Rhaenys barred Aemon’s path.
“Father, let me go with you to Tarth!”
A fervent light burned upon her face as she lifted her chin proudly.
“I can feel Meleys’s mood.
She is the same as me.
She longs to fly.
She longs for war!”
Rhaenys was a proud and fearless girl.
In Father’s words, she had plainly inherited the greatness of House Targaryen.
“No.
You will remain in King’s Landing.”
The authority of the heir to the Iron Throne settled naturally over Aemon’s features.
He slowly shook his head, ignoring the bitter disappointment in Rhaenys’s eyes.
“They are nothing more than a band of foolish brigands.
Your uncle and I are more than enough to deal with them.
We cannot send every dragonrider in the realm to Tarth.
You are to remain at your grandfather’s side.
Besides, you…”
Aemon raised a hand, intending to stroke Rhaenys’s head.
Then he remembered that his daughter was grown now.
Such an intimate gesture no longer seemed appropriate.
Corlys approached them.
He had only just finished speaking with Prince Baelon, and now he watched Rhaenys with a warm smile.
Rhaenys shot her father a sulky glare before throwing herself into Corlys’s arms.
Husband and wife immediately began whispering to one another.
Aemon slowly lowered the hand he had left hanging in the air.
His fingertips could almost imagine the touch of his daughter’s hair.
As he turned away, he caught sight of Corlys bending to whisper into Rhaenys’s ear.
The Sea Snake’s silver braids nearly tangled with the black ends of her hair.
An emotion Aemon could not name churned within his chest.
Baelon had somehow appeared at his side.
Aemon watched as Corlys finally coaxed a smile from Rhaenys, though traces of wounded disappointment still lingered upon her face.
“I simply do not want her to face blood and fire so soon,” Aemon said quietly.
Then he turned away.
“Come, brother.”
Baelon gave him a light slap on the arse.
The setting sun painted Maegor’s Holdfast the color of blood.
Its immense shadow stretched across the ground, swallowing the departing figures of the two brothers whole.
When Aemon dismounted before the entrance to the Dragonpit, he heard Caraxes’s low roar rumbling from somewhere deep within.
The dragon knew his rider had come.
Caraxes was generally regarded as male, though dragons were believed to possess no fixed sex.
Dragonkeepers and maesters could only judge such matters by whether a dragon had ever laid eggs.
Among all the dragons possessed by House Targaryen, Caraxes was perhaps the strangest.
His body was extraordinarily lean and serpentine, like some vast winged snake.
His legs were long and slender, and his entire body was covered in blood-red scales.
There was something profoundly unsettling about his appearance, something that inspired fear even before he bared fang or claw.
His neck was unnaturally long, while extended membranes ran along his hind limbs.
Because of this peculiar form, Caraxes did not require the long running start most dragons needed before taking flight.
Caraxes had hatched in the 50th year After the Conquest, a descendant of Vermithor and Silverwing—the dragons bonded to Aemon’s father and mother.
Aemon himself was Caraxes’s first rider.
According to the dragonkeepers, they had known from the moment Caraxes emerged from his egg that he would grow into a vicious beast.
The Blood Wyrm.
The dragonkeepers were helping Prince Aemon into his riding gear.
The specially designed garments possessed numerous leather loops and straps, allowing a rider to bind himself securely to his dragon and avoid being thrown from the saddle in flight.
Caraxes crouched before Aemon.
His tail swept restlessly from side to side.
Dark golden eyes watched the busy dragonkeepers, while his crimson scales gleamed beneath the candlelight of the Dragonpit like the molten surface of a living volcano.
He was already impatient.
A low, peculiar whine rumbled from his throat, urging Aemon to hurry.
Aemon raised a hand and stopped the dragonkeepers as they prepared to fit a breastplate over him.
“No armor.
We are in the midst of a long summer, and this will be a lengthy flight.
I have no desire to torment myself more than necessary.”
He climbed the rope ladder hanging from the Blood Wyrm’s neck and used the leather straps to secure himself firmly upon his companion’s back.
The dragonkeepers began guiding Caraxes toward the open air.
Aemon gently patted the Blood Wyrm’s neck.
Caraxes spread his wings.
Two beats.
That was all it took.
The Blood Wyrm surged into the sky.
Together, dragon and rider flew south.
Aemon looked back one final time.
He saw Rhaenys.
The evening wind whipped her black hair around her face.
She did not wave.
She merely stood with her chin held high, as still and proud as a little statue carved from stone.
Aemon knew that look.
The light shining in Rhaenys’s eyes as they parted was exactly the same light he had seen in his sister Alyssa’s eyes the first time she mounted Meleys.
It was the blood of the dragon boiling within her veins.
The warlike hunger and madness that seemed written into the fate of every true child of House Targaryen.
How long has it been since the three of us flew together…?
Baelon and Vhagar gradually fell behind the Blood Wyrm.
Far below, the vast fleet upon the sea diminished into the distance, its ships flying both the red dragon on black of House Targaryen and the silver seahorse of House Velaryon.
Daemion Velaryon stood upon the deck beside Corlys.
They watched the dragon in the distance grow smaller and smaller until at last it became no more than a black speck against the sky.
Daemion was Corlys’s younger brother.
More than ten years earlier, he had wed Jeyne of House Tarth, making him goodbrother to Lord Cameron Tarth.
The marriage had produced a single son, Vaemond.
Because of those ties, Corlys had specifically ordered Daemion to accompany him when the Velaryon fleet was assembled.
“Brother.”
Corlys rested both hands upon the teakwood rail of the ship.
He did not turn around.
The sea wind tossed his long silver hair into disarray.
“Did your goodbrother Cameron give you any warning of the troubles on Tarth before this began?”
Daemion frowned slightly.
His fingers unconsciously brushed the hilt of the sword at his waist.
“Jeyne told me it was merely another pirate raid.”
His voice was low and hesitant.
“Her brother wrote last moon.
He mentioned that he had already called up the island’s farmers to join the castle knights and intended to march against the rebels…”
“From what he wrote, the situation hardly seemed serious enough to require two princes mounted upon dragons.
We…”
Corlys cut him off.
His eyes remained fixed upon the place where the dragon had disappeared.
“Our fleet will still sail for Storm’s End.
You, however, will go to Tarth first.”
His voice was calm.
The command within it was not.
“Take a company of Sea Snake’s men as your escort.
I need you to confirm three things with your own eyes.”
Corlys finally turned his head slightly.
“Whether your goodbrother is still alive.
Whether his castle remains intact.
And…”
He paused.
A sharp light flashed through his purple eyes.
“Whether the island’s inhabitants—especially those in the fishing villages and country settlements—have truly been ‘ravaged’ as the pleas for aid claim.”
Daemion’s breath caught for the briefest moment.
He understood the meaning hidden beneath his brother’s words.
Perhaps this conflict was not as simple as it appeared.
House Velaryon commanded the greatest fleet in the Seven Kingdoms.
Its network of information stretched across ports near and far.
Corlys had clearly heard whispers.
“You suspect Cameron…” Daemion said, lowering his voice even further.
“Lord Cameron is not so great a fool.”
Corlys turned fully around.
Behind him, the sea was slowly surrendering its light to the coming night.
The ship’s lanterns cast hard shadows across the sharp lines of his face.
“But I suspect every ‘small trouble’ that somehow requires dragons to resolve it.”
Corlys’s expression hardened.
“Since King Jaehaerys ascended the Iron Throne, the realm has enjoyed four-and-forty years of long summer and peace.”
“The only people who have dared openly challenge the Iron Throne are the Dornish.
Ten years ago, their failed invasion was crushed with ease, and they paid dearly for it.
House Martell has remained curled up in Sunspear ever since, licking its wounds.”
Corlys stepped closer.
“And now, without warning, a band of defeated exiles appears.
They somehow force the Lord of Tarth to beg both his liege lord and the Iron Throne for aid.”
His purple eyes narrowed.
“And the matter supposedly requires two princes of the blood, each mounted upon a dragon, to personally go to war?”
Corlys placed a heavy hand upon his brother’s shoulder.
“Daemion, ours is the blood of the silver seahorse, blessed by the Merling King.”
His grip tightened.
“Matters of the sea should not require dragons in the sky to tell us the truth.”
“I want you to look.”
“To listen.”
“To learn what truly happened before dragonflame burns every trace of it away.”
Corlys released his brother.
“The moment you know the truth, send me a raven.
Have one of our own maesters dispatch it.”
Daemion straightened his back and placed his left hand over his chest.
“I will uncover the truth for you, brother.”