Rhaegar drew a slow, measured breath.
To the merchant captains of the Narrow Sea, Gogossos was a dead realm, a tomb swallowed by jungle and rot.
Yet it was the only Free City ever raised upon the dark northern shores of Sothoryos.
In the dawn of memory, nameless builders had raised cyclopean ruins of fused black stone across the fever-choked canopies before vanishing into oblivion.
Centuries later, colonists from Old Ghis crossed the waters to tame the serpent-infested archipelago.
The sons of the Harpy felled the ironwood groves, drove back the basilisks, drained the coastal bogs, and established Gorgai.
Whenever the sea mists cleared, Ghiscari hunters plunged into the rainforest to capture rare beasts and wyverns, shipping them back to the great pyramids of the east.
The colony thrived for centuries.
Then came the Third Ghiscari War.
Valyrian dragonlords descended through the clouds on wings of fire, breaking the Ghiscari garrison and claiming the archipelago for the Freehold.
The highborn lords found the pestilential climate intolerable, yet the deepwater harbor was too valuable to abandon.
Renaming the fortress Gogossos, the Freehold transformed it into a penal colony.
Banished sorcerers, disgraced blood mages, and outlawed alchemists purchased charters of unchecked experimentation from corrupt dragonlords, turning the subterranean chambers beneath the Isle of Tears into an empire of torment.
In the city’s dark prime, the central arenas and theaters were hollowed into subterranean pits.
Slavemasters conditioned thousands of captives in the upper galleries, while below, flesh-shapers grafted basilisk venom, plague strains, and animal traits onto living flesh.
They forced beasts upon captive women, breeding twisted half-human horrors in the dark.
When the Doom broke Valyria, Gogossos retained the darkest remnants of the Freehold’s bloodcraft.
Its corsairs and sorcerers dominated the slave routes of the Summer Sea, eclipsing the markets of Slaver’s Bay.
Yet its wicked prosperity collapsed seventy-seven years after the Doom, two years before Aegon’s birth.
A horrific contagion known as the Red Death erupted from the lower flesh-pits, causing its victims to bleed from every pore before their skin peeled away like wet parchment.
The plague gutted the population, and trade fleets abandoned the sea lanes.
Gogossos became a ghost city.
“That is the history the maesters write,” Rhaegar explained, his voice low.
“Yet a great city does not perish overnight.
The surviving lords and sorcerers sealed the outer walls, walling off the lower ruins and the plague-sick smallfolk.
The inner citadel survived.
They still govern behind their fused black stone.”
Raegon sat up, his brow furrowing.
“Where do they draw their grain and timber?
Their entire economy rested upon buying and selling thralls.”
His voice dropped.
“They made terms with the Black Wall.”
“They did,” Rhaegar confirmed.
“Volantis provides grain, iron, and fresh captives in exchange for the forbidden bloodcraft of Old Valyria.
A ghost ship sailing out of the Smoking Sea, bound for a fortress steeped in forbidden bloodcraft.
The hairs on the back of Raegon’s neck stood on end.
His awakened legacy carried more than strength; it carried a single, absolute decree.
The Sun-Shepherd had perished in the cosmic war against the Putrid Core, chasing the fragments of the corrupt entity into this mortal world around the very century the Freehold burned.
The Doom…
A sudden chill seized his thoughts.
Did that cosmic fall trigger the collapse of the Fourteen Flames?
He pushed the notion away.
Whether his past self had played a part in the cataclysm mattered little now.
What mattered was the cursed ship drifting toward the Isle of Tears.
He had to see it for himself.
“Scholar,” Raegon said, his mismatched eyes locking onto Rhaegar.
“You wanted to witness the arts beyond the books?”
Rhaegar’s eyes widened with sharp anticipation.
“You will cast it?”
“I must,” Raegon replied, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress.
He tugged the bronze bell-pull beside the bedpost.
A gray-haired woman opened the latch moments later.
“You rang, Lord Raegon?”
“Nurse Maggie,” Raegon said with a warm smile.
“Please ask Visenya to come to my quarters.
Tell her I require the silver mirror.”
“At once, my lord.”
As the door closed, Raegon gestured toward the ceiling.
“Fetch the ritual blade from the loft.
Clear the table.”
Rhaegar climbed the wooden ladder into the cramped space.
Amidst piles of leather-bound folios, he located the blade resting between the pages of A Study of Valyrian Dragon Names, where it had been casually tucked like a bookmark.
“A Valyrian steel blade for blood rites?” Rhaegar asked, handing down the sharkskin sheath.
Raegon drew the five-inch curved blade, watching the dark rippled patterns catch the lantern light.
The hilt was shaped from polished dragonbone, balanced to rest naturally in the palm.
“Valyrian steel is bound by ancient craft.
“The Citadel claims it is merely a complex alloy,” Rhaegar muttered.
“They believe the smiths of the Freehold used rare ores unique to the peninsula, paired with folding techniques that altered the grain.”
“The Citadel refuses to believe in anything they cannot measure with a balance,” Raegon chuckled.
“In a world where dragons circle the clouds and fire priests mend flesh, the scholars still deny the presence of unseen arts.”
“They do not deny it,” Rhaegar corrected coldly.
“They envy it.
They wish knowledge to belong solely to their order.
What they cannot control or explain, they seek to bury beneath the mud.”
The door swung inward.
Visenya stepped into the chamber, carrying a polished ebony case under one arm.
Her lilac eyes swept over the cleared table, landing upon the drawn blade.
The sharp edge of her usual demeanor softened into quiet concern.
“The reason, Raegon.”
“Rhaegar brought word from the southern sea,” Raegon replied, meeting her gaze steadily.
“Something has crawled out of the Smoking Sea.
I must look into the glass to see if the taint belongs to my hunt.”
When his powers woke at seven namedays, he had hidden nothing from his elder siblings.
He had laid bare the two rites of the mirror path: Mirror Divination and Mirror Substitution.
Both required only his blood, yet both carried peculiar burdens.
Mirror Divination granted precise sight across time and distance, far outstripping the clouded visions of greenseers or fire-gazers.
The price was minor: three days of deep, unsettling dread whenever he looked upon his own reflection.
Mirror Substitution was far darker.
A mirror prepared with his blood could absorb a single lethal blow, turning aside poison, cold steel, or unseen curses to preserve the bearer’s life.
Yet if seven such mirrors were forged, a shadow of himself, a twisted Mirror-Self, would tear free from the reflection to claim his mortal flesh.
He had forged only four, one for each Targaryen sibling.
Visenya set the ebony case upon the table and lifted the velvet clasp.
Inside lay a heavy mirror of polished silver, framed by intricate wrought roses and thorns of pale metal.
“Begin,” she said softly.
Raegon drew the dark blade across his palm.
Crimson blood welled from the cut, falling in heavy drops across the silver glass.
The surface rippled like disturbed water.