“Not surprised,” an old man in rough homespun muttered, shaking his head.
“Those Lannisters have always been cold-blooded.” “I heard the Mountain raped and murdered Prince Rhaegar’s wife,” a one-eyed man growled, draining his cup.
“Slaughtered her and the two children too.
And that monster was a knight Rhaegar himself had made.” Laman came over with a few eggs wrapped in a cloth and pressed them into Gavin’s hands.
“Little one, word is the Tyrells have pulled back.
They lifted the siege of Storm’s End and declared Robert Baratheon the rightful king.
It won’t be long before Ser Emond comes home.
Once he’s back, things will get better for you and your mother.
Maybe you’ll even be allowed back inside the castle.” She expected excitement.
Instead Gavin stood frozen, whole body trembling, a stunned smile spreading across his face.
Laman laughed and pinched his cheek again.
“Happy enough to shake, are you?
Go on then, take your things and run home before it gets dark.” Gavin walked the uneven, winding path toward the little house below the castle.
The setting sun painted everything blood-red and stretched his thin shadow long across the ground.
The evening wind tugged at his silver hair.
His face was alight with something he could not hide, but the real storm was inside his head.
It was not the news from the tavern that had him shaking.
The pendant had finished pulling in its energy.
A panel now floated in front of his eyes.
Host: Gavin Flowers Age: 6 Bloodline: Bloodfire Dragonborn (Development 15%): Valyrian dragonlord bloodline.
Grants the potential for dragonriding and flame control.
Not yet fully awakened.
Command: 15 (Your subordinates can be improved through the panel) Skills: High Valyrian: Proficient Flame Control: Beginner Energy Points: 3 (Automatically absorbs ambient magic from the surroundings.
Can also be obtained by actively drawing in magic.) The sight hit him like a warhammer.
I knew it.
If I got to transmigrate, of course there’d be a golden finger.
Every old humiliation, every constant pressure, every moment of staring into the unknown future—all of it burned away like morning mist.
The careful plan he had been building—to attach himself to some powerful man and climb out of bastardy—suddenly felt small.
Ambition roared up inside him, wild and uncontrollable.
The Iron Throne itself no longer seemed completely out of reach.
And dragon eggs… he wanted one.
Badly.
He was dragonseed.
That meant he had a real chance of riding a dragon.
Daenerys’s three eggs had hatched in the story he remembered.
Maybe he could scheme his way to one of them—or find others that existed.
In this backward world a dragon meant absolute control of the sky and crushing power over any army on the ground.
He let the fantasy run for a while, then forced himself to calm down.
Dragons were not invincible.
Scorpions could bring them down.
The Night King had dropped one with a single spear.
And he was still just a bastard.
Foreknowledge only went so far when you had no name and no army.
Dragon eggs were a long way off.
Even Daenerys had needed the status of an exiled royal house before anyone would gift her eggs.
Gavin stared at the glowing panel, eyes locked on the plus signs beside his bloodline and skills.
After a long moment of thought he spent one energy point on the bloodline.
The development jumped from 15% to 16%.
A warm current surged through him, racing down every limb.
His muscles felt like they were swelling, strength flooding in like a tide.
The iron pot in his hand suddenly seemed much lighter.
He understood it was partly an illusion created by the sudden jump in physical power, but the improvement was real.
His body had genuinely grown stronger.
He turned to the skills.
Only two existed so far.
After a second’s consideration he dropped the second point into Flame Control.
The word “Beginner” changed instantly to “Proficient.” A rush of knowledge and hard-won experience poured into his mind, as though he had spent years practicing the art.
He ran to an empty stretch of beach, snapped his fingers, and a bright, vigorous flame bloomed on his fingertip.
It was hotter and larger than before, and it obeyed him perfectly—dancing, stretching, and shaping itself exactly as he willed, fluid and responsive.
Excited, he checked the Command stat.
No plus sign appeared.
Apparently he could not use that function yet.
He could feel the difference in his body and in his control over fire.
For the first time since waking up in this world, real confidence settled in his chest.
One energy point remained.
He suspected the points came from the mysterious magic sealed inside the dragonbone pendant.
If that was true, he needed to find ways to gather more.
Dragonbone was the obvious source, but acquiring it would not be easy.
The Red Keep held a fortune in dragon bones.
More were scattered across the world as artifacts and jewelry.
Most of them were either heavily guarded or ruinously expensive.
Worse, many male nobles in this world craved dragonbone for its strange, unspeakable effects.
They ground it into powder and swallowed it.
Most of the bones that reached the open market ended up consumed that way.
He needed more skills.
That meant he had to trade something valuable for an opening.
He would offer the method for refining clean sea salt.
And he would offer it to only one person—the one man in the domain who held real power and had already shown him goodwill.
Ser Emond Cotoin.
Conveniently, the Usurper’s War had just ended.
Ser Emond was coming home.
Gavin’s mind kept turning as he walked, spinning through possibilities.
What exactly could he gain from this trade?
And how should he present the salt method—walk straight up to his uncle and hand it over, or wait for the right moment that would make its worth impossible to ignore?