Picking our way through the silence of the forest, the sheer absurdity of the hand I had been dealt hit me.
On paper, my life read like a bard’s ballad.
I was everything a man could dream of: a king, a dragon rider, a husband, a father, a brother.
In reality, it was all in flames.
I was no king, just a pretender skulking through the forest like a stray dog.
My dragon lay broken.
I was a husband to a wife locked in the high towers of a fallen capital, a captive whom I wished, with whatever was left of my existence, to drag out of that hell.
I was a father to whatever survived.
The gods were fucking cruel.
And right now, at the very least, I just wanted to see Sunfyre.
They always said he was the most beautiful dragon in the world.
A bit of beauty in this bleak fucking future was exactly what I needed.
Soon, I came face to face with that beauty.
Even broken, even bathed in his own blood and mud, Sunfyre was a sight to behold.
His now dull scales caught what little sunlight filtered through the clouds and tall trees, gleaming like burnished gold struck through with faint veins of rose pink.
One of his massive wings lay twisted and mangled against the blackened dirt, the membrane torn to shreds, but his presence was still immense.
Monstrous and magnificent all at once.
Walking over to his massive head, I knelt down in the dirt, reaching out to touch a dragon for the first time in my two lives.
Come on, wake up.
Please wake up.
Doubtful I will be able to feed you now, but I swear if you wake up, I will feed you Larys.
“It’s a penny to touch the dragon,” a loud, annoying voice came from behind.
Come on, wake up.
What have they done to you?
Now you can eat this man and Larys.
“Nothing’s free in these woods. He can sit the saddle for half a groat.”
“A touch will suffice,” Larys’s voice sounded behind me.
“Thank you. We seek shelter, which way to Rook’s Rest?”
“He’s putting both his hands on him. That’s two touches”
the sound of coins clinking sounded again behind me.
“What’s wrong with your leg?” the filth asked
Larys opened his mouth to answer, but I limped past him without a word and drove a dagger straight into the filth’s stomach.
It was a shallow stab, but in the middle of these woods with no maester for miles, it was a slow, agonizing death sentence.
The man collapsed into the dirt with a wheeze.
Seeing him fall, his companions scrambled to their feet, pulling rusted knives.
Before they could rush me, I jerked the blade across my own palm.
Blood welled up instantly, and I flicked my hand hard, splashing a spray of red right across the nearest man’s face.
“Come now!” I yelled.
“It’s greyscale! I’ll take every one of you to the Stranger with me!”
The man who took the spray shrieked, clutching at his face.
“Get it off! Get it fucking off!” he howled, dropping his knife and bolting blindly through the brush toward the sound of running water, scrubbing at his own skin so hard he was practically tearing it away.
The other two froze.
They looked at their mate groaning in the dirt with a belly full of steel, then at the screeching fool running for the river, and finally back to me.
I let out a raw, unhinged scream, dragging my useless leg behind me as I lurched forward like a monster fresh out of the grave.
I thrust my dripping palm into their faces.
They scrambled backwards and tripped over roots and shoved past each other as they sprinted into the trees, leaving their dying friend behind without a second glance.
“AHHHHH! AHHH!”
The stabbed man’s screams were high and shrill, echoing off the trees as he writhed in the mud, hands slick with his own blood as he tried to hold his spilling guts together.
I limped back over and let my legs give out, dropping the full of my weight right onto his legs.
Before he could draw another breath, I drove the steel down into his middle.
Again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
Chest heaving, I knelt over the fresh corpse, prying the copper coins from his bloody, stiffening fingers before shoving my hand into his pockets to strip out whatever else he had.
I tossed the small handful of blood-stained groats toward Larys.
The metal clinked softly as it hit the dirt near his cane.
“Keep the fucking coin,” I rasped.
“We’ll need it.”
Taking a deep breath, I grabbed the fresh corpse by its ankles and started dragging it through the bloody dirt, hauling the weight until I dropped it right beside Sunfyre’s snout.
“Greyscale… that was smart,” Larys said quietly, leaning on his cane as he stepped closer.
“Though you didn’t need to cut your palm, Your Grace. I am no maester, and I doubt there is one nearby if it becomes infected.”
“Then I will fucking die. End of fucking story.”