92

Chapter 92: Interlude: Fyre IINotes:

Before we begin, I have to mention that my big bro and I are going on holiday over the next 2 weeks. We're gonna visit our relatives in Australia, and check out the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island. My daughter wants to see kangaroos, so I'm gonna take her to a restaurant that serves kangaroo meat just to mess with her.

Anywho, I won't be posting until I get back to Singapore. Next chapter will be out on either May 22nd or 29th, depending on how motivated I feel to write.

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

"Rhaegar and Daenys,

They shared even breath,

Aerion and Baela,

They fought to the death."

-Second verse in song 'The Dragonseeds'

114 AC, Dragonpit,

"Release the dragons!" Aerion Fyre ordered, as he stepped into the great stone arena that was the Dragonpit.

"But, milord, we have not received any— urk!"

The man's nose broke as Aerion's fist slammed into his face. The Dragonkeeper crumpled to the ground, curling up in pain like the snivelling worm he was.

"Were my orders not clear, swine?!" Aerion demanded, kicking the fallen man repeatedly in the ribs. "Release all the dragons! Rhaenyra has ordered it!"

The rest of the peasants peeled off to see to his orders, scurrying away like the cowardly rodents they all were.

Pah, useless whelps one and all. Once Aerion was King, he'd execute them all for such a display of insubordination. And their families as well! To prove that no one disobeyed Aerion Fyre!

Hmm… on second thought, he was feeling merciful.

These men would die, no question of that, of course. As well as their sons. But their wives and daughters could be spared, after having their tongues torn out. They would repent their husbands and fathers' sins in his bed.

Aerion impatiently tapped his feet as the Dragonkeepers unchained and unlatched the dragons. What was taking this incompetent lot so long? Truly, Rhaenyra had been too lax on these servants. But then again, Rhaenyra was a woman. Too kind and caring to realise that whipping was the only true way to stamp out such laziness.

"What's going on?" A voice demanded, Aerion turning around to face the speaker.

———

"Baela." Aerion spat. "What are you doing here?"

"That's my line." Baela snarled, staring down her brother. "I'm the dragonrider on duty."

Ever since Viserra's death, and the subsequent delay between the fire and the arrival of House Targaryen's dragons, Rhaenyra had decreed that a dragonrider and their mount be permanently stationed in the Dragonpit at all times, on high alert for rapid-response, in order to prevent such a repeat event.

"Never heard of that." Aerion grunted.

"Nyra didn't think you reliable enough to be entrusted with the knowledge or the duty, given your… experience with the fire." Baela hissed.

As things stood, Baela and Lucerys— riding Laenor's old mount Seasmoke—had been the two Dragonseeds primarily on call the entire time, with the other dragonriders occasionally filling in as required. Most of Baela's dragon-riding siblings had shifts on the duty roster, but Aerion and Sunfyre were a glaring exception in that regard.

"Well, I'm under Rhaenyra's orders now. And she's ordered me to take the dragons out for a flight." Aerion insisted.

Now if it were Laena or Daena or Daenys saying those words, Baela would not have doubted them for even an instant. But Aerion? After his handling of the Marilda situation, Nyra had ceased assigning the rider of Sunfyre anything but the most menial and trivial of duties.

"It's the hour of the wolf, brother." Baela scoffed, hand falling to her knife. "I don't believe you."

"It's all a misunderstanding." Aerion smiled. "I have the paperwork right here."

He held up an official-looking scroll, and Baela frowned. She leapt down from the stone benches in the grandstand, landing on the floor of the great arena.

"Toss it over." Baela ordered, once she was within twenty paces of Aerion. "Let me take a look."

"Of course." Her brother smiled, tossing over the scroll as requested.

Baela caught the scroll, and gasped as a thrown knife immediately buried itself in her collarbone, glancing off of the bone.

"Oh. I was aiming for your throat." Aerion muttered, drawing another knife. "Ah well."

Gritting her teeth, Baela killed her pain with a quick spell and dodged out of the way of the second thrown knife. Reflex boosters and reinforcement spells spinning up around her, Baela quickly drew her dagger, parrying Aerion's follow-up lunge before it could skewer her.

Aerion slugged her in her face, but as Baela went down, she landed on her back and kicked out with both feet, propelling Aerion off of her and twenty feet into the air.

Her brother spun in midair, bow drawn, and Baela had to spring to her feet and zigzag out of the way, arrows narrowly missing her by less than an inch.

A couple of Dragonkeepers ran over to help, but Aerion fired off another volley, bloodforged arrows punching straight through chainmail and boiled leather like they weren't even there.

Snarling, Baela telekinetically summoned a sword from the hands of a fallen Dragonkeeper. The hilt slapped into her palm, and with a roar, Baela charged Aerion.

Slapping aside the arrows he shot at her with her blade, Baela thrust at Aerion, only for her brother to sidestep out of the way, slippery as an eel.

Tossing aside his bow, Aerion drew his own blade, and with a savage snarl lunged back at her.

Steel met steel as the two siblings danced back and forth. Aerion was faster, and by far the more vicious of the two of them. But he wielded his sword like a butcher's knife, all hacks and slashes with no thought to defense. Baela on the other hand, was stronger and more solidly-built than whip-thin Aerion, and had been Bell's sparring partner for years. Her bladework was much like her older sister; patient and methodical.

Baela intended on weathering Aerion's blows until he tired, only to find that as the fight ground on, her sword stokes were sloppier and her movements less crisp. Her vision was starting to blur, and her mind started to cloud.

It took only a single failed parry, for Aerion to ram his sword through her throat.

He ripped the blade out, deliberately making the wound even worse. And as Baela fell, grasping at her throat as her life bled out, she saw her collarbone, where her brother's knife had first hit.

The wound was black and green, mottled with rotting flesh.

Poison.

Her brother had poisoned her.

———

That bitch Baela had almost ruined everything.

She'd come close to killing Aerion, but the Dragonseed was a skilled hunter, and knew that it was rank foolishness to face a beast head-on. Animals were bigger, stronger and faster than most men. Hence the wisest hunters— such as his exalted self— knew that when hunting a beast, one should first even the odds with a little poison.

And men were no different from the animals that crawled on four legs, merely prey on two legs.

The remaining Dragonkeepers had rallied, bringing out spears and shields, and were now surrounding Aerion on all sides. Their captain was yelling some platitude about surrender, but Aerion had no time or interest in the bleating of sheep.

His initial plan to walk in and walk out uncontested with the dragons was as dead as Baela. Still, Aerion was a competent person, unlike near everyone else in the world, and could salvage the situation.

Kicking over his sister's corpse, the Dragonseed found what he was looking for.

With a grin of triumph, he picked up the object and blew upon it, his Command rippling across the world.

There was a great rumble as Silverwing and Vermithor tore themselves free of their chains, ramming down the iron portcullis that barricaded themselves within their stone stables. The massive dragons unleashed fire and fang, slaughtering the Dragonkeepers like the cattle that they were.

Aerion threw his head back and laughed at the destruction, oh but he loved a bloodbath. The screams of the dead and dying, those oh-so-lovely wails of despair. It made his blood pump, vigour rushing down to his manhood as he savoured the carnage.

Pulling down his pants, Aerion moaned as he relieved himself, his cries of pleasure mingling with the cries of fear from the cattle.

He just loved seeing the spurts of blood, the snapping of bones and the screams of fear and agony. The odour of fear on the air, that most wonderful of perfumes. Hunting animals was a decent enough way to slake his thirst, but there was truly no substitute to the killing of humans.

The last of the Dragonkeepers died as Aerion finished, gasping in exhilaration and relief as white seed spurted from his cock.

"Aerion, Imper—"

Aerion immediately spun around and fired an arrow, shattering the glass candle on Baela's corpse.

Rhaenyra's hologram immediately winked out, and just in time too. Had Aerion been even half a second slower, his cousin would have restrained him with the leash.

Though dulled from the pleasure, Aerion was still the best and brightest Dragonseed to ever exist, and so Rhaenyra's ambush failed. Still, even someone as amazing and talented as himself would be hard-pressed to kill Rhaenyra, which meant that he unfortunately had to perform a tactical retreat.

Sighing that his fun was over, Aerion swiftly mounted Sunfyre, and blew his horn. Vhagar and Vermithor obeying his Command and battering down the great iron doors of the Dragonpit.

———

114 AC, Skies above King's Landing,

A flock of dragons burst out of the gates of the Dragonpit, ascending to the sky in a V-formation. Every single dragon currently in King's Landing, from the titans of Vhagar and Vermithor, all the way down to even the hatchlings no larger than a cat. Over nine-in-ten of the dragons currently alive took flight, the dragon in the lead shining gold like the sun.

Blowing the dragon horn once more, Aerion guided the dragons and immediately began the flight east.

A lone figure was approaching, streaking across the night sky in utter defiance of gravity, black rage writ on her face.

Spurring Sunfyre on, Aerion put on the speed.

However fast a flier Rhaenyra was, Sunfyre was faster still. Aerion and his flock of dragons pulled ahead of the chasing girl.

The hairs on the back of Aerion's back stood up, as the Dragonseed's danger sense pinged. He immediately made Sunfyre perform a barrel roll, the bolt of lightning missing them both by mere inches.

Grunting, Aerion spun around in the saddle, firing arrows behind him as fast as he possibly could. The homing arrows curving in midair to intercept the thunderbolts Rhaenyra was tossing at him.

There weren't that many, for Rhaenyra couldn't both accelerate and shoot at the same time, and eventually she fell too far behind that Aerion left her range.

Whooping in joy, Aerion sped into the night sky, thirty-odd dragons following him across the Narrow Sea.

As Shaera had asked of him, in exchange for the Eyrie, Aerion had stolen all of Rhaenyra's dragons on the eve of war.

His favourite sister had talked a good game. It was true that Lord Paramountship over the Vale was a tempting prize, and Lady Jeyne Arryn a truly pretty wench. But Aerion didn't feel like helping himself to Shaeterys' leftovers, and the Iron Throne was an even more tempting prize. He'd let Rhaenyra, Otto and Shaera murder one another, then pounce on the weakened survivor, claiming the throne for himself.

But still, even though he had the dragon flock behind him, Aerion knew that this wasn't enough to take the Iron Throne.

As an unparalleled strategic genius and general, Aerion was well aware that though dragons could take lands and castles, they could not hold them.

He needed men, and fast.

But luckily for him, there was more than one way to use a dragon flock. Selling a few of the smaller and less useful beasts in the Free Cities would allow him to buy every single slave-sword and sellsword company west of New Ghis. A grand army to conquer the Seven Kingdoms and put everyone whom resisted his rule to the sword.

He'd slap slave collars onto every single noble in the kingdom and take all of their lands, gold and castles for himself. All the men in the Seven Kingdoms would toil day and night in the fields or quarries as his thralls. The pretty women and girls could serve his bed. The rest would service his army. Everyone too old, sickly or annoying would be fed to his dragons. The Faith of the Seven, Old Gods and more would be ripped out root and stem. Westeros only needed one true god to worship: Himself.

"All hail King Aerion I Targaryen, the Ultimate!" Aerion laughed, already envisioning his triumph.

———

114 AC, Archmaester Vaegon's Quarters, Citadel

Waking up to a battering ram was by far Rhaegar's least favourite alarm clock.

A jolt of magical adrenaline into his arm, and Rhaegar was wide awake.

He rolled out of the way of the descending axe, flipping over the back of the sofa he slept on, reflex boosters and reinforcement spells spinning up as he sprung to his feet.

"That, was rude." Rhaegar complained, backing away from the trio of armed guards whom had burst into the room, idly noting that the shredded mess of goose down that had once been his pillow could very well have been his neck had he been even half a second slower. "Now whatever justifies this invasion of an Archmaester's quarters?"

While most of his siblings preferred to live in the Targaryen manse in the city, Rhaegar himself normally bunked with Uncle Vaegon in the Citadel, favouring the proximity to the Citadel and the convenience.

"Rhaegar Fyre, you have been found guilty of treason and sedition against King Aegon II Targaryen and Queen Alicent Hightower. Lord Hand Otto Hightower has ordered your summary execution." The sergeant reported, the three guards moving to surround Rhaegar, weapons drawn.

What?

"But Uncle Viserys is king!" Rhaegar protested.

"King Viserys is dead, as is Queen Alicent! Slain by Rhaenyra the Usurper!"

Did she?

As one of Rhaenyra's closest confidants, Rhaegar was well read into the details of Operation Towerfall, and knew well his role in the plan. In order to prevent the Greens in Oldtown from suspecting anything was amiss, Rhaegar and the Oldtown crowd were to continue their daily lives in the city for as long as possible. Right up until Rhaenyra murdered Alicent.

But after that, the plan was clear. Rhaenyra should have sent Rhaegar a glass candle message within the hour of Alicent's passing, wherein Rhaegar would lead House Targaryen's assets in Oldtown in a hasty retreat via skycart.

Rhaegar had received no such message, and while it was plausible Rhaenyra had forgotten, Daenys definitely would not have. A key part of Operation Towerfall was that Rhaegar and gang were supposed to be long gone from Oldtown before they found out about Alicent's death, in order to prevent the very situation Rhaegar now found himself faced.

Being ambushed in his own quarters by an angry Green death squad.

"I understand." Rhaegar nodded, backing away until his back hit the wall of the room. "I understand perfectly."

And with that, he unleashed a powerful shockwave of telekinetic force, bowling over the four guards.

As the guards shouted and screamed in shock, Rhaegar dashed for the workroom, throwing the door shut behind him. A flick of his wrist locked the door. Strengthening himself to the limit, Rhaegar shoved the massive wooden shelf in the corner in front of the door, further barricading it.

Cussing under his breath, Rhaegar pulled out his glass candle and furiously dialled the Red Keep.

"Rhaenyra, what the fuck is going on?" He demanded the instant it lit up with Rhaenyra's hologram. "You haven't told me Operation Towerfall was a go!"

Laughter filled the room, interspersed by the shuddering of the door as the guards attempted to batter it down.

Blood rapidly turning cold, Rhaegar turned to face the hologram before him, warily drawing his wand.

"Oh she did. Rhaenyra informed you three days ago that this… Operation Towerfall was beginning." 'Rhaenyra' laughed.

"You're not Rhaenyra."

"No, I'm not." The hologram of 'Rhaenyra' flickered, being replaced by a young woman with long black hair. "Did your teachers never tell you? The man whom trusts in magic spells is dueling with a glass sword."

"You compromised the glass candles." Rhaegar grimly realised, alarm and fear rising up like a tide in his body.

"That I did." Alys Rivers smirked. "Even as we speak, Rhaenyra is under the impression that you and every single Dragonseed in the Reach are en route to King's Landing."

Well, that explained why the situation had gone totally pear-shaped.

Fuck.

Words stronger than fuck.

He had to inform Rhaenyra about the compromising of their main communication network, or else Operation Towerfall and the associated campaign would come crashing down like a house of cards.

Sighing, Rhaegar turned to face the door, which was on the verge of breaking. From the sounds of it, there were over a dozen guards on the other side. He wouldn't be leaving that way.

"Plan B, then." He grunted.

———

114 AC, Oldtown

The shaped charge of wildfire— a prototype for the Legion sappers— shattered the stone outer wall like it was cheap plywood.

Claws of shadow growing from his fingers and sinking into stone, Rhaegar surveyed the surroundings, a twist of will allowing him perfect night vision. The Ravenry was to the west, while the manse was to the east. But the manse only had glass candles to send a message, and the Ravenry was far closer.

The manse has dragons. It's where they'll expect me to run. Rhaegar thought.

Rhaegar spelled his shoes to stick to the vertical wall, and began dashing straight upwards towards the summit. Flicking his wrist, Rhaegar generated an illusion of himself to begin dashing for the manse, riding atop a shadow horse in the most conspicuous manner, in order to draw attention away from himself.

Sprinting towards the top of the tower, Rhaegar yelped as arrows flew down towards him, a dozen archers having taken position up among the crenels.

Cussing under his breath, Rhaegar drew his sword and began parrying the shots, swatting them aside before the arrowheads could skewer him. His illusionary double wasn't so lucky, arrows shredding it before it could get far.

Concentrating, Rhaegar willed the two points—where he stood and the top of the tower— to grow closer. To turn meters into millimetres. Boosting his speed, Rhaegar took a single step forward, and reappeared atop the roof of the tower in a heartbeat.

"What the?"

"Where did he go?"

"Teleportation?"

A single clay ball landed right beside the feet of the guards, fuse burning up quickly. A great explosion of green flame burst out from the small ball, shredding all the guards instantly and blasting the roof of the tower right off.

Rhaegar himself was blown straight off of the tower, shielding spells flickering as wildfire and shrapnel battered it.

Once he was clear of the grenade's blast, Rhaegar realigned himself in midair, breaking down his shield spell and reforming it as a gravity absorbing field. An ingenious invention of Rhaenyra's this spell absorbed the gravitational energy that pulled down on everything in a certain radius, allowing him to float in utter defiance of gravity.

Generating force as a thrust, Rhaegar streaked across the sky towards the Ravenry.

Unfortunately, Rhaegar was not as fast or as stealthy a flier as Rhaenyra, and despite the darkness of night, it was a bare minute before the searchlights found him. Grimacing at the ringing alarm bells, Rhaegar killed the gravitational absorption spell. It was taking up too much of his focus to sustain, and he was already close enough to the Ravenry to glide in.

The Ravenry was an old castle on a small islet in the Honeywine river, connected to the mainland by an old and battered drawbridge. A drawbridge that Rhaegar destroyed when he dropped a load of grenades onto the bridge, lighting the last one with a lick of flame from his finger.

That ought to slow down reinforcements.

Landing atop the roof of the castle, Rhaegar dashed for the western rookery. The white ravens could communicate messages just as well as the black could, and were in fact, even faster. Hopefully the guards would have assumed that like most other people, Rhaegar headed for the black ravens in the north tower instead.

Smashing feet-first through a window, Rhaegar scrambled though the labyrinth of stacked cages filled with cawing white birds.

"Red Keep… Red Keep…" The boy murmured, eyes flying over the labels on the cages. "Aha! There you are."

Rhaegar was almost ready to tear open the cage with his bare hands before he realised something horrible.

"I forgot my quill and paper!" He shouted, facepalming himself.

Now how was he to write a message?

Rhaegar slipped into the minds of the countless birds surrounding himself, flicking through them as quickly as he could. The birds of prey had far sharper eyesight than he did, but in none of them did Rhaegar see a workstation or scribes' desk.

Mentally kicking himself, Rhaegar grimly realised that there was no reason to have a scribing desk to write messages in the white raven rookery. White ravens were a message in themselves.

"What are—"

Rhaegar didn't even think, whirling around and throwing the knife instantly.

Archmaester of Ravenry Falco keeled over, drowning in his own blood after Rhaegar's knife buried itself in his throat. The archmaester's young assistant turned pale at the sight of his teacher bleeding the last of his life away and immediately turned around.

"Murder! Murder! Archmaester Falco is dead!" The boy yelled, sprinting down the tower stairs. "Intruder in the West Tower!"

"Oh shit." The Dragonseed cussed. 

It took him all three seconds that this was still an acceptable outcome. Most maesters worth their chain carried around something to write on everywhere they went.

Rummaging around on Falco's corpse, Rhaegar sourced himself a few scraps of paper and a quill.

Lighting another wildfire grenade, Rhaegar punted the small clay sphere down the spiral staircase leading up to the rookery, deliberately angling the shot such that the bomb ricocheted off the back wall and bounced further down the staircase.

There was a teeth-rattling blast, followed by screams of agony.

That ought to keep the guards busy for a while.

Writing as quickly and clearly as he could, Rhaegar outlined the compromising of the glass candles and the situation in Oldtown. Tying the message to the leg of the appropriate raven, Rhaegar ran out to the nearest window, and threw the white raven out into the night sky.

An arrow immediately caught the bird in the back, killing it instantly.

Yelling in dismay, Rhaegar threw himself to the side, screaming as an arrow punched into his right shoulder.

Dozens of guards burst into the rookery, crossbows raised. Too many and too well-armed to have been the Ravenry's security detail. The Oldtown City Guard must have forded the drawbridge or something, and were now storming the castle to kill Rhaegar.

A twist of will, and half a hundred white ravens began flapping and pushing at the edges of their cages. Several rows of cages went down, crashing into one another like a chain of dominoes, burying the guards beneath them.

Wincing, Rhaegar pulled out the arrow in his shoulder, willing himself to regenerate the wound as he ran atop the fallen cages and headed for the spiral staircase.

The Ravenry was fast becoming too hot a locale, and would be put under lockdown sooner rather than later. He wouldn't be getting a message out this way. But if Rhaegar could return to the city, he could blend in with the crowds and vanish. That would buy him the time to rest and plan his next move.

A soldier bearing a heavy tower shield emerged from the door, but Rhaegar raised his wand and fired off a curse of rotting, the man screaming as his face melted off of his skull.

Throwing an invisible eye of magic into the staircase to see, Rhaegar fired a second curse, ricocheting it off the back wall of the staircase and headshotting a guard.

Moving the eye as he descended, Rhaegar ricocheted spell after spell around the curve of the spiral.

When he was halfway down, Rhaegar threw another wildfire grenade— his second last one—behind his back, using magic to make it spin upwards back into the rookery.

The explosion shook the entire castle the instant Rhaegar stepped off the staircase.

A pair of guards charged Rhaegar, but Rhaegar skinchanged into the first and made him stab the second in the throat. While it was true that he couldn't easily possess a human, Rhaegar had figured out a trick, wherein sufficient speed, combined with shock and awe, allowed him to briefly wrench control of something small—like a limb. 

The first guard died a heartbeat later, when Rhaegar slashed the man's throat out with his sword.

Dashing for the exit, Rhaegar tore through guards like an axe through kindling, using his magic and skinchanging to unbalance them before swiftly slaying them with his sword or knives.

Unleashing his second shaped charge, his last, Rhaegar blew up the floor beneath himself, burying three full squads of guards in the entrance hall under tons of stone. Landing with catlike grace atop the debris and rubble, Rhaegar slammed his shoulder into the wooden main gate of the keep, ramming his way through and gasping as the light of pre-dawn found him.

The sky was streaked with lilac and pale streaks of pink, as dawn was on the verge of breaking. The Honeywine had been forded, boats and merchant vessels lashed together, hull-to-hull, to form a makeshift wooden bridge to replace the one Rhaegar had blown up on the way in.

Three men stood between Rhaegar and the makeshift bridge.

Over a hair shirt, each man wore armour made of silvered steel quenched in holy water and inlaid with verses from the Seven-Pointed-Star. Their helms covered their faces completely, with only small eyeholes exposing any flesh. Wool dyed in the colours of the rainbow formed their swordbelts, cloaks and plumes atop their helms.

In their hands were swords with a pommel of star-shaped crystal, and the kite shields they held were painted over with heraldry; A rainbow sword on black.

While the Faith Militant had been gone for over half a century, one last remnant still existed. The Paladins of Oldtown were supposedly sworn to the city of Oldtown above all else—even House Hightower or the Faith— but the fact that they still wore the old arms and armour of the disbanded Warrior's Sons proved it to be a mere fiction.

King Jaehaerys had deemed the organisation more trouble than it was worth to disband, and chose to let it linger, so long as no member ever wore the colours of the Faith Militant outside the borders of Oldtown.

The Paladins of Oldtown had been sourced from hundreds of monasteries and lay brothers of the Faith, orphans or foundlings, trained from birth to become merciless and zealous killers in service of the Gods. Faith upheld their discipline and loyalty, and they were as unyielding as the Unsullied. Rumour was that they were as sworn to silence as the Silent Sisters, never speaking until all evil had been scourged from the mortal realm.

Rhaegar lit his last grenade and threw it at the three paladins.

They took the blast without even flinching, force and shrapnel washing off of them like a wave breaking on a rock. The three men advanced, completely unfazed as alchemical flame dripped off of their prayer-carved armour like water off of a duck's back.

Raising an eyebrow, Rhaegar fired couple of curses at the paladins, only to find sorcery sliding off of their armour, unable to bite into the blessed steel. His one attempt to skinchange into them lead to his soul bouncing most painfully off of their helmets.

Sighing, Rhaegar slowly raised his sword, other hand clenching around his dagger. Steeling himself, he entered a battle stance, knowing full well that it would be his last. Without his magic, he was but a passable swordsman and fighter. Rhaegar was neither Bell nor Shaeterys, not even Daemon. He was just a teenager in loose leathers against three fanatical knights in full plate.

"Guess I'll be seeing you soon, Viserra." He remarked.

As one, all three paladins drew their blades.

Rhaegar raised his blade in a traditional salute, which the three paladins mimicked.

With a yell, Prince Daemon's secondborn lunged at the lead paladin, but the man blocked his strike with the kite shield. The other two smoothly moved to flank Rhaegar, the Dragonseed sidestepping out of the way before he could be boxed in.

Spinning around a kite shield, Rhaegar rammed his knife through the chainmail covering the sides of one of the paladins, only for the knight to grab ahold of Rhaegar's wrist, pushing the knife deeper into his own flesh if it meant that Rhaegar couldn't escape.

Rhaegar raised his sword, aiming to thrust into the paladin's eyehole, but another sword came down, severing his right arm at the shoulder.

Even as he screamed in pain, two more blades were thrust into his chest, piercing his heart and lungs.

In utter silence, the paladins withdrew their blades from Rhaegar's body with a wet rasp, then helped their wounded companion limp away, leaving the corpse behind in the muck for the ravens to peck at.

———

114 AC, Skies above Westeros,

The bird flew.

It flew and flew and flew.

It left a city, one with a great and high tower with green flame burning atop it.

Left it from an old and weathered castle that had once belonged to a pirate, on a small islet on the Honeywine.

It flew over a stage, set with giblets.

It flew over a procession of individuals with silver-gold hair were dragged before a chanting mob.

Food was South and West, in an island of grapes across a strait.

But.

It flew North and East.

The presence demanded it.

It carried a small scroll of paper around its leg, and something else as well.

A shadow, a ghost, a presence.

North and East.

North and East.

Days passed, with the bird only resting at night for food and water, before flying once more.

Following a great river that meandered. Until it turned into a river of stone carved into the lands. Until that turned into a river of rushing black water.

It flew across armies.

Rows upon rows of Legionaries marching into the Reach.

Ships bearing dragons and seahorses mustering in a port.

A sprawling city, larger but more unclean than Oldtown.

The lone ravens flew above them all.

Under the cover of darkness, it flew into the red castle atop the tallest hill in the city, landing on a long slate-roofed keep.

Once a vault for maidens stolen by King Maegor, now a pit for Fyres under King Rhaenyra.

It found a specific window, and gazed inside.

Gazed down at a sleeping maiden, one with hair so silver it was almost white, her long chain of metals rolled up on the nearby vanity.

There was a flicker of will.

And the presence vanished.

Bolt upright, the girl sat.

Eyes flew open.

One grey, the other pink.

The two siblings were now one.

Notes:

Urgh, I hated writing this chapter. Aerion's POV makes me want to take a bath. He's a really horrible jackass. RIP Baela.

Also, Rhaegar is dead as well, sort of. I'm gonna be honest, ever since I properly conceptualised his character, I knew that he would merge permanently with Daenys. Remember #Future Daenys from the House of Undying having a second soul that nearly wrested control back from the Undying One possessing her? That's Rhaegar.

As a bit of foreshadowing to this, if one reads the epigraphs at the start of each chapter, you will have noticed that while Daenys has been mentioned, Rhaegar has never been. This is why.