
Aegon wore black scale armor and a dragon-helm with flared wings. He looked less a man than a dragon given human form.
"Ser Tyland," Aerion said with a faint smile, "allow me to present Prince Aegon of Dragonstone, rider of Cannibal, and his betrothed, Princess Rhaena."
Velaryon soldiers stepped aside without thinking, fear plain upon their faces. The dragon was still young, yet it already swallowed cattle whole.
"You truly are a traitor," Tyland said with a bitter laugh. "A bastard cursed by the Seven. The Sea Snake sired you but dared not claim you. You are like him in every way. Smooth. Slippery. Smiling at all sides."
The men of Driftmark bristled. Some truths were not meant to be spoken aloud.
"Traitor. Aerion, traitor," Julian shrieked, flailing wildly.
Ser Marston Waters clenched his teeth, but did not resist.
"I never bent the knee to him," Aerion said calmly. "He was never my king. My brother died fighting for the Blacks. I will not forget that."
Aegon's gaze settled upon the three men.
"Your journey across the Narrow Sea ends here," he said. "Yield, or die."
Tyland would be spared.
The others would not.
Knights should die as knights.
The guards were the first to break. Hastily gathered men had little loyalty, and less desire to die for a lost cause.
"We swear fealty to the rightful queen and her lawful heirs."
"The Seven bear witness, I was forced into this."
Faced with dragonfire and warships, resistance was folly.
"I yield," Ser Marston Waters said, lowering his sword as though in surrender.
"You disgrace the white cloak, you beast," Julian howled. "Traitor."
Suddenly, Marston sprang.
"Do not move."
His blade flashed as he lunged for Aegon.
Marston Waters had once been Aegon the Second's confidant. He had escorted him from King's Landing and helped engineer the coup at Dragonstone. Others might be spared. He would not be. If he were to die, he would take a hostage and bargain with blood.
Aegon drew at once. He sensed the danger, yet he was still half a breath too slow.
No one else dared intervene. Crossbows were trained. Cannibal watched from above. Tyland was dragged back behind shields.
Steel rang.
Marston attacked with desperate fury, his blade flashing.
Aegon met him head on.
The deck became their field of battle. Slippery planks. Shifting balance. Wind and blood. War was shaped by a thousand small chances.
Rhaena watched, her breath caught in her throat.
Marston struck first, yet Aegon answered later and landed sooner.
Steel clashed again and again.
Aegon's armor was thick, his strength overwhelming. Though his experience was less than Marston's, he lacked neither speed nor power. Fire had tempered him. Dragonstone had hardened him. Even Ser Harold could no longer best him.
Marston began to panic.
This was no child.
This was a beast.
A heavy blow shattered his guard. A thrust slid into the gap at his waist.
Blood poured.
For one fleeting instant, Aegon wished for Valyrian steel.
Then he ended it.
"Die, ser."
A crushing strike.
A kick to the knee.
Marston fell.
Aegon found the opening and drove his blade home.
Steel punched through Marston's throat.
Hot blood sprayed across Aegon's black armor, his face, his hair.
Marston clawed at his neck, gurgled, and collapsed. Blood flooded the deck.
Aegon stepped forward, laid the white cloak over the corpse, and wiped his blade clean.
This was a violent age. One either learned to endure violence or to command it.
"He lived as a knight of the Kingsguard," Aegon said evenly. "He died as one."
You were my nightmare once, he thought.
Not anymore.
Stronger now. Fiercer.
When my mother was devoured by a dragon, you stood beside me and watched. Later, you helped besiege Maegor's Holdfast and threatened my brother and my sister by law.
Better you died here.
At least you died properly.
Aegon sheathed his sword and allowed himself a faint smile.
Only now do I understand who I am.
Silence fell.
They looked upon the bloodstained boy and saw Daemon reborn. They saw Maegor. They saw the Conqueror.
Prince Aegon was more terrifying than they had ever imagined.
He had a dragon.
He was young.
Men might question Daemon's honor or curse Maegor's cruelty, but none had ever doubted their strength.
The blood of the true dragon still flowed in him.
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A/N:
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