Aegon began to move at first light.
The Cannibal had already gorged itself the night before, glutting on flesh and flame above Casterly Rock. Now the black terror stirred again, vast wings flexing as if the earlier feast had only sharpened its hunger. What awaited across the water would be far greater.
The dragon's wrath had been kindled.
The Red Kraken would answer for his arrogance.
The Sunset Sea lay unnaturally calm, its surface smooth as polished steel. That silence would not endure.
Near the hour of the wolf, most men slept. On Fair Isle's northern docks, the ironborn lay sprawled in their hammocks and cabins, reeking of salt and ale. Only a handful of longships drifted lazily along the coast, crews half awake and bored. No one stood ready for war.
They had not expected this. The Red Kraken's letter had been sent to King's Landing itself, and surely it would draw the crown's fury eastward. That was the ironborn way. They baited every beast they could find. Direwolves. Lions. Dragons, if they thought themselves bold enough.
Word from the east spoke of chaos in the capital. A boy king sat the throne, while the Wolf of Winterfell and the Crippled Lion ruled in all but name. Regents. Councils. Delay.
The Red Kraken feared none of it. He did as he pleased, as ironborn always had. Savage. Headstrong. Unchecked.
Most of his fleet lay anchored beneath the banners of Fair Isle, ships clustered thick at the northern docks once held by House Farman. Fewer longships patrolled the open waters.
Aegon watched them from above the clouds and made his choice.
The ships would burn first.
He would leave the ironborn nothing. No oars. No sails. No chance to flee. Let them drown or burn where they stood.
The Cannibal launched from the heights of Casterly Rock with a thunder of wings, climbing hard and fast until the land shrank beneath them. The dragon wheeled out over the sea, higher still, until Fair Isle lay far below like a child's carving.
Casterly Rock loomed close behind. Fair Isle had always been its shield, a blade held at the Westerlands' throat. No longer.
Below, on the battlements, Lady Johanna shaded her eyes with one gloved hand as she followed the dragon's ascent.
"Signal the ships," she said calmly, though her fingers were clenched tight at her side. "When the fire falls, they move."
Out over the sea, the Cannibal reached its apex.
Then it folded its wings.
The dragon screamed as it fell.
From the docks below, it was nothing at first. A speck. A shadow. A mote against the paling sky.
Aegon leaned forward in the saddle, the wind tearing at his hair and snapping his cloak hard against his shoulders. His pulse was steady. Cold. This was the moment.
He angled the dive toward the northern docks.
"Ambush," he murmured, voice lost to the rushing air. His lips curved faintly. "They call it dishonor. I call it sense."
The sea below lay calm, and within the harbor rested row upon row of ironborn longships, black hulls gleaming dully in the dawn.
Banners stirred lazily in the breeze.
Black fields bearing golden krakens. Fanged. Coiled. Hungry.
Others flew beside them. The red blood moon of House Wynch. The black horn of the Goodbrothers, striped and cruel. The silver sickle of House Harlaw.
Aegon exhaled slowly.
"Beautiful," he said, almost fondly. He lowered the visor of his helm, the Myrish crystal lens glinting as it slid into place. "A pity."
The ships were well made. Long and lean, nearly a hundred feet from prow to stern. Fifty oars each. Decks broad enough for a hundred men to fight abreast. Their prows were shaped like iron hammers, sharp as spearpoints.
One ship dwarfed the rest.
The Sea Wyrm.
The Red Kraken's pride.
Aegon's jaw tightened. His gloved hand pressed once against the saddle horn.
"Now," he said, low and certain. "Dracarys."
The Cannibal answered.
Its neck arched, muscles coiling, and a roar tore from its throat that shattered the morning calm. Sickly green flame burst forth in a howling torrent.
The sea exploded.
Heat slammed outward in a concussive wave. Water boiled where the fire struck. Longships vanished in flashes of emerald fury, hulls bursting apart the instant flame touched wood.
An ironborn man staggered from between two ships, half dressed and cursing, bladder still unfastened. He looked up.
"Drowned God," he whispered.
The kraken banner above him vanished. The deck beneath his feet erupted. He was gone before the scream could leave his throat.
Smoke rolled thick and black across the harbor. Masts snapped. Burning wreckage crashed into the sea. Most sailors died where they slept. Some flung themselves into the water, thrashing and screaming, but there was no escape. The fire clung. The heat followed.
Great pillars of smoke rose into the sky, visible for leagues.
The Cannibal did not slow.
It dove again. Burned again. Slaughtered without pause.
Clean. Precise. The work of a perfect hunter.
On the docks, horns finally sounded.
"Horn! Horn!"
Bells clanged wildly as the watchtower filled. Men poured out, shouting, pointing, horror plain on their faces as they stared at the inferno consuming their fleet.
"Enemy attack!", A voice broke, raw with terror.
"Dracarys!"
The word had barely left Aegon's mouth before the world answered.
BOOM!
A torrent of green flame engulfed the watchtower. Wood lasted less than a heartbeat. The tower screamed as it burned, timbers warping and splitting, and the great bell at its heart sagged, then collapsed into a glowing pool of molten iron that spilled across the stones.
"SKREEE!"
The Cannibal shrieked in savage triumph, its cry cutting through the roar of flame as it rained fire and blazing spheres upon the iron fleet without pause or mercy.
Perhaps fifty ironborn guards had been stationed along the docks.
That was the end of them.
Men woke to screams and smoke, half-dressed and blinking in confusion. Some stumbled from their cabins clutching axes or shields. None took three steps before green fire swallowed them whole. Their cries were brief.
Scorpion bolts hissed upward from the docks, dark shapes streaking through the smoke. Such engines were rare on Fair Isle, but the ironborn had never wholly trusted stone walls alone.
The Cannibal twisted in the air, it's body rolling with terrifying grace. The bolts passed harmlessly beneath its wings.
Aegon leaned low over the saddle, one hand gripping the leather tight. His other lifted slightly, fingers spreading.
The Cannibal answered, banking hard.
Fire poured down like rain.
The scorpion crews vanished. The wooden platforms ignited. Iron shrieked, then ran like wax.
The defenders were gone.
This was no battle.
It was slaughter.
Wherever dragonfire touched, smoke followed. Flame followed. Nothing else endured.
The longships at the docks were erased. Some ironborn tried to answer with arrows, loosing them skyward in desperate defiance. The shafts fell back uselessly, splashing into boiling water.
The Cannibal flew too high. Its scales were too thick. Its movements too swift and erratic for mortal aim.
"Die!" a man screamed.
Mad with terror, he hurled a heavy grappling hook toward the sky, spinning it with all his strength, hoping for a miracle.
What answered him was a river of flame.
The hook vanished. The man vanished. The stones beneath his feet glowed white, then blackened and cracked.
In a single breath, there was nothing left but screaming and the stench of charred flesh.
The Cannibal's green fire was almost solid. Shields warped. Armor dissolved. Any defense the ironborn had imagined themselves protected by proved meaningless. Like wildfire, it burned until there was nothing left to burn.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Again and again the dragon struck, until every longship was reduced to drifting ash, shattered masts, and sinking wreckage.
Aegon laughed, the sound torn from his chest by wind and flame.
I am the fire of dawn.
I am the dragon king who destroys sea monsters.
"Dracarys!" he cried again, voice raw with exultation.
Cannibal roared in answer, a sound that seemed to shake the very bones of the world. All of Fair Isle woke screaming beneath it.
Any longship that tried to flee met only death from above. Fire fell upon them before oars could bite the water.
A perfect kill.
Once the docks were cleansed, Aegon guided the Cannibal in a wide circle around the island, burning every remaining vessel he found. Fishing boats. Skiffs. Anything that might float.
Only then did he turn his gaze inland.
"Kill them!" someone screamed below. "Kill!"
From the southern shore, crimson banners appeared through the smoke.
Lannister ships surged in, fishing boats and merchant cogs packed tight with men, even battered warships pressed back into service. They grounded hard against the beach. Ramps fell. Steel rang.
Fifty knights and a thousand soldiers poured ashore.
The lion roared.
Men stared upward as they ran, faces lit green and gold by fire above, eyes wide at the sight of the black dragon wheeling through a sky choked with smoke.
"The king!" a soldier shouted, pointing with a shaking hand. "The Dragon King has come!"
That was enough.
The smallfolk rose.
Those who had bent the knee in silence for years seized knives, axes, clubs. Ironborn were dragged from their beds and hacked apart. Others were ambushed in alleys, cut down before they could raise an alarm.
The violence spread like flame in dry grass.
Cries of slaughter filled the air. Fair Isle drowned in blood. Long oppressed by the sea monsters, the people took their revenge without mercy.
The Lannister host swept northward, methodical and relentless, driving the ironborn before them, encircling Faircastle stone by stone.
None were spared.
Faircastle stood close to the docks. From its windows, the ironborn could see only burning ships and the black dragon screaming above them, wings blotting out the sun.
The sun rose higher, bright and pitiless, its light refracting through green flame.
The ironborn broke.
Some wept. Some raved. Some fell to their knees and prayed to a god that did not answer. The sea was closed to them now. The Iron Islands lay beyond reach.
"Red Kraken," Aegon called, his voice carried by fire and wind. He straightened in the saddle, cloak snapping behind him. "Come out, you dead fish."
The Cannibal swept low over Faircastle, its shadow swallowing the walls.
"I bring you a gift," Aegon said, teeth bared in a thin smile. "Aegon Targaryen's gift."
The dragon's roar crashed again and again, hammering at stone and bone alike.
No answer came from within the castle.
Aegon's eyes hardened.
"Then burn," he said quietly.
The Cannibal climbed, higher and higher, until it perched above Faircastle's tallest tower, coiling its vast body like a judgment waiting to fall.
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