The black dragon beat its vast, leathery wings, each stroke sending cold air roaring past its riders. Aegon sat forward in the saddle, one gloved hand braced against the ridge of dark scales, the other steady on the reins. Behind him, Rhaena clung close, her cheek pressed briefly to his back as the beast turned southward, leaving the northern host shrinking beneath them. They were bound for Gulltown, where the sea met stone and politics weighed as heavily as swords.
Below, banners snapped in the wind, then dwindled to colored threads. Ahead lay the Vale, and beyond it the uncertain heart of the realm.
Aegon narrowed his eyes against the wind. He needed formal authority. Queen Rhaenyra remained in Gulltown, having chosen not to march north with the Vale's army. Until she reached King's Landing, the realm drifted in an uneasy half-light of power.
If the Queen had not yet returned to the capital, then in theory the heir could act as regent, if only for a time.
"When King's Landing is secured," Aegon said aloud, raising his voice so it carried over the thunder of wings, "we will bring our little brother Viserys home."
Rhaena shifted behind him, tightening her grip. After a moment, she leaned closer, her voice softer but steady. "I want that more than anything."
Aegon felt the tension in her arms, the way her fingers curled into the leather straps as if holding fast against more than the wind. He understood it well enough. Viserys had been more than a brother. He had been a constant.
As a child, Aegon had admired his elder half-brothers from a distance, figures of strength and expectation. Yet it was Viserys who shared his chamber, his lessons, his whispered jokes in the dark. They had fallen asleep to the same hearth fire, woken to the same maesters' lectures, stolen the same hours of freedom in the castle yards.
Viserys had been the darling of their house. The youngest prince of their generation, cherished by all who wore black and red. When he was born, the midwives had called him fragile, less sturdy than his brothers. But the years had proven them wrong. He grew swiftly into a bright-eyed, laughing boy, eager for stories, eager for people, eager for life.
"It feels as though time itself has slowed," Rhaena said, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon. She swallowed, then added, "Every day he is away feels longer than the last."
Aegon turned his head slightly, enough to glance back at her. He forced a small smile, though his jaw remained tight. "Do not fear for him. He is a prince of House Targaryen. While he remains in the Lysene governor's palace, no one will dare mistreat him. When this war is done, we will be together again."
He hoped his certainty would steady her. It did little to ease his own thoughts.
We must bring Viserys back from Lys as soon as we are able, Aegon thought. His mind raced ahead, weighing names and debts. Governor Bambarro was a fool, vain and careless. Compared to him, the Lysene magnate Lysandro was a far greater threat.
Bambarro might have risen to the title of governor, but such men never stayed aloft for long. When his coffers ran dry, the sellswords he relied upon would come to claim their pay in blood. His estate would be seized, his household scattered, his name cursed in the markets. In Lys, everything had a price, even ruin.
That was the way of the city. Lys did not trade in honor or mercy, only in silver and flesh. Among the Three Daughters, power shifted through poison, contracts, and knives in the dark.
Viserys's fate there had been cruel from the first. He had been sold from one master to another, treated as coin to be spent. First to a Lysene admiral, then to Governor Bambarro. When Bambarro's fortunes collapsed and mercenaries cut him down in his own halls, Viserys was sold yet again. This time to Lysandro.
Aegon's fingers tightened on the reins. Lysandro was no drunkard or fool. He was a banker, a man who understood numbers as others understood swords. Greedy, patient, and dangerous. Once Viserys passed into his hands, the cost of reclaiming him would rise sharply.
He needed allies. Strong ones. Men bound not by coin alone, but by blood and loyalty.
Viserys would be one of them. Clever, steadfast, and utterly true. The kind of man who could serve kings and heirs alike, not for reward, but for family.
The Cannibal roared, its cry rolling across the sky like thunder. Its black form surged forward, vast wings blotting out the sun as if the heavens themselves had been torn open by living shadow.
The news reached Aegon not through herald or raven, but with the sudden certainty that came to him at rare moments, when fate itself seemed to shift beneath his feet.
King's Landing had fallen. King Aegon the Second was dead.
The green-and-gold banners of the usurper had been torn down, their cloth trampled into the mud and ash of the city streets. In their place, the red dragon of Aegon the Conqueror flew once more above the towers of the capital, bright against the smoke-choked sky.
Aegon closed his eyes briefly, letting the wind rush past his face as the Cannibal soared onward. So it had come at last.
It had always been inevitable. The elder Aegon's weakness, his mother's volatility, their constant misjudgment of allies and enemies alike had left them exposed. Once the old Sea Snake moved, once Larys Strong chose his moment, there could be no escape. They were men who struck cleanly and without remorse.
The fall of the greens was bound to this war's chaos, but only loosely to Aegon himself. Dragons in the skies had hastened fear and disorder, yet the killing blow had been quieter. Poison in a cup. Whispers in shadowed halls. The kind of victory that left no glory, only corpses.
Let them hold King's Landing for now, Aegon thought, his expression calm, almost distant. It is nothing but a false dawn.
There was no reason for him to hurry south and stain his hands with kinslaying. The city would devour its victors soon enough. He had greater designs to pursue, paths that would shape the war far more decisively.
The Gods Eye still called to him, its dark waters hiding secrets of fire and blood. Vhagar and Dark Sister lay somewhere beneath that haunted lake, though Aegon doubted Prince Daemon's body would ever be found. And more pressing than any relic was Viserys. His brother remained in Lys, a living weakness in their house so long as he remained beyond reach.
Aegon rested his palm against the Cannibal's neck, feeling heat pulse beneath the scales, a deep, living power that answered his touch. He willed his strength into that bond without hesitation.
In times such as these, strength was everything.
The Cannibal and the fire that bound them were the twin pillars upon which Aegon stood.
The years ahead would be cruel ones. From 130 to 135 AC, the realm would know little peace. Winter crept in slow and merciless, bringing famine and sickness in its wake. War spread like rot. The Three Daughters tore at one another in ceaseless slaughter. Flames consumed the Stepstones and the Disputed Lands. Even Westeros itself bled from a dozen open wounds, while the Free Cities watched and schemed.
And there were still monsters abroad. The Red Kraken prowled the seas, and the Vale remained mired in uncertainty, its succession unresolved, its loyalties fragile.
The Cannibal roared as if sensing the weight of the age to come.
Bound to Aegon, the great black dragon had reached the full measure of its power. Eighty-three years old, fully grown, fiercely solitary, it was a king among wild dragons. Repeated strengthening had sharpened every instinct it possessed. Fire answered fire. The bond between rider and beast had deepened into something near instinctive unity.
Its scales were black as a moonless sky, hard and glossy like obsidian polished by time. Blades glanced from them. Flame washed over them harmlessly. Few weapons in the world could hope to pierce such hide.
When it breathed, sickly green fire poured forth, a hellish torrent capable of melting stone and steel alike. Cities would burn beneath that breath. Armies would vanish.
The dragon twisted in the air, exultant, its vast wings catching the sun. Aegon felt the change keenly. The Cannibal had grown, not much, but enough. Dragons of such age no longer expanded swiftly. Most slowed, some ceased altogether, lingering in long, mighty decline.
"We are unstoppable," Aegon shouted, laughter torn from him by wind and exhilaration.
The Cannibal answered with a thunderous roar.
This was its prime. Under Aegon's relentless focus, its fire burned hotter, its body stronger. Yet what mattered most to him was not brute power, but speed. Agility. Control.
Dragons did not grow evenly. Their dominance shifted with age. The oldest ruled through sheer mass and experience, but younger dragons could outfly them, outmaneuver them, strike where the great beasts could not turn in time.
Had it not been for the storm over Storm's End, Aegon knew, Lucerys might have escaped. Wind and rain had doomed him as much as Vhagar's jaws.
At the Gods Eye, Prince Daemon had understood this truth well, pitting Caraxes's speed and flexibility against the ancient bulk of Vhagar.
Between eighty and one hundred twenty years lay a narrow balance, where strength, fire, and agility met in rare harmony.
"This is the fulcrum," Aegon murmured, fingers digging into the saddle. "You are already the most complete dragon alive. I will see that no weakness remains."
He felt the Cannibal's savage delight ripple through their bond. Stronger. Faster. Unafraid.
The dragon hissed sharply, almost in pleasure, as the magic fed it. Dragons were born of blood and fire. Flame itself nourished them.
High above the clouds, the Cannibal climbed, the world dwindling into insignificance below.
Aegon's thoughts darkened.
The Cannibal devoured dragons by nature. Eggs. Flesh. Magic-rich prey. Such feeding was perilous now, with so few dragons left in the world.
But there were other sources of power.
Sea monsters. Creatures steeped in ancient magic.
And then there was Valyrian steel.
Aegon's eyes narrowed.
Forged in dragonfire, saturated with sorcery older than the Doom itself.
Could such steel be melted?
And if it could, could the Cannibal devour that magic as well?
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