“I imagine you’ve handled everything after my death quite well, my child.
Forgive me.
This is not how I wanted you to see me last.
I was never a good father.
My foolishness and selfishness saddled you and your brothers from birth with the name ‘sons of the whore princess.’
But I know you won’t care about that.”
Lancel’s mouth twitched.
He read on.
The handwriting was still the elegant, precise aristocratic script of High Valyrian.
“Everyone has secrets.
Your old man had his.
As for what that secret was, well, it no longer matters.
I’ve taken it to the grave.
You don’t need to know.”
“…”
Lancel fought the urge to hurl the book across the room and turned the page.
“Your old man wasted half his life and spent the other half finally waking up.
Only at the end did I realize you were the damned gods’ gift to me.
A born bloodmage.
If I hadn’t had the means to confirm it, I would have sworn you were just like me.”
“A finger made of gold?” Lancel scratched his head, puzzled.
“I thought I could master the magic in the family legends.
Or that Valezeth blood would at least let me hatch a dragon.
I was wrong.”
Lancel could read the regret between the lines.
The frustration.
His father, who had never stood on ceremony in life.
“I gathered countless sorcerers.
A few had real skill.
Most were frauds.
If you ever reach Qarth, spit on the House of the Undying for your old man.
By the gods’ own backsides, those warlocks had some power, but they tried to drain your blood and mine.
If I’d had a dragon, I would have burned them first.”
“You were obsessed with dragons, old man,” Lancel murmured.
But he understood his father’s design.
He had followed the plan all along.
What Valyrian boy could resist the pull of dragons?
How many nights had he dreamed of soaring through the sky, bathed in moonlight?
“Still, your old man had some luck.
I managed to produce a few things.
My child, I hope these fruits help you complete our great work.
First, you’ve no doubt read the texts Doctor Vysar brought.
You know the ancient legends of different lands and the history of the Valyrian Freehold.
So you must have asked yourself: Why did the Valyrians rise?
Why did a people silent for millennia develop such strange features?
Why can our high bloodlines command dragons?
And where did dragons come from?”
“I have,” Lancel answered under his breath.
“So did I.
I read every family document and every text the sorcerers brought.
One thing is certain: the Valyrians cannot be a natural race.
Magic runs in our blood.
My child, do you remember the words of House Valezeth?”
“My blood runs silver,” Lancel thought.
He had already formed theories.
His father’s notes might confirm them.
“My blood runs silver.
That is our house’s motto.
In Westeros to the west, your mother’s house says ‘Fire and Blood.’ Do you see?
We dragonlord houses treasure blood.
We emphasize blood.
In the days of the Freehold, the forty dragonlord families either married each other or kept it within the family.
Not only to prevent blood from leaking out, but to preserve the magic within it.
Son, you are a born bloodmage.
Purifying blood is effortless for you.
You already understand that blood is the root of bloodmagic.
And not only bloodmagic.
In the fire magic of R’hllor and the shadow magic of Asshai, blood sacrifice is central.
Our Valyrian steel, according to family records, requires blood in its forging.
Blood is the currency of the magical world.
That is the law of equivalent exchange.
And the blood of us dragonlord descendants is more precious still.
Your bloodmagic far surpasses any bloodmage I ever met.
That is the source of my confidence.”
Lancel frowned.
He knew his blood was powerful.
Weapons anointed with it grew sharper.
Poisons mixed with it became ten times more potent.
He could locate people through blood, hear the thoughts of those who drank it, control animals with it.
But he did not understand his father’s confidence.
Their great work was not complicated.
Cleorius had designed an intricate set of bloodmagic runes, supposedly capable of resisting the Smoking Sea’s curse.
They meant to find the lost army of Orion Valezeth.
And the dragon eggs he had carried with him.
“The blood of Valyrian dragonlords, combined with bloodmagic.
Do you see now, son?
What I wanted to recreate was the ancient Valyrian method of taming and hatching dragons.
The family has always kept a fleet at the edge of the Smoking Sea.
We know the heart of it is death.
That zone includes the city of Valyria itself and most of the old Freehold.
Under no circumstances may you enter those waters.
But the edges, I believe, can be explored with small parties under magical protection.
The western edge of the Valyrian Peninsula includes the marshes along the Valyrian road, the fortress-city of the old Malaeris family, one of our family’s own cities, a Pyromancer tower of the Garaelus family, and the estates of a few lesser houses.
This comes from the family library.
If you have the nerve, you may explore these areas freely.
But stay cautious.
We tried to reconstruct Orion’s route.
Before he vanished entirely, his army was last seen in the marshes at the peninsula’s edge.
If his host never entered the Valyrian interior, they would be somewhere between our family’s city of Vassor and the Tower of Garaelus.
In the Freehold era, House Valezeth served the Valyrian god Vermithor, the Smith.
So the family held the secret of forging Valyrian steel before the Doom.
If you can reach Vassor, you will be rich.
Valyrian steel, at least, will not be in short supply.
In the Freehold, dragonlords used volcanoes and magic to hatch dragons.
After the dragons fell, the Targaryen dragonlords of the sunset lands hatched theirs through the pure blood of newborns.
Wherever dragons came from, only our blood can command them.
That much is certain.
And that is enough.
Child, you carry the blood of two great dragonlord houses.
I believe your blood is as pure as any dragonlord of old.
Forgive me, child, for laying this dangerous task on you.
But I know you can do it.
Forgive me.
Your father was not a good father.
He made his children carry his ambition and his dreams.”
“Everything for the family.” Lancel’s grip tightened on the page.
“For the family.
For Valar and Raymond and the others.”
“My child, may honor flow in your blood forever.
May the blood of Valezeth never run dry.
May the glory of dragons in flight return to our house.”
Lancel looked up and closed his eyes.
Something clear and bright slipped quietly down.
The shadows stirred.
A bearded man in a long red robe stepped silently out of the darkness.
“Magister Lancel.
Are you prepared?”
Lancel opened his eyes and returned the journal to its place.
“Begin, acolyte of R’hllor.”
“As you will.” The red priest bowed his head.
“Son of Fire.”
The Bontaro manse.
Tall orange trees blocked Volantis’s brutal sun.
Costly wine pooled across the floor.
Mogul Bontaro, head of the house, stared at little Corvino slumped between two terrified, beautiful slave girls.
The veins in his forehead bulged.
“Master!
Master!
We didn’t know!
He only kept asking for wine!” A male slave clutched his master’s feet, tears streaming down his face.
Then he saw his own body.
“Hmph.” Mogul extended his foot toward a slave girl with distaste, letting her lick the stain from his shoe.
The Unsullied beside him silently withdrew his war axe.
“Master, no known poison was found in the young master’s body.” The slave physician with the snake tattoo on his face prostrated himself.
“I have no son this stupid.” Mogul forced his rage down.
“Prepare the golden palanquin.
We go to the Maegyr Palace.”
“Yes, master.”