POV: Aerys Targaryen
It had been a month since the day my father claimed the Black Dread — a day I would never forget. Not long after, he rode Balerion to the Vale to put the traitors to the sword. In that same month, more letters arrived, each worse than the last, speaking of rebellions spreading across the Seven Kingdoms.
A man calling himself Harran the Red had crowned himself King of the Rivers. On the Iron Islands, another claimed to be the son of the Drowned God himself — whatever madness that meant. And in Dorne, a bandit lord had taken the title of the Vulture King and gathered followers beneath his banner.
The realm was splitting at the seams.
I remained at Dragonstone while my father hunted rebels. I had grown used to the quiet. Too used to it. The castle felt hollow without dragons shaking its walls every hour.
I sat alone at the Painted Table, tracing the carved mountains of Dorne with my fingers, imagining fire rolling over them.
The doors opened.
A messenger hurried inside and dropped to one knee.
"My lord," he said, breathless. "A letter from your father, Prince Maegor."
My heart leapt. I stood so quickly the chair scraped the stone.
"Give it here," I said. "And you may go. Thank you, good ser."
He handed me the sealed parchment and retreated. I stared at the wax for a moment, my father's sigil pressed deep into it. My hands felt strangely heavy as I broke the seal.
I expected orders to remain. Warnings. Another lecture about patience.
Instead, I read:
Aerys,
By the time this reaches you, you will have heard what I have done in the Vale. They burn well.
The realm must be reminded what it means to defy our blood.
I know you, boy. You are like me. You hunger to prove yourself.
So prove it.
Go to Dorne. Find the one who calls himself the Vulture King.
Give him fire and blood.
— Your father
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
My pulse thundered in my ears.
He was sending me to war.
A laugh escaped me — sharp, disbelieving. My hands trembled, not from fear, but from something hotter. Joy. Relief. Hunger. Every lesson, every bruise from training, every night dreaming of battle had led to this.
He trusted me.
I looked down at the carved mountains beneath my fingers.
Dorne.
The word felt alive now.
Caraxes screamed somewhere above the castle, a distant echo rolling through the stone. I smiled slowly.
"He knows," I whispered.
The dragon screamed again, louder this time.
I pressed the letter to the table, flattening it like a map of my future. My father had given me a battlefield. A kingdom to burn. A name to carve into history.
And I would not fail him.
I turned and strode from the chamber.
"Ready my armor," I commanded the guards outside. "And send word to the dragonkeepers."
They stared at me.
"Well?" I snapped.
They ran.
I stepped out onto the balcony overlooking the sea. The wind struck my face, sharp and alive. Above the clouds, a red shape cut across the sky like a blade.
"Caraxes!" I shouted.
The Blood Wyrm answered.
He dove from the heavens in a spiral of fire, landing hard enough to shake the courtyard. Servants scattered. His long neck curled toward me, eyes blazing.
"We fly to war," I told him.
His wings spread wide.
And for the first time in my life, I did not feel like a boy waiting in shadows.
I felt like a dragon.
__________________________________________________________________________
I set off for Dorne as soon as I could. My black armor was fitted tight, polished until it drank the light. Castle-forged steel hung at my hip, a dragon carved into the pommel. Every step I took felt heavier than the last — not from fear, but from expectation.
My father had written that armies were already marching to crush the bandit king. One of the commanders was Lord Orys Baratheon — my great-uncle, though I barely knew the man. It was said he and my grandfather had been closer than brothers. He was marching toward Stonehelm.
That was where I would meet him.
Caraxes cut through the clouds like a red wound in the sky. The wind howled in my ears, but I barely felt it. Below us the land changed from green to harsh gold, the edges of Dorne sharp as broken glass.
War waited there.
And it was calling my name.
POV: Orys Baratheon
The road south was dust and memory.
I knew the moment I stepped out of Storm's End that I would never return. Old men feel such things in their bones. This would be my last campaign, and I meant to die with steel in my hand and a curse on my lips. I had no desire to rot in a bed, drowning in my own weakness. If the Stranger wanted me, he would have to find me on a battlefield.
Davos rode beside me — my son, my heir. A good rider. A good boy. Watching him sometimes felt like looking at a life I had stolen from another man. I was a bastard who had risen too high, too fast. Even now the title felt strange on my shoulders.
Lord Paramount of the Stormlands.
I huffed a laugh.
"A jest," I muttered.
Davos glanced over. "Did you say something, Father?"
"Just thinking," I said. "A dangerous habit."
He smiled faintly.
The host marched behind us in a river of banners and steel. Thousands of men. Enough to drown a rebellion in blood. Yet the air felt wrong — too still, too waiting.
Then the horses began to scream.
Every head snapped upward.
The sky split open.
A red dragon descended in a spiral of fire.
Men scattered. Shields were raised. Some dropped to their knees, thinking judgment had come. The beast landed ahead of the column with a thunder that shook the ground. Dust swallowed the road.
When it cleared, I saw the rider.
A child.
For a heartbeat I thought my eyes had betrayed me.
The boy slid from the dragon's back with the ease of a seasoned rider. Black armor. Sword at his hip. Silver hair catching the sun.
Nine years old, if that.
The host stared in stunned silence.
I swung down from my horse and approached slowly. The dragon's head turned toward me, eyes burning. I felt its gaze like a blade against my throat.
The boy stepped forward.
"Lord Baratheon," he said, voice steady. "I am Prince Aerys Targaryen."
The name rippled through the ranks like a shockwave.
I looked at him — really looked.
He was tall for his age, shoulders already beginning to square, but there was no mistaking it. He was a boy. A child standing at the head of an army with a dragon behind him.
I barked a rough laugh. "Seven hells," I said. "They've sent me a prince."
"They've sent you fire," the boy answered.
Some of the men shifted uneasily.
I crouched slightly so we were eye to eye. "Does your father know you're here?"
"He sent me."
That gave me pause.
I studied the dragon, then the boy again. There was no fear in him. None. Only hunger.
I had seen that look once before.
On Aegon's face.
I rose slowly. "Well," I said, loud enough for the host to hear, "it seems we march with a dragon."
The men erupted into cheers — nervous, awed, desperate. Fear turning into courage the way it always did when dragons stood behind it.
I offered the boy my arm.
"Welcome to war, nephew."
He took it without hesitation.
And the dragon screamed overhead, promising Dorne that fire had come.