“The supreme, the mighty, the great realm, forged by fire and dragon.”
A white-hot sun beat down on a city that stretched beyond sight.
Countless ships with sails of every color crowded the endless harbor like sardines.
The broad River Lorne flowed quietly.
Spanning its mouth, a bridge wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side.
Sphinxes, dragons, and manticores carved from black stone stared coldly at the packed crowds crossing it.
A swift falcon cut across the sky like lightning.
A feather drifted down.
A slave with maggot tattoos stooped to pick it up and placed it carefully into the crude basket on his back.
A man with tiger-stripe tattoos cracked a whip, directing a long line of slaves sweeping the wide avenue.
The falcon flew over the teeming harbor district, thick with the smells of fish, blossoms, dung, and decay.
Over merchants and sailors from every corner of the world.
Over tattooed slaves.
Over a nobleman in a silk toga, seated on a golden chair atop a dwarf elephant, leaving a string of indistinct curses in its wake.
Over the two-hundred-foot black walls.
At last, it landed on a strange black stone pillar carved with a coat of arms, a laurel wreath encircling a fire-breathing dragon, rendered in pure silver that gleamed under the sun.
In the room across from the pillar, an old man in grey robes held a heavy book, leaning beside a fountain adorned with dragons and manticores, reading aloud in a calm voice.
The handsome silver-haired boy looked up, delighted, stealing a glance at the falcon.
“Raymond, pay attention.” The old man in grey tugged at the chain of a dozen different metal links around his neck and spoke deliberately.
“Sorry.
I apologize.
I just miss Flamewing so much.
Master Vysar, please don’t tell my brother.” Twelve-year-old Raymond Vale quickly pulled his gaze back, his eyes pleading as he looked at the quietly watching Doctor Vysar.
The learned scholar came from the distant west, a land people inside the Black Walls called the Sunset Kingdoms.
But Raymond knew its real name was Westeros.
His late father and mother had spoken of it often.
It was the homeland his mother had yearned for and hated in equal measure.
“Your brother Lancel would never abandon the pursuit of knowledge for a falcon.” The old scholar turned the page, his tone earnest.
“Unless it were a hatchling dragon.”
“But we have no dragons left.”
The boy lowered his head, the thought drifting through his mind as the aged voice beside him continued reciting the chapters of history in High Valyrian.
“Dawn shone upon a realm that seemed eternal.
The children of light and shadow, of fire and ice, ruled the land and sea.
His reign lasted ten thousand years, until the fated hour.
The Pearl Emperor sat the throne, the Tourmaline Emperor sewed the sacred vestments, the Onyx Emperor forged the armor, the Topaz Emperor compiled the books, the Opal Emperor mended the wounds.
Order died, the world fell into chaos.
Then came brother against sister, the Long Night, the hero drawing his sword, the Lion of Night grieving.”
“Ancient myths and legends.” Raymond’s mind had already flown back to Flamewing.
“But my brother loves them.
Just because the Amethyst Empress had purple eyes too.
He thinks it might connect to our ancestors?” The boy blinked his beautiful violet eyes, pretending to listen closely.
“Your ancestors rose from the sprawling mountains of the Fourteen Flames.
They were children of the peaks, fierce warriors, brilliant scholars, mysterious mages, and master craftsmen.”
“Legends are still legends.
Our ancestors were shepherds’ descendants.” Raymond kept the thought to himself.
“That much we know for certain.”
“They awakened the children of the Fourteen Flames.” Vysar suddenly lowered his voice.
“And so the greatest nation was born.
The Valyrians mounted dragons and launched their great conquest.
The darlings of the harpy, the ancient Ghiscari Empire, were burned by dragonfire into salt marshes where crops would never grow again.
And the Rhoyne, with their water magic that could drown dragons, their valiant Prince Garin died in agony beneath the fury of three hundred dragons.”
“Now it’s getting interesting.” Raymond tucked his hands back into his purple silk sleeves.
A small silver dragon figurine had somehow found its way into his palm.
The boy rubbed it gently, his attention finally returning to the heavy book.
“At the height of the Valyrian Freehold, forty dragonlord families tamed thousands of dragons.”
“Too bad only one dragonlord family that breeds dragons remains now.
No, calling them dragonlords is generous.
Lucky exiles, more like.” Raymond kept rubbing the figurine, recalling his previous lessons on nobility.
“The dragonlords schemed against one another in Valyria’s high towers.
Dragons roared over the volcanoes.
Beneath them, millions of slaves toiled in the mines for their dragonlord masters.
Across the known world, the Andals fled like rats, the Tall Men of Sarnor knelt and groveled, the ancient Ghiscari were the dragonlords’ slaves, and even the proud God-Emperors of Yi Ti considered it a supreme honor to wed a silver-haired noblewoman.” The old scholar’s voice rose, as if reciting a poem.
“The wise dreamer Daenys Targaryen foresaw the brewing catastrophe.
So that failed family took their dragons and fled to the west.
Then came the Doom that destroyed everything.
Dragonlords turned to ash.
Dragons fell from the sky.
A mighty realm was wiped to dust in a single night.”
The old scholar cleared his throat and continued.
“Your ancestor, the last Valyrian emperor Orion Valezeth, was stationed at Qohor with his dragon at that time.
The proud dragonlord saw this as a perfect opportunity.
Greed devoured his reason.
He emptied his coffers and raised an army of thirty thousand, free sellswords and farmers hungry for wealth, wandering Valyrian warriors desperate to go home, and the Black Goat cavalry of Qohor.
They took on supplies at Volantis, and there the dragonlord left behind an heir.”
The old scholar looked at Raymond.
Wise as he was, he had already noticed the boy’s wandering attention.
“Your direct ancestor, Lingor Valezeth, the Dragonless.”
“I know him.” Raymond’s violet eyes lit up.
They had finally reached his favorite part, the family anecdotes.
“To protect him from assassins with hidden motives, his mother, a noblewoman from another dragonlord family but with no dragon of her own, shattered the dragon egg Orion had left for his son.
Naturally, he never hatched a dragon.” The boy kept the thought to himself.
“The army vanished in Valyria.
No one ever saw Orion the Dragonlord or his red dragon again.
And so the Valezeth family, once ranked seventh among the forty dragonlords, once possessing a hundred and fifty adult dragons at their peak, fell into decline.” The old scholar sighed, turned the page of the great book, and continued recounting the history of the Valezeth family after their migration inside the Black Walls of Volantis.
“…By the time Gaimon Valezeth passed, the Valezeth family had amassed enormous wealth.
They owned vast fertile lands stretching from the River Lorne to the Valanna, along with twelve sugar-beet plantations, twenty-five vineyards, six silk workshops, two private forests, one gold mine, two silver mines, and seven rich iron mines.”
The old scholar turned to the final page.
“Cleorius Valezeth.
The most legendary patriarch in the family’s history.
Some called him a madman.
Some called him a genius.
Others called him a terrifying wizard.
In his first twenty years, he was a dissolute wastrel who squandered two-thirds of the family fortune.
In the middle twenty years, he was a miracle worker who tripled the Valezeth wealth beyond what Gaimon had built.
The glass he produced was crystal clear, exported as far as Slaver’s Bay and the Nine Free Cities.
The silver wine he brewed was so smooth and fragrant that even Dothraki khals were captivated by it.
He tripled silk production, luxurious silk bearing the silver dragon and laurel wreath was sold as far as Yi Ti.
He raised the annual yields of wheat, rice, sugar beets, and saffron.
The smelting methods he designed doubled the output of the gold and silver mines.
The metalworking processes he improved could produce steel second only to Valyrian steel and Qohorik bloodsteel.
The shipbuilding techniques he devised created seafaring vessels that rivaled the purple-sailed warships of Braavos and the swan ships of the Summer Isles.”
“If I hadn’t witnessed the old master’s glory with my own eyes, I would never believe a nobleman with no Citadel education could accomplish all this.” Doctor Vysar kept the thought to himself as he lectured.
“He organized great voyages to Asshai and Westeros, earning countless gold in maritime trade.
He freed the family’s slaves, elevating them to contract workers and paid servants.
From among them, he selected six thousand brave boys.
That day, the Silverblood Legion and the Weepers of Volantis were born.
The nobles inside the Black Walls said he conducted magical experiments semi-openly.
Shadowbinders from Asshai, aeromancers, pyromancers, bloodmages, warlocks from Qarth, Moonsingers from the Jogos Nhai, Red Priests from the Great Temple, all passed through his palace.
No one knew what your father intended.
Until he charged out of his palace like a madman, carrying a fortune requiring nine elephants to transport, and stormed into a notorious brothel in Volantis.”
“He married our mother.” Raymond stared into the old scholar’s eyes, the thought forming in his mind.
“The mother who died the day I was born.”
“In my homeland, they called her the Whore Princess.
Her name was Saera Targaryen.” Doctor Vysar paused, a trace of regret in his eyes.
“She was the ninth daughter of my homeland’s late king, Jaehaerys I, the Old King.
In the absurd first half of her life, she had more men than she had silver hairs.”
“I know.” Raymond had never respected his mother.
As a child, he often felt pained by her past.
“Just around my brother, there are several bloodlines she left behind.
And that silver-haired bastard from the former triarch’s family.” The boy grumbled inwardly.
“Twenty-three years ago, the princess ended her debauched life in Lys and came to settle in Volantis.
A year later, she established her own brothel, the infamous House of Dragon Bastards.
No one understood why your father would marry a whore, even if the blood of the world’s only dragonlord family with living dragons flowed in her veins.
Even less did anyone understand what reason could make the princess accept your father’s proposal, and then imprison herself for two years after the wedding to purify her bloodline.”
Doctor Vysar closed the book.
“I cannot understand it either.
But that is how history unfolded.
In the third year of their marriage, your elder brother Lancel Valezeth and Valar Valezeth were born.
Birthing twins nearly killed the aging princess.
She was bedridden from then on.
The old master seemed to cool his passion for his wife, turning his energy toward your elder brother, who showed innate wisdom.
Master Lancel possessed wisdom no less than the old master’s.
By age seven, he had mastered all the family’s industries and affairs.
By nine, he had independently completed trade deals with Braavos and Lys.
In the final days of his life, the old master poured all his wisdom into your elder brother, until he passed away in his own laboratory.
Hm?
Where are you going?”
The old scholar’s voice cut off abruptly.
The silver-haired boy had suddenly bolted up like a monkey, dashing toward the main courtyard without a backward glance.
The silver dragon figurine in his sleeve had suddenly grown scalding hot, as if on fire.
Raymond knew instantly what it meant.
“My brother’s back.
I’m going to see him.
Master Vysar, I’ll make up today’s lesson tomorrow.” Raymond’s clear voice echoed through the colonnade tangled with stone pillars and grapevines.
The old scholar shook his head with a rueful smile and murmured, “But your lesson today is already finished.” He straightened his grey robes and chain.
Lancel Valezeth was his master.
Naturally, he needed to go and welcome him as well.
The silver dragon in his sleeve grew hotter and hotter, but Raymond felt no pain.
It was strangely pleasant.
The boy raced through the colonnade.
He had just rounded the dragon statue carved from dragonglass when something round came rolling to a stop at his feet.
Raymond’s heart seized as if crushed by a giant hand.
His hands flew up to cover his mouth, forcing down the scream that had already reached his throat.
It was a human head.