Rhaegar Velaryon returned Raegon’s look of disgust with one of his own.
“And I thought my first dragon ride would be with a pretty girl, too.”
Then he caught the expression on Raegon’s face: say one more word and I’ll toss you off mid-flight.
He raised an eyebrow and shut his mouth.
Watching Raegon bicker with his good friend, Visenya smiled with quiet satisfaction.
She had been right to make Aegon take him out more.
Dragonstone was too remote, too narrow.
House Celtigar had no children of an age to grow up beside Raegon.
House Velaryon did, but their heir was the same age as Raegon and could never stay long at his side.
The natural gap in their stations, along with the Velaryons’ rigid, sharp-edged noble upbringing, made it near impossible for Raegon to become true friends with Aethan or Corlys.
Even Aegon and Daemon Velaryon, close as brothers, had a barrier between them that could never be fully removed.
A liege and a vassal could be friends, but never truly open their hearts.
Raegon and Rhaegar were different.
Set aside the life-debt.
Raegon could tolerate Rhaegar’s sharp tongue, and Rhaegar could catch Raegon’s lightness.
With little political entanglement between them, they could become true friends.
“Oh, right.
This is for you.” Raegon drew a mirror from his coat and tossed it to Rhaegar.
“Your mirror phobia’s gone?” Rhaegar’s eyes widened with curiosity.
“Wait, let me remember.
How many days does it last?”
“Shove off.” Raegon said it with annoyance, but the smile stayed on his face.
Rhaegar only smiled.
He had already done the math in his head.
Six days since they had set out for war, counting the time of preparation, and Raegon studying his reflection that morning.
The aftereffects of Raegon’s mirror divination took about five days to fade.
“What is it?” Rhaegar caught the mirror and tucked it carefully into a hidden pocket inside his coat.
“A mirror.
I made it myself.” Raegon saw Rhaegar’s mouth open and added before he could speak, “It is enchanted.”
Rhaegar’s curiosity surged again, but he still could not get a word out in time.
“It is a mirror substitution.
Wear it and it will absorb one fatal blow.”
“Impossible!” Rhaegar said, shocked.
He was rarely surprised.
As an outstanding maester, if the stubborn old men of the Citadel had not nearly beaten him to death for heretical thinking, he would already have forged enough chain links to serve any king.
There was not much left in the world that could truly amaze him.
“There is no record of this kind of magic.” Rhaegar’s voice brimmed with excitement, disbelief, and hunger.
“What is the principle?
I know a few ways to delay death, but all of them require elaborate rituals and strict conditions.
Even the shadowbinder’s eerie shadow-killer magic needs a king’s blood or a king’s seed to cast.”
“Never mind the principle.
Just wear it.” Raegon decided to end the topic then and there.
If he let Rhaegar start thinking, it would never stop.
“How many is this?” Visenya’s voice came at just the right moment.
The eldest daughter of House Targaryen wore practical riding clothes and a fine coat of mail beneath a red cloak.
No jewelry.
Her long silver hair was braided back.
At her hip hung a slender, elegant sword, its sharkskin scabbard set with amethysts and sapphires.
The crossguard spread from a great ruby like flames, like dragon wings, like fire.
It was one of the two Valyrian steel swords House Targaryen still held.
Dark Sister.
House Targaryen had once owned many Valyrian steel weapons, but in the conspiracy and rebellion that broke their family, they had lost nearly all of them.
By the time Aenar fled in disgrace to Dragonstone, House Targaryen, one of the forty dragonlord families, owned about as many Valyrian steel weapons as their own vassals. You are reading on novelping.com, the official source.
House Velaryon had an ancient Valyrian steel longsword, Tide.
House Celtigar kept a Valyrian steel battle-axe, Crab’s Claw.
It was a bitter irony.
“Fifth.
Do not worry, I am keeping careful count,” Raegon said.
Visenya touched his hair.
“Be careful.
Do not make any more.”
Raegon nodded firmly.
Rhaegar badly wanted to know what this was about, but he could see it was deeply important to his friend.
He could not know too much.
So Rhaegar Velaryon, who wanted to know everything, shut his mouth.
Raegon let out a long breath.
He hoped the trip to Gogossos went smoothly.
With old Raegor there, surely nothing would go wrong.
Plus the mirror substitution.
Nothing would go wrong.
Right.
Nothing.
He silently steadied himself, then grabbed the rope ladder hanging from the dragon saddle.
“I will climb up first, then you.
Got it, bookworm?”
“Another new nickname?” Rhaegar pushed his curiosity aside and smiled, following Raegon to take hold of the rope.
“Was it not ‘little maester’ a few days ago?”
“My choice.” Raegon huffed and puffed his way up onto the dragon saddle, then motioned for Rhaegar to sit behind him.
“There is a strap on the saddle.
Strap yourself in.
I cannot reach.”
Rhaegar looked it over and secured himself briskly.
Strangely, he felt a mix of excitement and fear.
Raegor blew a snort of amusement.
For a moment he felt the urge to tease the boy on his back, but he held himself back.
Not because of his bond with Raegon.
If it had only been that, Raegon would not have minded joining the old dragon to toy with Rhaegar.
It was simply that only Raegor’s tail could reach the saddle.
He was too large.
Even holding back, there was no telling whether his tail might hurt Rhaegar, or even Raegon.
The old dragon would not take that risk.
“Feel what flight is, bookworm!”
The old dragon roared and launched into the sky.
Along with Raegor’s roar came a long, unbroken scream.
“AHHHHHHHHH!”
Fifteen-year-old Rhaegar Velaryon had never screamed like that in his life.
The weightlessness of the dragon’s ascent sent the white bread and seafood stew he had just eaten churning in his stomach, ready to burst out at any second.
The wind hit from the front like a flat board.
Even with Raegon blocking some of it, Rhaegar still felt the sting on his cheeks.
From the wind.
“HAHAHAHA!
Bookworm, you had this coming too!
HAHAHAHA!” Raegon laughed and sat up straighter, doing his best to shield Rhaegar from the wind.
The dragonlord blood granted more than the ability to tame and command dragons.
More importantly, it let them gradually adapt to flight.
All dragonlords, for example, had heat resistance.
In truth, it was resistance to a dragon’s body heat.
A dragon’s blazing blood ran through equally blazing flesh, and that kept dragonlords from freezing to death at high altitude.
Dragonlords also quickly overcame the weightlessness of a sudden climb, and they naturally grew immune to the oncoming wind.
What would lash an ordinary person like a whip made no difference to a dragonlord at all.
“Definitely unforgettable.
An unforgettable experience.” Rhaegar closed his eyes, still talking tough.
“HAHAHA, truly.
Nothing can tame that mouth of yours, bookworm.” Raegon laughed until tears nearly came.
“All right, open your eyes now.”
The wind eased.
Rhaegar slowly opened his eyes.
First he saw Raegon’s back.
Something seemed to be above them, throwing a wide shadow.
Rhaegar looked up.
The green Vhagar gave a sweet cry.
This young, vigorous dragon of abundance had been born in House Targaryen’s most desperate years.
Its birth, and Meraxes’s, had once given the Targaryens hope, but soon they had plunged back into despair.
Visenya was not strapped in.
Long reins ran from Valyrian steel pins driven into the scales at the side of the dragon’s neck, guiding the great beast’s course.
“Vhagar is the fastest of our dragons,” Raegon said.
If not for keeping pace with Raegor, slow in his old age, Visenya could have reached Gogossos at least half a day ahead of them.
Rhaegar did not argue.
It was true, after all.
He looked around with open curiosity.
Though from his seat he could only see the sea of clouds sliding past, and the dragon’s vast wing stretching almost beyond sight.
But that was already enough to be thankful for.
Not everyone got a chance to ride a dragon, after all.
While the two dragons flew toward Gogossos.
In Volantis, the pale temple, after days and nights of whispered debate, had finally reached a verdict.
“We have killed dragonlords before.
That is the pride of the Pale Sons.”
One voice broke through the bickering and blame-shifting.
“The Pale Child blessed us, gave us the power to kill dragonlords.
It was those accursed Faceless Men and that cunning false sovereign who stole our lord’s glory.
Now it is time to reclaim the honor that belongs to the Pale Child.
Since you cannot choose who should go, let the lord decide.”
Dark “blood” suddenly streamed from the beautiful young man’s statue.
The foul, reeking liquid ran across the temple floor, inlaid with intricate lines.
It came to rest before two child statues.
“Our lord’s eye has seen.
The black dragon and the silver dragon are on that sulfur-reeking island.
Number Seventeen, go to that island.
Bring back the heads of the black dragon and the silver dragon.
Honor our lord.”
“As the oracle commands.”
“The gold dragon and the green dragon are in a land steeped in curse and decay.
Our lord has seen something there that can summon our lord back into the world.
Number Nine, go and kill them.
Bring back that treasure.
Our lord will guide your way.”
“May the Pale Child’s glory shine upon the world once more!”
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