Dragonstone,
The Hidden Chamber
“I don’t know myself, but what I know is that this table was made by command of Visenya, a woman who took great pride in her dragonlord Valyrian ancestry.
So if she placed a dragon egg where the Empire of the Dawn is said to have kept its capital, then there must be a reason behind it.” Gaemon said, laying his hand on the egg to feel the craftsman’s work in it.
“Perhaps there’s a scroll on that shelf that explains it.” Gaemon proposed.
“There should be.
From everything I’ve read of what’s left in the Dragonstone vault, there was never a mention of the Dawn and dragons in the same breath.” Daemon said, moving toward the bookshelf to hunt for the scroll that would explain the egg’s placement.
Gaemon, meanwhile, went on staring at the map; the thing fascinated him.
The whole world had once lain under the yoke of the Empire of the Dawn.
Looking at the map, it might seem small, but the journey from Winterfell to King’s Landing had given Gaemon enough sense of scale to guess how far that Empire had truly spread.
And it had been too advanced for its age besides, as one could see from the notion of the Citadel, and from the Empire’s connection to the black stone the Hightower’s base was raised upon.
Then came the sudden collapse of the empire, brought down by infighting among siblings.
And Gaemon had never read nor heard a single word about them ever trying to reclaim what they’d lost.
But he digressed.
He glanced up at his father, who was unrolling scrolls and setting them back on the shelf after skimming whatever they held.
“Maybe Visenya believed the texts out of Asshai, the ones claiming it was people of the Shadow Lands who brought dragons to Valyria.
It was somewhere in the Shadow Lands that the capital of the Dawn once stood, wasn’t it?” Gaemon asked, making his way toward his father.
Peering along the shelf, his eyes were, in truth, overwhelmed just now by how thickly this cave was steeped in mana.
Where in the world did all of it come from?
And why was it so saturated here of all places?
And how was that flame still burning without fuel, a thing he’d already chalked up to the pyromancy the Valyrians had mastered?
But all of those questions could wait until they worked out why the egg sat where it did beneath the Empire of the Dawn.
“As if those undead would ever teach anyone magic that powerful.
It was Valyria’s own might that bent dragons to our will.
Truth be told, I never understood my grandfather’s fascination with uncovering how dragons came to be, or how the Valyrians tamed them.” Daemon said, shoving a scroll back into place and turning toward Gaemon, who was watching the golden flame.
“Does it matter how the Valyrians tamed dragons?
Or why dragons exist at all?
Such things are better left unknown to Andals who hate magic, lest they turn our own curiosity against us.
There is one House of the Dragon, and I for one would like it to stay that way.” Daemon came nearer the brazier, and the two of them studied it together.
“There are many reasons a man might want the truth behind something he’s been handed since birth,” Gaemon added, his thoughts already sorting those reasons, having guessed where his father’s mind would go.
“Let me hear them.”
“As I said, there are many — but the one that fits here, in Jaehaerys’s case, is either that he wanted to reach the root of what his predecessors accepted at face value, or that he was searching for the purpose of what keeps dragons alive,” Gaemon said, his own words surprising him as his thoughts began to spin at light speed, chasing the thread he’d caught hold of further down.
“The purpose of dragons?
Their purpose is to be our mounts and stand beside the House of the Dragon to rain fire and blood upon our enemies,” Daemon scoffed.
“Please tell me you don’t truly believe that yourself,” Gaemon said, one eyebrow rising at his father.
“If you’ve read the history of the world, you might have noticed that bit by bit, everything magical in nature is dying.
The Freehold was the last ember of a flame that was once magic.
And yet dragons — living, breathing lakes of mana — survive still. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
There must be a reason fate keeps them alive.” Gaemon stopped as the realization struck him.
It was plain: dragons had a purpose, and that purpose was to take part in the second Long Night now drawing near.
With the purpose clear, Gaemon’s thoughts turned to their origin, their making.
Dragons hadn’t existed during the first Long Night.
Had they, there would be some mention of them in the lore, in the corner of some page somewhere — and there was none.
Which meant they came after the Long Night.
Or rather, dragons were created after the Long Night, by people who had fought in that war and knew the race of men would have to face that same existential threat again.
So they left behind a weapon to aid mankind, and that was a dragon’s purpose.
Gaemon’s eyes widened behind his blindfold as he turned back to the map.
It was the Empire of the Dawn that had made the dragons.
Visenya had uncovered the origin of dragons; she had found their creator.
That was why she’d set the egg there, and set a crown upon it.
As the shock of the conclusion ebbed, a question rose in its place.
If the Dawn had been the creator, then how had Valyria come to inherit the dragons?
There was no mention of dragonlords of the Dawn, not so much as a single line.
Had it been erased?
Or had something happened that the Dawn could not survive, not long after its greatest achievement?
Gaemon knew where that line of thought would lead, so he pushed it to the back of his mind and resolved to unravel it all in the privacy of his own chamber.
Taking a deep breath, he turned his head toward the golden flame and found his father scrutinizing him.
“What?” Gaemon asked, looking straight back at Daemon, lest his father read the avoidance as Gaemon hiding something from him again.
“Nothing.” Daemon shook his head, and a dangerous smirk crept onto his face.
“You’re free to keep your own secrets, son.
But when you decide to share them, be a dutiful son and come to your father first, before any other.
Yes?” Daemon asked.
Gaemon raged inwardly but nodded all the same.
How in the seven hells did everyone see through him?
He had a blindfold over his eyes, no less — and they say the eyes are the windows to the soul.
Tch.
Liars.
“So it seems this place has no other way out, as I’d hoped it might.
We’ll have to carry whatever we can now and come back for the rest later.” His father said as he began fastening scrolls into the gaps between his belt and his waist.
“Check that table’s drawers, see whether any scrolls were put away in them.
Next time we come, we come with a satchel.” Gaemon nodded and made his way to the table, the only thing neither of them had touched.
As Gaemon reached for the drawers, he caught the mana woven through them.
Rather than pulling them open recklessly, he stopped and studied the intent behind it.
Only after confirming a second time that it was meant to conceal the nature of whatever lay inside did he open the drawer.
The fuck is that?
was the first thought that surfaced.
Gaemon parted his eyelids slowly, letting his eyes adjust to a concentration of mana held in nothing more than a bottle.
“Why are you taking so long, Gaemon?” His father was finished, and seemed to be making his way over, scrolls strapped all around his waist.
“Look at this.” Gaemon pointed at the bottle, made of dragonglass.
“The thing is beyond monstrous — not for the sheer amount of the mana in it, but because of th—”
“Death.
That cold, unnatural feel of death coming off it.” Daemon said the words Gaemon had been about to.
Gaemon nodded and picked the thing up slowly.
To his surprise, his own mana recoiled at the touch, spilling out of his body to smother the feeling the dragonglass bottle gave off.
“Where did Visenya even find this?” Gaemon asked, setting the bottle on the table and seeing for the first time the liquid that was present inside.
It was pearly white, possessed of an unnatural beauty no words could hold.
If not for the cold and the death clinging to it, it might have been a drink made worthy of gods.
“The thing is as beautiful as it is repellent to my instincts.” His father remarked, inspecting the dragonglass container that held the liquid.
“You reckon this has something to do with the threat beyond the Wall?
It carries the same feel as that cold darkness Viserys spoke about.” Daemon asked.
“Are you speaking of the White Walkers?” Gaemon asked, feigning curiosity and ignorance, since neither Viserys nor Daemon had yet revealed the full content of the prophecy to him.
“You do know about them.
Yes.Those that command death and cold.
Does the feeling coming off this — whatever it is — not strike you the same?”
“I can’t deny that it does.
But now I want to know how Visenya got her hands on it.” Gaemon wondered.
His father had pinpointed what Gaemon himself could not, because of how unnatural and repulsive the mana was to his eyes and senses.
To him, his Six Eyes were looking upon the vilest mana that could exist, wearing the shape of the most beautiful liquid there was.
“That woman was hiding more than we could ever imagine, it seems.
We’re most certainly carrying this one up with us.” His father said, turning the container over in his hands, though not before making certain it was sealed tight.
“See if there’s anything else worth having in there.”
Gaemon rummaged through the whole table, and found nothing else save a single key of plain iron, without a trace of mana on it.
“Let’s go.
I’m getting hungry, and this place is suffocating,” Gaemon said, after showing the key to his father.
They would return on the morrow for whatever was left.
Can you guess who in particular might have felt that Lightbringer isn’t enough and they need more to even out the odds with the White Walkers?
Sorry, guys.
I had a very high fever last night; anyhow, I hope you enjoyed the chapter.
Fair warning to the impatient: nothing here gets locked behind a paywall.
If the story’s earned it, the support means more than I’ll admit in public.