*AEGON I — THE SEA*
The ship was called _The Naathi Dove_, and she stank.
Aegon had never been on a ship before. Storm's End had cliffs, not harbors. Now the deck moved under him and the world was all water, blue and endless, and he vomited over the rail twice before noon.
Ser Cortnay laughed, then vomited himself.
Thirty-two men had become twelve. The rest had turned back at Cape Wrath, afraid of the tale they were in. Only Cortnay, Harbert, Maester Gawen, and nine of the youngest remained. Boys who wanted a story.
The dragons hated the sea worst of all.
Voidscale would not leave the hold. He was big as a horse now, too big for the deck, his black scales hot to the touch. He curled around Aegon's hammock and hissed at waves, Aegnis and Chaosfyre were kept in the dragons ranch dimension . Sailors crossed themselves when they saw them.
"You should chain it ," the captain, a fat Pentoshi with a blue beard, told Aegon on the second night. "Before he burn my sails."
Aegon touched the red katana on his back. It was Valyrian steel,with vibranium , folded red.
"If I chain him, I am no better than the masters my aunt freed," he said.
On the fourth night, a storm came.
The mast cracked. Water poured into the hold. The men screamed that they would drown, that the gods hated dragonlords.
Aegon held Voidscale's head in his arms. The dragon was shaking — not from fear. From fever. Growing pains. His teeth were coming in, dagger-long, cutting his own gums. Blood and fire dripped from his mouth.
"Hold," Aegon whispered to him in High Valyrian, learned from old scrolls. "_Sōvegon._ Fly later. Now hold."
Voidscale looked at him, violet eyes bright, and roared. Flame lit the storm. The sailors fell to their knees on a sinking deck and prayed to a different god.
When the storm cleared, the captain pointed, hand shaking.
Land. Yellow cliffs. Pyramids in the haze. And smoke. So much smoke.
"Meereen," Maester Gawen breathed. "Gods be good, we made it."
Aegon stood, soaked, silver hair plastered to his skull, he released his three dragons around him steaming in the sun.
He could hear, even from the sea, the bells of Meereen™️ ringing — not in welcome.
In alarm.
Daenerys's city was burning
Not from outside. From inside. The Sons of the Harpy had lit the lower city — the markets, the slave pens they wanted back. Smoke rose in black columns from the eastern pyramids. From the bay, Dany's ships were fighting Yunkish galleys.
And in the sky, alone, was one dragon.
Drogon — black and huge — was wheeling over the Great Pyramid, roaring at enemies he could not see in the alleys.
Daenerys was on the terrace. Even from a mile out, Aegon could see her silver hair.
The _Naathi Dove_ never made it to port.
"They will chain them if we land," Cortnay had shouted over the Yunkish war horns.
Aegon didn't argue.
He climbed Voidscale.
Voidscale was longer horse-sized. In Storm's End he had eaten, and on the sea he had starved, and now he was starving no longer. He was ready, black scales edged in red like cooling iron, his wings blotting out the sun.
Aegon put a rope around his neck — not a chain — and swung onto his back. The red katana banged against Voidscale's spine.
"_Sōvegon!_" he screamed.
Voidscale leapt.
The deck of the _Dove_ cracked under his push. Sailors screamed. For a heartbeat they fell — boy and dragon together toward the sea — and then Voidscale's wings caught.
Wind slammed Aegon's teeth. He clung, legs burning from the heat of the scales.
Behind him — two shrieks.
Aegnis and Chaosfyre.
They had waited in the ranch their whole short lives for this. The Ashblack and the Grey devil, both horse-sized, both furious, launched after their brother, their father, their king.
Three dragons rose over Slaver's Bay.
Yunkishmen saw them first. One pointed, then a hundred. Then a thousand.
Daenerys on her pyramid saw them. Grey Worm saw them. Barristan, sword in hand in a street full of masked men, looked up and wept, because he knew those wings.
RAHH!!
Voidscale roared. Not a hatchling's screech. A true dragon's challenge.
Drogon answered. The black dread in the sky above Meereen turned, saw them — saw kin — and screamed back.
RAHH!!
Aegon leaned forward, silver hair whipping, tears in his eyes from wind and smoke.
"For the Targaryen!!" he screamed, not knowing if anyone could hear.
And the three dragons — Voidscale in front, Aegnis and Chaosfyre flanking — dove straight into burning Meereen.