I was born screaming.
Not in pain but in confusion. Light burned my eyes, harsh and white, nothing like the darkness I remembered falling asleep in. It wasn't the soft glow of a screen or the filtered haze of a dream. This light had weight to it, stabbing and real, forcing breath into lungs that did not yet know how to use it.
Rough hands lifted me. Not cruel, but efficient. Voices echoed above, sharp and melodic, rising and falling in patterns I couldn't understand. The language sounded elegant, almost musical, yet heavy—each word seemed to carry centuries of history, of command, of expectation.
The scent hit me next. Hot stone. Incense. Blood. And something metallic that lingered at the back of my throat, unpleasant and unmistakable.
Where the hell am I?
The thought was clear. Too clear. Panic surged as I tried to move, to flail, to do something. My body did not obey. Limbs felt distant, weak, as though they belonged to someone else. I tried to speak, to shout, to demand answers—but all that came out was a thin, pathetic cry. The sound startled me.
That's… me?
My chest heaved again, instinct forcing air in and out. It hurt. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt in a dull, overwhelming way that left no room for control. My body felt wrong. Small. Fragile. Uncooperative. Terror flared—then stalled as realization struck harder than fear ever could.
I had an assignment. The memory surfaced intact. I finished it. I closed my laptop. I went to sleep. That was the last thing I remembered. This wasn't a dream. Dreams didn't have weight. Or smell. Or pain that clawed at my lungs when I screamed too long. Dreams didn't leave my throat raw or my body trembling with exhaustion.
Cold air brushed my skin as someone wrapped me in cloth, firm and practiced. The world tilted, blurred. I caught glimpses of faces leaning in and out of view—pale skin, sharp features, silver-gold hair that caught the firelight like spun metal. Eyes followed. Violet. Pale lilac. Deep amethyst. Beautiful in an unsettling way. Inhumanly so. Valyrian.
The word surfaced unbidden, heavy with meaning. My heartbeat stuttered. No. Don't tell me—
The room answered before my mind could. Walls of black stone rose around me, smooth and seamless, veined faintly with lines of red as though heat slept beneath the surface. Tall braziers burned with steady flames that gave off no smoke, no soot. The air itself felt warm, controlled, as if fire here was not wild, but obedient. Everything—everything—felt ancient. Expensive. Dangerous. Nobility. I would have laughed if my lungs weren't busy figuring out how breathing worked.
Did I… get reborn?
The thought struck like lightning, followed immediately by something dangerously close to joy.
Let's go. I'm free.
No more deadlines. No more code refusing to compile. No more refreshing job portals that never answered back. No more unpaid internships. No more polite rejections wrapped in corporate language.
Freedom.
Then reality caught up. Wait. This wasn't some safe fantasy setting. This was medieval. With nobles. With silver hair. With dragons.
The joy curdled into something sour and sharp.
…I'm screwed.
The first year passed slowly.
Painfully. Time meant nothing at first. Days blurred into nights, marked only by hunger, exhaustion, and a constant sense of vulnerability. I learned quickly that crying brought nurses, not parents. Women in long robes moved in and out of my life with quiet efficiency. They fed me, cleaned me, monitored me with eyes that assessed rather than adored. None lingered longer than necessary. None spoke to me more than required. This was duty, not affection.
My mother appeared rarely. When she did, she never stayed long. She was beautiful in the way Valyrian statues were beautiful—perfect, distant, carved rather than grown. Her silver-gold hair was always immaculate, her posture straight, her expression unreadable. She would look at me, sometimes brush her fingers against my cheek, and then leave as if checking an item off a list. No lullabies. No gentle murmurs. Just an acknowledgement.
I saw my father once. Just once. A tall man with silver-white hair pulled back neatly, dressed in dark robes trimmed with subtle red thread. His eyes were sharp, calculating, and utterly uninterested. He stood over the crib, hands clasped behind his back, and looked down at me the way one might look at a blade still cooling from the forge. Assessing. Waiting. Acknowledging existence—nothing more. No warmth. No pride. Then he turned and left.
At first, the absence hurt. It was instinctive, irrational, buried deep in whatever part of my brain still remembered being human. Then it simply… didn't. By the time I could crawl, I began to understand the language spoken around me. It was around then that I understood my name. Not because anyone ever addressed me directly—few bothered—but because I heard it spoken when others thought I slept.
Aeloryx.
The word carried weight. Sharp and flowing at once, unmistakably High Valyrian. It was spoken with the same tone used for property, for lineage, for expectation.
Aeloryx Zȳrraxes.
That was my name. I tested it silently, rolling the sound over in my mind. It fit this world far better than anything I had been called before. I did not feel attached to it. That felt appropriate. High Valyrian—there was no doubt now. The cadence was too distinct, the structure too elegant.
Words carried layers of meaning, some spoken plainly, others implied. Titles mattered. Lineage mattered. Blood mattered. I heard whispers when people thought I slept. Of dragons chained beneath mountains. Of bloodlines that must remain pure. Of rituals conducted behind sealed doors, spoken of in half-phrases and unfinished sentences.
And most damning of all, I saw myself reflected in polished obsidian. Silver-gold hair, still thin but unmistakable. Pale skin. Eyes slowly darkening into a shade that did not exist back home, hovering somewhere between violet and something deeper. This wasn't just a fantasy world.
This was that world. The Known World.
George R. R. Martin's cruelty, wrapped in myth and fire—politics, disease, war.…And dragons.
I paused, crawling clumsily across the floor, palms slipping against smooth stone. I tried standing once. Fell immediately. The impact knocked the breath from my lungs. Pain flared in my knees, sharp and immediate. Muscles burned as I tried to push myself up again, legs trembling under the weight they weren't ready to bear. Development took time—real time.
No convenient nonsense where toddlers sprinted and debated philosophy. My body had rules. Limits. Consequences. Good. At least reality hadn't abandoned consistency. I could say a few words by then. None of them was clean. My tongue felt too thick, my mouth too small. Words came out slurred, broken, and frustrating. At least I wouldn't be mistaken for a freak.
By my second year, I could walk.
Run, even though badly. My balance was terrible, my legs unreliable. I fell often. Scraped my hands and learned pain the slow way. I could speak in broken but understandable sentences. Enough to ask questions. Not that anyone answered much. There was no celebration when I turned two. No feast. No gathering of relatives. No gifts. My parents came. They looked at me. They left. I didn't feel offended. I understood. Children died here. Constantly. Fevers that would be trivial back home are killed without mercy. Accidents claimed the unlucky. Bad air, bad blood, bad timing. Why form bonds when survival itself was uncertain? Why invest emotion when loss was inevitable? It was cold. It made sense.
This year, I learned where I was. Valyria. The Freehold. The beating heart of the world—and its future grave. I learned the year, too. How many years before the Doom? I did the math. One hundred and fifty years. I won't live that long anyway, I thought, lying in my bed beneath black stone ceilings, listening to distant rumbles that might have been thunder—or something far worse. Might as well enjoy what I get.
It was around then that I noticed something strange. I lost interest quickly. Toys bored me within minutes. Faces blurred together. People became… replaceable. Nurses rotated in and out, and I barely noticed. One vanished after a coughing fit; another took her place the next day. I felt nothing. I blamed it on being a child. A short attention span.
On my third birthday, my parents returned. Again, no celebration. This time, they spoke to me. Brief words. Congratulations. Acknowledgement of survival. That alone felt significant. I was also informed—calmly, as if discussing the weather—that a tutor had been assigned to me. One who would teach me language, history, noble houses, and the world beyond the walls of this manor. Finally. Later that night, I lay back, staring at the dark ceiling, listening to distant, thunderous roars that echoed through stone and bone alike. Dragons—or imagination. It hardly mattered. I'm in Valyria, I thought. Alone. Surrounded by people. Born into fire. And for the first time since waking in this world, boredom outweighed fear. At least, I decided, it won't be dull.