Syrax was named after a goddess from ancient Valyrian myth.
She was golden in color, immense in size, and fiercely formidable.
She was the princess’s dragon, well-fed and well-cared for, but Rhaenyra did not think that was necessarily a good thing.
Claws and fangs dulled with disuse.
And the enemies of dragons were not always simple foot soldiers.
So Rhaenyra had Syrax hunt daily in the waters north of King’s Landing.
Sometimes, when Syrax rested, she would descend upon Dragonstone, where the rich volcanic fires, sulfur, flame, and rock provided the ideal environment for Targaryen hatchlings to grow.
The dragons in the Dragonpit were all young, perhaps twenty in number.
This was the height of Targaryen dragon prosperity.
The elder dragons, like Vhagar, still lived.
The middle generation were in their prime.
And the young dragons were being born in droves.
Such abundance, of course, planted the seeds for future bloodshed.
Dragonriders, both trueborn and bastards, ambitious and hungry, would mount their kin’s dragons and rain bloody fire from the sky.
Rhaenyra watched the dragons at play, a smile on her face, though inwardly she was exasperated.
If only I had something like the Dragon Soul from World of Warcraft, that artifact of Deathwing’s.
Then no dragon could stand against me.
Anyone who opposed me would face a Cataclysm.
I would cleanse Westeros myself!
The Dragonpit stood atop Rhaenys’s Hill.
It had once been a sept, converted after a battle into a lair for Targaryen dragons.
Nearby, maesters and their attendants recorded the dragons’ forms and habits, while guards with spears and shields kept watch.
The area had always been forbidden to the people of King’s Landing.
No one wished to become a dragon’s supper.
A court maester spotted the princess’s approach and hurried to greet her, eager to share his knowledge.
Rhaenyra noticed the chain around his neck, forged from links of silver, black iron, and other metals, and understood that she was speaking to a learned scholar.
When acolytes trained at the Citadel, they were granted a link of a specific metal for each subject they mastered.
Only after forging enough links would they earn the title of maester.
The colors of the chain revealed their areas of expertise.
“Maester, what are you studying?” “Princess, I am recording the sexes of the dragons and researching their habits.
These are valuable observations.” “Ah.
That is what my grandfather’s most trusted Hand, Septon Barth, studied.
His book, Dragons, Wyrms, and Wyverns: Their Unnatural History, is a most important work.” The maester laughed heartily.
“Anyone with an interest in dragons cannot miss that book.” He seemed immensely proud, and Rhaenyra began to suspect why.
She was not wrong.
“Princess,” the maester continued, “Septon Barth was my great-uncle.
I have been fascinated by dragons since childhood.
I would pester him endlessly for stories about them.
I studied at the Citadel, and now I serve at court.” Rhaenyra nodded in understanding.
The maester, caught up in his enthusiasm, continued his lecture unprompted.
“A dragon’s power comes from its flame.
This is not governed by sex.
Vhagar and Balerion were both equally mighty.” “Princess, you too carry the power of blood and fire,” the maester said meaningfully.
Rhaenyra inclined her head with measured grace.
“That is also my burden,” she replied.
“Maester, do dragons born in captivity grow smaller?” “Ah…
I have not studied that matter.” “Maester,” Rhaenyra said, her tone turning serious, “dragons raised in the Dragonpit will surely degenerate.” The dragons in the pit would indeed shrink over time.
This was recorded in the histories of the Seven Kingdoms.
The dragons of old had been impossibly vast, but after the Dance, the last dragons grew no larger than dogs before dying out entirely.
The king of that age was called the Dragonbane.
Though the fading of magic played a part, Rhaenyra suspected there were darker hands at work.
The maesters had studied dragons.
Some had even conspired to bring about the extinction of House Targaryen’s dragons.
In later ages, this would become a well-known truth.
As for why?
Even the septs of the Seven were steeped in bloody power struggles.
Who truly controlled the Citadel remained a mystery.
“The dragon’s stage is the sky!” Rhaenyra declared.
“To be fed and caged in a pit is a dragon’s tragedy.” She spoke patiently to the maester, who fell into thought and finally nodded.
“Princess, what brings you to this conclusion?” She could hardly say that history had proven it, perhaps even with his own records to bear witness.
Instead, she offered a different answer.
“Syrax told me.
Since I let her hunt in the sea, she has grown larger.
Her flame has become fiercer.” Syrax had probably just enjoyed better meals, but it was not as if anyone could fact-check her.
A harmless exaggeration would do well enough to sway him.
After they had spoken at length, the maester smiled.
“Princess, you are a fine dragonrider.
You understand dragons well.” Rhaenyra, sensing an opportunity, invited the maester to join the circle of instructors at the Red Keep.
He readily accepted.
There was only one royal child in the Red Keep, and the king and queen doted on their eldest daughter.
Rhaenyra’s childhood had been happy and carefree.
Her father had raised her as an heir, letting her attend small council meetings as a cupbearer, assigning masters to teach her swordplay, and bringing in maesters to educate her.
Rhaenyra’s invitation to this maester was a small step, but one the king would have no reason to refuse.
She needed to build her own people as quickly as possible.
As the Crown Princess, she could not even establish her own household.
She had no scholars, no generals.
Could she really rely on Syrax’s flame alone to secure her throne?
She had no desire to become what her predecessor had been: the “Queen of Half a Year,” driven from the Seven Kingdoms after only six months on the throne.
The small council was filled with Green sympathizers.
Every one of them would eventually rally around the new queen.
A nest of traitors, all of them!
Her father would eventually name her his heir.
That gave her legitimacy.
But the succession would be decided by blood and steel, not words alone.
Rhaenyra watched Syrax soar through the sky, and she did not want her dragon to share the fate of dying trapped in a pit.
Syrax would one day die in the Dragonpit during a riot, torn apart by the mob of King’s Landing.
How the rioters had so easily reached the pit, found its weaknesses, and caused Syrax to crash in a frenzy was a mystery that had never been solved.
Rhaenyra’s decision to have Syrax fly out to sea was born of that knowledge.
Syrax was not the only dragon to be torn apart in that riot, murdered by schemers.
But without Syrax, Rhaenyra’s own fate was doomed.