Dragonstone
Gaemon’s gaze turned outward as he watched the sun set to the west.
He’d spent the whole day cooped up in his chamber, thinking, reading, and storming his mind to curse the people of this world who never worked and only took shortcuts.
Correction: not the people.
The Valyrians.
The fuckers had known what the hurdle was, and instead of overcoming it, they’d gone with a way that demanded one life every single time you wanted your mana to do anything.
Sick, disgusting people, racists with a superiority complex sky-high; that was how he’d describe the Valyrians.
It was only their blood that made them special, nothing else.
Gaemon swept the pages off the table with a frustrated hand, sending them flying.
He wanted to curse the being that had given him Six Eyes; there were a million other gifts that would have been far more useful.
His frustration reached its peak as he let out a silent breath and slumped down over the table.
The Six Eyes were powerful, the greatest tool a mage could ask for, but what use were they when this world’s mana demanded someone’s lifeblood as the spark to kindle the fire that was magic?
The Valyrians had discovered this long ago, and rather than seek another way, they’d doubled down and conquered the world to have an endless supply of the sparks they needed to work the magic they so loved.
Even now, Gaemon felt the urge to vomit when he read of the masters of the art of bending flame, the ones who kept the fire of the mountains at bay.
Valyria had kept fourteen of them, trained and ready at all times.
These masters needed no life to bend the world to their will, only a bowl of blood.
But to reach such mastery, they might have sacrificed thousands, tens of thousands of lives apiece, by his estimation.
From all of it, Gaemon had learned exactly what a common human life was worth in Valyria.
Little wonder the Doom had swallowed them.
There was a line even nature would not let you cross.
Gaemon leaned back in his chair and tried to stop his mind circling Valyria and its atrocities; that empire was long gone now, buried beneath the Doom.
What came next was the Long Night.
And as the song of ice and fire, all he had to fight the white fuckers was his warging and Buri.
Though he hadn’t found the answer to his problem, Gaemon had at least found what was stopping him from turning his mana into what he wanted.
That conversion demanded a life, a spark to light his mana into an inferno that would obey his will only for one time he called on it.
But Gaemon had neither the cruelty nor the disregard for life the Valyrians had, so his old plan still stood: go to the Children, who could work magic without butchering one of their own each time as the price.
And here Gaemon had thought he’d be spared the trip beyond the Wall once they found the chamber.
Ha.
Gaemon was staring at his bed when he realized the seeds of doubt had taken deep root and were flourishing on this new information.
He’d already wondered whether the Children’s way might be the same as the Valyrians’.
He knew what breaking the Arm of Dorne had cost them; what if their song cost the same, every time they sang it?
But Gaemon, as ever, smothered the thought and made his way out of his chamber in search of his father.
He was halfway to his father’s chamber when he remembered the map, and the connection between the Empire of the Dawn and the making of dragons.
The next day, Well after midday
Viserys looked at his brother, who wore none of the arrogance he usually carried.
The sacrifice of dragonlords from the lesser families to forge the horns had come as a shock to Viserys as well, but Daemon had taken it far harder.
The ancestry he’d taken such pride in, and now he was ashamed of it.
And rightly so; only the cruelest and vilest of men could butcher their own in hundreds and multiple times at that to get what they wanted.
“So Gaemon’s hurdle remains what it was.
But at least now we know what’s truly stopping him.” Viserys said, trying to draw his brother out.
He wasn’t used to this gloomy, angry Daemon.
His younger brother had been a headache since the day he was born, and Viserys loved him for exactly that.
“This new knowledge hasn’t dimmed your admiration for them, not even a little,” Daemon said, his gaze pinning Viserys.
Viserys could see what his brother was doing, hunting for a scapegoat to vent his anger on.
“You cannot expect me to curse a civilization I’ve admired for as long as I can remember on the very day I learn of its ways.
I’m not hot-blooded like you, Daemon.
There’s no denying these things have opened our eyes and given us a new lens to see Valyria through.
But it won’t stop me from admiring what Valyria built, what that blood gave us.
It was Valyria that gave us dragons, Daemon, the very power Aegon used to conquer the kingdoms I am king of and you a prince of.” Viserys said calmly.
“I don’t think so.”
“What?
Have you lost your wits, brother?
Have you forgotten it was Balerion the Black Dread, with Vhagar and Meraxes, that brought these kingdoms to heel?
You used to adm—”
“Not that part.
I don’t think it was Valyria that bent dragons to their will.
I refuse to believe men so lost in their madness and kinslaying could ever achieve a feat like binding those great beasts to a single bloodline.” Daemon said, a faraway look in his eyes that left Viserys more confused still.
“You know something?
If this comes from a dragon egg placed beneath the Dawn, then it could well be false—”
“Gaemon.” One word, and Viserys halted mid-sentence.
The boy had a gift for unearthing what the House of the Dragon had overlooked for centuries.
If Gaemon believed something, or reached a conclusion, there was a strong chance it was true.
“He’s reached some conclusion, or knows something he’s hiding from us again.
I believe it’s about this crowned egg beneath the Dawn.
Which means Valyria was not the first to use them as a weapon.”
Hearing that, Viserys recalled Daemon’s earlier words, that dragons had a purpose and fate would not let them die, and the matter of the Long Night.
Slowly the dots began to join, and Viserys too came to think that Visenya had held some piece of knowledge they lacked to complete the puzzle.
And by Daemon’s reckoning, his nephew might carry that missing piece in his head as well.
“Are we to let him reveal it in his own time, as before?” Viserys asked.
Truth be told, this time he’d sooner command Gaemon to speak his thoughts plainly.
“No.
I need some time before I put anything to him.
I’ll ask him soon enough what he’s made of all this.” Daemon’s answer satisfied Viserys.
A silence settled as both retreated into their own thoughts.
Feeling the grim air of it, Viserys made himself think back to the jubilant mood he’d been in when the news of the hidden chamber first reached him.
“There’s something I’d like to speak with you about, Daemon.
It concerns Gaemon.” Viserys said, breaking the silence.
Daemon turned from the window he’d been gazing out of to look at him.
“I’d like to arrange a betrothal for him.” Viserys saw the rage coming from a mile off, and before Daemon could erupt, he finished.
“With Rhaenyra.
Gaemon and Rhaenyra would make an excellent match, and this way the House of the Dragon stays united, as is our tradition.
What say you?”
A smile formed on Daemon’s face instead.
“You know where I stand on this, brother.
I’ve always believed in our family staying united and keeping to the old ways.
You honor Gaemon and me both with this proposal.” Daemon replied.
Viserys smiled and rose to embrace his brother, and Daemon returned it with a smile of his own.
The two of them agreed to reveal the betrothal to Gaemon and Rhaenyra that very day.
The talk went smoothly after that, Daemon’s grim mood lifting as he began recounting Gaemon’s reactions to all he’d seen on Dragonstone and Dragonmont.
“Speaking of Dragonmont, why have you not taken Gaemon to claim his own dragon?
The boy could do it, I’m certain of it.” Viserys asked; he had already granted Daemon leave, when he left King’s Landing with Gaemon, to let the boy try for his own mount.
“We hadn’t the time these past two days.
But now that you say it, I think we ought to tarry no longer.
I’ll take him to Dragonmont right now.
Let’s see if any of those old beasts nesting there take a liking to his smell.” Daemon said with a chuckle as he left the chamber.
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.