Valyria, an ancient and once-great civilization.
A power that dominated the continent of Essos and surpassed all others in both military might and cultural achievement.
Though Valyria is called a state, in truth it was nothing more than a city.
A colossal city sprawling across an entire peninsula.
The peninsula itself was famous for its volcanoes, known as the Fourteen Flames.
This city-state was inhabited by a remarkable people, by any standard, the Valyrians.
Their skin was often pale and impossibly smooth, which only made their beauty more striking.
Beyond this, Valyrians were known for other distinctive features, such as silver-white hair and violet eyes.
Every single Valyrian possessed these characteristic traits.
The reason for such a uniform appearance was likely both the close familial bonds that were not condemned in their society and the strong blood of this people.
The blood of ancient Valyria is so potent that even today, hundreds of generations later, one can still see people in whom Valyrian features are discernible.
Prime examples are a large portion of the population in the cities called the Free Cities.
Not to mention Lys, famous for its brothels, or as they are lovingly called, “pillow houses”, where one can find prostitutes with the appearance of pure-blooded Valyrians.
But it was not only appearance that made the Valyrian people famous.
A state dominating an entire continent needed something greater than pretty faces to hold power.
It needed a force capable of striking terror into the hearts of its enemies.
And that force was magic, which practically flowed through Valyrian veins, and dragons.
Terrifying fire-breathing monsters, the oldest of which blotted out the sky with their size, commanded by silver-haired riders.
Everyone knows that a dragon is an element, fierce and untamed.
An element against which neither numerical superiority nor castle walls offer protection.
And the one who commands the element effectively rules the world.
Once, simple shepherds found dragon eggs and managed to tame these fearsome creatures.
No one knows how they did it, but it is often attributed to Valyrian magic.
But that is how the dawn of their people began.
That is how the history of Valyria began.
During its existence, the city-state waged countless wars, but the most famous of them was the war against the Ghiscari Empire, now known as Old Ghis.
The slaver state was wiped from the face of the earth by dragons, and their riders reaped the harvest from the lands of their fallen enemies.
The most significant “trophy” for Valyria was slavery, which fit perfectly into the foundation of the country.
Slaves became the second driving force behind its development.
And in every new war, the Valyrians swelled the ranks of their slaves.
It was then that the colonies were created, now known as the Free Cities.
Or, as they are also called, the Daughters of Valyria.
Though Braavos could be called a bastard, as it was founded by escaped slaves.
Time passed, and the wealth of the city-state only grew.
And all of it needed to be governed.
It is believed that Valyria had a republican system, where forty Valyrian houses ruled, or, more accurately, fought for power.
It cannot be said that historians are wrong.
Everything was indeed exactly that way.
But there is always one nuance.
Only a handful of chronicles dating back to the four-thousandth year before Aegon’s Conquest, according to the modern calendar, have survived to our times.
In these few documents, another house is frequently mentioned, one that stood at the very origins of Valyria.
The house that first tamed the dragon.
House Rexarion.
The forty-first house of Valyria, once called the “Dragon Kings.” They ruled the city-state during its dawn and did so with an iron fist.
But, as is usually the case when everything is going well, something inevitably happens.
And here, what “happened” was human nature.
Soon, House Rexarion acquired jealous rivals who also wanted power.
But the strength of the ruling house was too great to be overcome alone.
And so the backroom games began.
The houses conspired that after overthrowing the “Kings,” they would divide power among themselves.
Thus began the first civil war in Valyria’s history.
A war of annihilation.
I need not say that the Rexarions had no chance of victory.
The Kings were overthrown, and Valyria became what it is known as today.
Everyone knows how the history of this great state ended.
The cataclysm, also known as the Doom of Valyria, that shattered the peninsula, turning it into a chain of islands.
The sea in those parts received a new name, the Smoking Sea.
Due to the steam rising from the boiling water.
What caused the Doom is unknown to anyone, but the most popular theory held that the Valyrians had gone too far with blood magic.
All that is known is that only three houses managed to survive the catastrophe: the Targaryens, the Velaryons, and the Celtigars.
And even their survival is explained by the fact that they had migrated long before the Doom.
But all this is the business of days long past, as is the subsequent Conquest of Westeros, carried out by Aegon Targaryen.
Our story begins in one of the Free Cities, in Lys.
In one of the numerous pleasure houses.
In a spacious room, on a large and comfortable bed, characteristic of a brothel of this level, a young and completely naked girl was thrashing about.
The girl was pregnant, and now the process of bringing a new life into the world was underway.
The girl clenched the sweat-soaked sheets with all her strength and screamed in agony, straining her vocal cords, while hired healers bustled between her spread legs.
Such care for an ordinary whore was conditioned by the hope of a girl being born who could be raised from infancy and put to work.
The owner of the pleasure house was aware of certain connoisseurs of younger girls.
And considering the mother’s appearance, which would surely be passed on to the child, the profit would be substantial.
So this momentary care was an investment in the future.
The girl’s appearance was typically Valyrian, which is unsurprising, since she was indeed a pure-blooded Valyrian.
The last of the once miraculously surviving House Rexarion.
On that fateful day when the people of Valyria decided to overthrow their rulers, a handful of people managed to escape under the cover of night on a small ship.
Throughout the subsequent centuries, they hid from their own kin in the colonies, posing as mercenaries, then as merchants.
And so they wandered from city to city, trying to find themselves a new refuge.
But the dark streak in the Rexarions’ lives did not end, and every endeavor was doomed to failure.
Somewhere the cause was their pride, and somewhere else a carelessly spoken word.
To preserve the purity of their house’s blood, they practiced incestuous relations, which became the cause of their slow degeneration.
Even the magic that was in their blood was powerless, and this became especially noticeable after the Doom of Valyria.
The fact remains: only one girl survived to our time, and she had the misfortune of falling into slavery, only to end up sold to one of Lys’s brothels.
A young girl, raised on tales of her glorious house’s greatness and that someday they would reclaim their place, struggled greatly to accept the science of being a “priestess of love.” The situation was not helped by frequent punishments for poorly done work, nor the no less frequent rapes by drunk clients who were dissatisfied with the service.
Eventually, as often happens in brothels, the girl became pregnant by one of the visitors.
This was standard practice, and she was offered to terminate the pregnancy so she could return to work, but the girl flatly refused.
Only madly whispering in pure Valyrian: “The bloodline will live.” What these words meant, no one knew, but it was quickly dismissed as the girl being a bit unhinged.
Returning to the moment of birth, it is worth noting that by this point the already completely exhausted girl could only wheeze, her voice long since gone hoarse.
But, sooner or later, everything ends, both good and bad.
So it was now; the labor was coming to an end.
“It’s a boy,” the healer concluded, holding a small bluish body in his hands.
The infant was completely smeared in blood, and the umbilical cord still connected him to his mother.
The portly man, a typical Lyseni in colorful clothes, only grimaced and spat.
His hopes had not been fulfilled.
“Throw him out,” he ordered and was about to leave, but a weak voice stopped him.
“No,” the girl wheezed quietly.
“Please, no.” She paused for a moment, swallowing air and licking her dry lips.
“I will work…
for two,” she continued hoarsely, making pauses.
It was clear she had almost no strength left to remain conscious.
“Just don’t take…
my son.” The owner of the establishment silently watched her, thinking.
It is unknown what played a greater role: the girl’s offer, or the fact that he simply didn’t care about the child’s fate, but in the end, he agreed.
“Fine,” he nodded and looked at the healers.
“Finish up here and get out.
Collect your payment downstairs.” With these words, he left the laboring woman’s room, and the hired workers began carrying out his orders.
After all procedures were completed, cutting the umbilical cord and primary swaddling, the healers left the room, placing the infant next to the mother.
The girl, through the pain, managed to turn on her side to see her son.
The boy was not asleep, yet was remarkably quiet.
There were no cries, no tears.
It seemed as though he was thoughtfully staring at the ceiling, making faces, as if frowning or angry at something known only to him.
“My son,” she whispered with a tender smile on her lips.
“My little wrathful king.
Irat Rexarion.”