Upon seeing the burning phantom of Harren the Black, Roman instantly felt an indescribable, scorching heat radiating from deep within his own body.
Fire and Blood.
The ancient words echoed unbidden in his mind.
"I have gotten so used to playing the humble servant that I almost forgot I am becoming a dragon myself," Roman muttered.
The sun had just dipped below the horizon. Aside from the sea of clouds dyed a bruised, orange-red by the dying light, the ruins were rapidly plunging into darkness.
Roman felt no sympathy for these infamous spirits. He had already witnessed Harren's boundless cruelty through the ironborn captain's memories.
As his disgust for the tyrant peaked, Roman's fighting spirit surged, and his physical strength swelled in tandem. He gripped his heavy warhammer with both hands and stepped toward the burning entities.
"Aegon the Conqueror roasted you alive," Roman called out. "I suppose I will just have to shatter what is left."
The towering ghost of Harren the Black locked its hollow eyes on Roman and unleashed a deafening, spectral roar.
"Dragon! Aegon! I will skin you alive!"
Roman frowned. He wondered if being baked inside a stone oven by Balerion's dragonfire had permanently melted the tyrant's mind.
He did not waste breath trying to reason with a ghost. He charged forward, warhammer raised high.
Several smaller spirits flanked Harren and moved to intercept. Judging by their regal but mangled appearances, Roman guessed these were Harren's doomed sons.
Roman dragged the heavy steel head of his hammer across the stone floor, generating a shower of sparks. The instant he closed the distance, he swung the weapon upward in a brutal, rising arc.
The heavy steel head blurred through the air and slammed directly into the leading phantom.
The burning figure was launched backward like a discarded ragdoll.
A second ghost lunged at Roman's flank. Roman pivoted on his heel and delivered a devastating front kick, sending the spirit crashing into the rubble.
While the blow successfully repelled the attacker, Roman noticed the leather of his boot had caught fire. No matter how hard he stomped his foot, the dark, flickering embers refused to extinguish.
Dragonfire?
Roman immediately understood the danger.
"Tsk. It seems I need to be careful," he clicked his tongue.
Realizing Roman could not be swarmed easily, the remaining ghosts moved in unison.
Harren's towering ghost drew a warped, shadowy longsword. It was a phantom replica of the half-melted slag Roman had seen in his previous visions.
"Ha! Harren, you must truly despise Aegon," Roman taunted. "So why are you still wielding the twisted scrap he forged for you?"
The mockery worked flawlessly. Enraged, Harren charged forward with a bellow, carelessly knocking one of his own spectral sons aside in his blind fury.
Roman casually swatted away a lunging phantom and met Harren head-on.
Steel clashed against shadow. Yet Harren's phantom possessed nowhere near Roman's monstrous draconic strength. After a brief, violently fast exchange, Roman parried a heavy strike and sent Harren flying with a crushing blow from his hammer.
However, the battle was far from over. The ghost Roman had previously kicked away climbed back to its feet and lunged at him from the side.
Roman caught the shifting shadow out of the corner of his eye. He sidestepped the grasping claws and drove the butt of his warhammer directly up into the ghost's jaw.
The impact shattered the upper half of the phantom's shadowy head.
Yet the unnatural black flames clinging to its body did not diminish. Roman realized with a sinking dread that these spirits were not truly dead.
He had intended to end the fight quickly. But Harren's uncanny durability and his sons' continuous resurrections caught him off guard.
Knowing it was foolish to fight an immortal swarm in the open, Roman sprinted toward a narrow corridor deep within the melted ruins.
Harren and his sons eagerly took the bait, chasing Roman blindly through the rubble while howling curses.
Roman maintained his lead, occasionally spinning around to deliver a crushing blow to whoever got too close before resuming his retreat.
The chase eventually led to a massive, sweeping stone staircase. This was the chokepoint Roman had carefully chosen.
He flashed a feral grin and suddenly whipped around to retaliate.
The sudden halt caught the pursuing phantoms completely off guard. Roman swung his hammer in a devastating horizontal sweep, smashing the leading ghosts to the floor and sweeping them down the steps like common trash.
Within moments, Roman had knocked the sons away, leaving only Harren the Black to face him alone on the stairs.
Roman rested his hammer on his shoulder and sneered. "Look at you. You oppressed and starved the Riverlands to build the greatest fortress in the Seven Kingdoms. And you were roasted alive the very day it was finished."
"Stone does not burn, Harren. But you and your sons clearly were not as sturdy as your walls."
The insult tipped Harren over the edge of madness. The tyrant's shadowy face contorted into a mask of pure, demonic rage. He raised his phantom sword and lunged.
But Roman was vastly faster. He ducked under the wild swing and slammed his shoulder into Harren's chest, knocking the tyrant completely off balance. The ghostly sword dissolved into black mist upon hitting the stone wall.
Roman stepped back, winding up his warhammer with both hands.
Channelling every ounce of his raw physical power, he swung the hammer in a beautiful, lethal arc. With a thunderous boom, the steel head pulverized Harren, collapsing the spirit into a viscous puddle of black sludge.
Refusing to take any chances, Roman began mercilessly pounding the shadowy sludge with his hammer like a mason tamping earth.
Below him, the ghosts of Harren's sons had finally recovered their footing. They began swarming up the stairs to rescue their father.
Watching the mindless mob approach, Roman tightened his grip, fully prepared to beat them all back down the steps.
Before he could swing, a volley of steel-tipped arrows whistled through the air.
Roman blinked in surprise.
He looked down and saw Old Jessy leading a dozen armed castle guards into the ruin.
"Boy, get down from there!" Old Jessy roared, loosing another arrow from his bow.
Despite their obvious terror, the veteran and his men had bravely marched into the haunted tower to save him.
But their courage was entirely useless. The castle-forged arrows passed harmlessly through the swirling mist of the ghosts and shattered against the stone steps.
"What in the hells?" Old Jessy gasped.
The ghosts stopped their ascent and slowly turned to look at the guards below.
Compared to the monstrous, hammer-wielding boy, these trembling mortal men were infinitely easier prey. The phantoms shrieked and immediately charged down the stairs toward Old Jessy.
The guards frantically loosed another volley, but every single arrow phased harmlessly through the black mist. Mortal weapons simply could not touch them.
Panic shattered the guards' discipline. Several men dropped their bows and began praying frantically to the Seven. Even the hardened Old Jessy went pale with terror.
Just as the ghosts prepared to slaughter the men, a barrage of heavy steel javelins rained down from above, violently pinning the phantoms to the stone floor.
The impaled spirits writhed and roared in fury, unable to break free from the steel.
Old Jessy instantly recognized the throwing spears he had gifted Roman earlier that week.
"Run! Go warn Lady Shella to flee the castle!" Roman roared from the top of the stairs. "Do not let the mist touch you!"
Roman had suddenly realized the true danger. The legends claimed those touched by Harren's ghost would burst into flames.
The only reason Roman could physically harm these entities was because his own latent draconic magic was bleeding into his weapons.
Hearing the absolute terror in Roman's voice, Old Jessy snapped to his senses and ordered a full retreat.
But in the single second Roman was distracted saving the guards, the puddle of black sludge at his feet violently erupted.
Harren's ghost sprang upward and tackled Roman to the floor.
The moment the black mist enveloped Roman's face, a wave of suffocating pressure crushed his lungs. This was immediately followed by the agonizing heat of an inferno and the foul stench of sulfur.
A barrage of alien memories forcefully exploded into Roman's mind. He felt Harren the Black's towering arrogance. He felt the tyrant's smug disdain when Aegon demanded his surrender. He felt the false security of hiding within the massive Kingspyre Tower.
And finally, he felt the apocalyptic, flesh-melting agony of Balerion the Black Dread's dragonfire.
This was true dragonfire. It was a weapon of pure magic, infinitely hotter and deadlier than any natural flame.
Roman felt his own flesh and mind igniting simultaneously.
His skin blistered and split open. Yet instead of extinguishing the fire, his boiling blood only served as fuel for the spectral flames.
Screaming in absolute agony, Roman tumbled down the jagged stone steps and crashed heavily onto the floor below.
Yet as the fire consumed him, his primary thought was not fear, but blinding, furious anger.
Damn you, Balerion! Why didn't your flames reduce this tyrant to absolute ash? Why leave this lingering magic behind to torment me?
Pushed to the very brink of death, Roman's consciousness plunged into a deep hallucination. He saw himself fully transformed into a towering dragon.
Though his physical body remained mostly human on the floor, his soul was undergoing a violent mutation. Swirling currents of pale fire and crackling lightning enveloped his inner vision.
The flames...
Roman suddenly understood everything. No wonder he had always felt a violent restlessness whenever he encountered Harren's ghosts.
It was not the ghosts themselves affecting him. It was the lingering remnants of Balerion's magic—woven into their very souls—resonating with his own draconic nature.
Roman stopped fighting the pain. He opened his mind and allowed the lingering phantom of Balerion's fire to flow directly into his veins.
The moment he stopped resisting, a profound clarity washed over him. It was as if a locked door in his mind had been violently kicked open to reveal a new world.
Suddenly, a brilliant, blindingly pale fire erupted from Roman's physical body. Instead of burning him, his new white flames eagerly devoured Balerion's lingering black magic, using the ancient curse as fuel.
Harren and the surrounding ghosts let out agonizing, shrill shrieks as the pale fire washed over them.
Within seconds, the ancient, immortal phantoms were incinerated into absolute nothingness. Not even ash remained.
Roman slowly opened his eyes and looked down at his hands. The ruined hall around him was bathed in an eerie, pale light.
With a simple thought, he commanded the magic to recede. The raging white inferno instantly vanished, leaving only a few harmless sparks dancing across his unburned skin. He opened his right palm, focused his will, and a clean, pale flame happily ignited over his fingers.
Just as I thought, Roman mused. Dragonfire is a magical creation. It simply requires magical energy to burn.
He closed his fist, snuffing out the light.
Before Roman could process his miraculous survival any further, a horrified gasp echoed from the courtyard outside. Lady Shella had arrived.
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