Alios was terrified.
He had seen ruthless men, and he had seen bright young boys, but he had never seen one this ruthless.
The Targaryen sitting before him, studying the board on the table, was not a boy to be trifled with.
The boy had asked him for a rather simple favor: delay any efforts to put out the fire.
By the time Alios realized what he had agreed to, it was already far too late.
And now the boy had trapped him in the same boat as himself.
Both held leverage against the other, and neither intended to use it.
“A stalemate, isn’t it?” Maekar suddenly interrupted his thoughts.
Hm?
His mind had drifted, now turning his gaze back to the board.
They were playing a game of Cyvasse, and Alios had managed to form a pincer attack that put the board into a stalemate.
The Prince had understood this.
“We are in a stalemate, Triarch,” Maekar repeated, in a different tone now.
“And I have yet to repay your kindness, so I will do it now and later.”
“If…”
Maekar held the tip of a piece.
“…the Tiger party should, by any chance, gain power in Volantis, then I will assist in the war that would follow.”
Alios kept his gaze on the Prince’s hand.
“What you are saying is beyond dangerous…”
“I could be killed.”
“Haven’t we been talking about the game?” Maekar asked, as he moved the piece he had been holding.
“Hah,” Alios breathed out, laughing quietly.
“Of course we have been.”
“The game…
you have won it,” he added, studying the board as he stood up.
“Far from it,” Maekar said, shaking his head, as both men finally turned toward the sound that had been disrupting their game all along.
It was a silver haired boy, just like Maekar.
He was gagged with a cloth, his hands tied to the armrests of the chair.
“Don’t worry, Marxes, you will not be hurt,” Maekar said, as he took off the boy’s gag.
“Will you let me go?” Marxes asked, with a surprisingly calm voice.
“Your brother will pick you up soon enough,” Maekar answered, looking toward the balcony.
“What’s your name, boy?” an elderly voice asked from his right.
Aerys Targaryen.
That was his name, the name his mother had given him.
The name of Old Valyria.
His brother had carried another Valyrian name.
Both of them had been told of the injustice that had befallen their mother, and of the origin of their family.
Aegon had always been proud.
He would have answered truthfully, his chin raised high.
That is why he died, that fool, Aerys thought, as he looked at the old man beside him.
He was wearing ragged clothes and reeked like feces.
A beggar.
His was not pride.
His was eagerness, and the conviction to succeed, no matter the cost.
Now more than ever.
“I am an orphan.
I have no name, nor family, old man,” he responded, as both of them looked at the pile of ash and charred wood that had once been his mother’s business.
After a moment of silence, Aerys suddenly asked, “Do you know what happened here?”
The old man shook his head.
“But Horonno knows!”
“Who is Horonno?”
“He lives down the street…”
So Aerys had hunted down this Horonno, a slave under the city.
A fighter against fire, that was his profession.
After a while of asking and searching, he finally found the man.
“Are you the one they call Horonno?” he asked, tilting his head to try to see the face peering through the gap in the door.
“Yes.
Why?”
“I have a few questions to ask you…”
The door slammed shut.
For a moment Aerys just stood there.
Then he stepped back once and delivered a heavy kick.
The wooden door sprang open, the slave Horonno lying on the ground, his hands raised.
“I will tell you…
I will tell you everything you want!” he stammered.
Aerys smiled, closing what remained of the door.
After a few minutes, he left, blood trickling down the sword he had concealed in his brown robe.
A conspiracy.
There was no doubt.
But who?
It couldn’t be the Elephants.
They had been good friends with his mother.
“The Dragonlord.”
He murmured it under his breath.
Of course he had heard of him, and there was no doubt that it had been him.
He had most likely been sent from Westeros to kill them, to root out all the bastards.
But what worried him was something else.
His little brother Marxes had been taken away by the guards.
Aerys stopped, raising his head.
A massive temple loomed before him.
Undoubtedly to get to him.
To lure him like a fish.
Maekar sat on the throne that belonged to the High Priestess of Volantis.
Kinvara herself stood right beside him, silent as always as dozens of fire pots crackled along the walls.
The room was filled with an eerie red orange glow.
Maekar leaned his head against his hand, watching calmly as the heavy doors to the hall swung open.
Not a minute too late, he thought.
“Prince Maekar Targaryen!” a silver haired man called out.
He looked to be around eight and ten namedays old.
Wearing extremely short silver hair and a dark robe.
“My name is Aerys,” he continued.
“Aerys Targaryen.”
“Targaryen, you say,” Maekar repeated.
Maekar shifted slightly on his seat.
“Then tell me, Aerys of House Targaryen, what is it that you desire?
To be a hero or a villain?”
Before the young man could answer, a little boy was brought through the side doors.
It was Marxes, dragged into the room by two guards.
Aerys looked at his little brother for a brief moment before moving his eyes back to meet Maekar’s stare.
Maekar stood up.
It was time for a game of character and morals.
He gave a slight nod to one of his red robed guards.
The guard pulled out two daggers, handing one to Marxes before walking over to press the second blade into Aerys’s hand.
Then Maekar smiled.
It was not a happy look, but it was not sad either.
“Only one of you brothers will leave this hall today,” he said.
The words hit them like a lightning bolt, leaving both brothers staring at the prince with wide eyes.
Maekar looked down at his own sword resting on the armrest.
He never shied away from bloody work, nor did he think himself too high and mighty to dirty his hands, but this was a test.
He expected the older brother to win if he went all out, but that was the point.
Would Aerys actually do it?
Or would he refuse, let his younger brother kill him, or kill the boy himself?
Maekar wanted to see the true nature of whoever survived.
“Begin,” Maekar added, seeing their hesitation, “or you both die.”
Marxes looked at Aerys for a moment, then clenched his teeth.
And then…
He slit his own throat.
He slit his own throat…Maekar repeated in his mind, as he sprang from his seat in pure shock.
Never had he considered this.
The Targaryen bastard sank to the ground, clutching his neck and whispering something Maekar could not hear.
Aerys ran over, holding him.
Marxes had ruined the test.
He had shown astonishing bravery and dedication, but he was dead.
Aerys, instead, had shown nothing.
Maekar had believed Aerys would either refuse to kill his brother or kill himself to spare Marxes, who could still be shaped into a weapon for House Targaryen, not one against it.
But then something even more extraordinary happened.
Aerys, covered in his younger brother’s blood, rose and walked toward Maekar.
The guards stepped up, but Maekar dismissed them.
Aerys continued, ascending the steps until he nearly reached the last one.
Maekar stood just slightly above him.
Cling.
Aerys dropped his dagger right at Maekar’s feet and sank to one knee.
Raising his head, he said, “Let me serve you, Prince.
Let me be your dagger.
Your blade in the darkness.
Your loyal executioner.”
Maekar was baffled.
But then, slowly, he understood.
That gaze.
That acted sadness.
A massive smile appeared on Maekar’s lips, so wide it surprised even Kinvara, who was studying Aerys closely.
Both Maekar and Aerys were smiling, although Aerys tried to hide it.
And both of them thought the exact same thing.
He would have killed him either way, Maekar thought.
I would have killed him if he hadn’t acted, Aerys thought.
This man reminded Maekar of someone.
Himself.
The bastard of House Targaryen wished to pledge himself because they were alike.
He had just lost his entire family, yet he wished to serve.
It was absurd.
Perhaps he was even worse than Maekar, and if so, he would surely try to use him.
I will use you, Maekar thought, pulling his sword from its sheath.
Perhaps the man before him was thinking the exact same thing, but Maekar could not tell this time.
He rested the flat of the blade on the right shoulder, then on the left.
“Rise, as a retainer of House Targaryen.”
Maekar looked down.
Before him was a large marble bathtub sunken into the floor, completely empty.
He descended slowly, naked and sat in a meditative posture.
He tilted his head slightly as a woman appeared above him.
She wore only a thin red robe and carried a mosaic jar.
“My Prince, close your eyes,” Kinvara whispered.
Maekar looked at her one last time as darkness engulfed him.
From above, he felt a liquid trickling down.
He tasted iron.
It traveled further, reaching his chest, where he felt it part into two distinct streams.
He could hear Kinvara’s voice chanting in High Valyrian.
He recognized the language, but his mind felt blurry.
He knew the words, but could not name their meaning.
Then everything shifted.
“Dream.
Dream of what you have forgotten.”
Those were the last words he heard before sinking into the dark.
“Hmmm…Hm…Hmm.”
A sweet hymn played somewhere to his right.
Slowly, light returned while the humming continued.
“You are awake, my child.”
“Mother,” Maekar tried to say, but the word did not come out.
It was his mother, Visenya.
He recognized her, and she was still young.
Then he heard something else.
His body turned toward the source outside.
A storm was brewing.
As he rose from his bed, his mother took his hand and led him through the hallways of Dragonstone.
They descended a staircase until they finally reached the Dragonmont.
Maekar glanced into the darkness as a massive silhouette formed.
It was Vhagar, greeting her rider.
Visenya kneeled to match Maekar’s height and pulled something from behind her.
A dagger.
Boy and mother stood before each other, the massive green dragon looming beside them in the distant darkness.
And so Visenya spoke.
Her voice echoed strongly through the cavern.
“This dagger belongs to your father.
It is here that he wrote down a prophecy.
This prophecy shall pass from heir to heir, or so he said.”
She held the blade with her right hand and placed her left palm underneath it.
For a moment nothing happened, but then the steel began to glow.
The light grew until letters became visible.
Maekar realized his mother was showing him magic.
Pyromancy.
“From my blood comes the Prince That Was Promised, and his will be the song of ice and fire.”
He finally remembered, and the dots connected as she spoke.
Maekar looked at the Valyrian letters.
The woman Balerion had shown him.
Azor Ahai.
The Prince That Was Promised.
Her.
“This is but a cloudy future,” Visenya continued, “but what is far more important is the use of this dagger.
This is the key to the Dragonstone vault, to our family’s greatest treasure.”
She stretched out her hand.
“Take it, it is yours from today.
And you too will learn to wield it, to use it.
I will teach you.”
Visenya raised her palm, conjuring a small flame.
It was not big, but its warmth filled Maekar’s heart with a feeling he had never known.
“Targaryens are different, Maekar.
It is our blood that makes us special, and that same blood flows through your veins.
You only need to recognize it.”
Then Visenya rose.
“Songs have many faces.
Perhaps yours will be different.
Create your own song, Maekar, one far more powerful than your father’s.”
Maekar blinked, but his eyes never opened to that room again.
Instead, he sank deeper into the dark.
“Prince!”
“Maekar!”
“Maegor!”
Finally, he woke up.
Kinvara’s face was close to his.
Maekar looked around.
Steam rose from his flesh as the last of the blood burned away.
“Have you found your answers?” she asked.
Maekar nodded slowly, trying to comprehend everything he had seen.
His own memories, long forgotten, were finally clear.
“But there is more to answer,” Maekar added, as he looked outside into the night.
That same night, Maekar bid farewell to Volantis and Alios.
He took Kinvara with him, while Aerys was ordered to follow on a ship with detailed instructions.
If Aerys failed to keep them, he would die.
Maekar ascended into the dark sky, leaving the ancient city behind him.
He had learned much here, but his business with Volantis was far from done…
For a moment, he looked south toward the endless smoking sea and the Fourteen Flames.
Maekar breathed out slowly, patting Morghul.
Even his dragon could feel the change.
The blood ritual had altered Maekar, making his body stronger and his blood purer.
The bond between rider and beast felt closer now.
He understood Morghul’s emotions better, especially the creature’s hunger.
“I am hungry too, my friend,” Maekar muttered.
“And there are many feasts before us.”