The fog over the Narrow Sea was thick, clinging to the jagged shores of the Stepstones.
Prince Aemon Targaryen stood on a high, windy cliff overlooking the eastern choke points. Beside him, Caraxes let out a low, vibrating hiss, the Blood Wyrm's serpentine neck twisting as he gazed at the same sights as his rider.
Some distance away, in the churning waters, the Royal fleet sailed in absolute silence, their drafts piercing through the low fog. Historically, fighting the free cities of the East at sea would have been a nightmare for Westerosi commanders, for they always saw you before you saw them.
But years and obscene amounts of gold had levelled the playing field.
Down in the waters below, on the decks of the war galleys, many in the crew had been equipped with identical, beautifully crafted, brass Myrish spyglasses for their sight.
Aemon raised his own. The heavy brass felt cold to the touch. It was a gift from his nephew, mass-produced in total secrecy by the artisans smuggled into Dragonstone during the return of the second great convoy from Yi-Ti.
And it had long been concluded that the clarity it provided was worth every gold dragon that had been poured into the project.
As the cold wind blew on his long hair, the spyglass peered through the distance, bringing the distant horizon sharply into focus.
He saw them. Thirty or so ships holding the strait and other chokepoints in a defensive crescent.
They were not the fearsome, armoured war dromonds nor the sleek, deadly galleys of the Triarchy fleet. They seemed like modified pirate cogs. Crude vessels strapped with iron plating. And mounted on every single one of them were massive, heavy scorpions, their iron-tipped bolts already aimed at the sky, waiting for a dragon. He could even see that a few of the surrounding islands were fitted with scorpions as well.
It was a trap. A bait meant to bleed the Westerosi vanguard and hope to shoot Caraxes out of the sky.
Aemon lowered the glass. Down below, horns blared in the otherwise silent sea, the signal that Corlys Velaryon and his captains had seen the exact same thing. The war had begun.
"They want a dragon," Aemon murmured, turning to Caraxes. He vaulted into the saddle, strapping himself in. "Let us give them one."
Caraxes launched from the cliffside, his massive red wings beating against the damp air. Aemon did not charge blindly. Thanks to the spyglasses, he knew exactly where the heaviest concentrations of scorpions were anchored. He pulled Caraxes up into the thick cloud cover, using it to mask their approach, flying high above the Triarchy line.
Once directly over the enemy formation, Aemon pushed Caraxes into a vertical dive.
"Dracarys!" Aemon roared.
They dropped out of the clouds like a crimson spear. The Triarchy commanders screamed their orders in panic, but it was too late to adjust the heavy scorpions. A dozen iron bolts snapped wildly into the air, missing the dragon entirely.
Caraxes opened his maw, and the world ignited.
A torrent of ruinous, roaring flame washed over the two largest ships in the center of the line. The heat and force were so intense that the ships burst into splinters and disintegrated in moments. The few unfortunate men not instantly burned to ash screamed as their boiled leather and iron helms fused to their skin, throwing themselves blindly into the boiling sea. The scorpions mounted on the bows warped and melted into useless slag.
The Blood Wyrm's wrath had signalled the beginning of the naval battle.
The Royal fleet smashed into the disorganized Triarchy line. Oars snapped like twigs as hulls collided with bone-jarring force. Iron grappling hooks were thrown, biting into wood, locking the ships together in a floating slaughterhouse. Aemon pulled Caraxes up into a steep climb, watching a heavy Velaryon vessel ram cleanly through the flank of a smaller enemy vessel, splitting it in two.
But the enemy did not break. They fought with a savage, cornered desperation. Volleys of arrows rained across the decks, and Aemon watched a Westerosi knight slip on the blood-slicked deck and fall between two crushing hulls.
Aemon guided Caraxes back down, weaving through the thick black smoke that now choked the strait. He targeted a cluster of three ships attempting to flank the Velaryon flagship. Caraxes bathed them in a sustained stream of fire, the flames dancing across the water as it spilled into the sea with the horrific screams of burning men filling the air.
For three hours, the strait was a nightmare of fire, splintered wood, and the howls of dying men.
Finally, as the last enemy warship began to sink by the stern, the battle died down. The waters of the Narrow Sea were choked with the burning and broken wreckage. The Iron Throne had struck first, and they had won.
A ragged cheer erupted from the beaches of the small islands and the blood-stained decks of the Crown galleys.
Aemon landed Caraxes back on a rocky hill. The dragon's chest heaved, his maw dripping with the blood of the men he had snatched from the hills of a surrounding island, smoke still curling from between his jagged teeth.
An hour or so later, a small skiff rowed ashore, and Lord Corlys Velaryon climbed his way up the rocky path. The Sea Snake was covered in soot, his silver-gold hair plastered to his forehead with sweat, his armour covered in blood.
"A splendid victory, my prince," Corlys reported, stopping beside Aemon. He looked down at the burning wrecks, tapping the collapsed spyglass strapped to his belt. "Thanks to these, they could not blindside us. Their scorpions never had a chance to track us."
Aemon was seated on the folded wing of the sleeping Blood Wyrm, his violet eyes scanning the sea. He furrowed his brows, looking down at the debris floating in the water.
"They fought like madmen," Aemon murmured. "But look at the ships, Corlys."
Corlys frowned and nodded, stepping closer to the edge of the cliff. He knew exactly what the prince meant.
"Only thirty vessels were engaged. Where are the rest? Where are the war galleys of the Triarchy?" Aemon demanded, the cold knot forming in his gut. "Where are the seasoned admirals? I did not see a single ship worth noting down there."
Corlys's jaw tightened. "I understand what you mean. Highly armoured Corsairs were what we fought. Just the armed pirates of the Stepstones. Nothing nearing the true fleet of the enemy."
"A sacrifice," Aemon said, his blood eyes turning cold.
The Triarchy hadn't committed its true strength. They had thrown thirty expendable ships to their deaths. Perhaps it was to test the Crown's fighting style, the strength of its vessels and to observe exactly how Caraxes operated in a naval skirmish and bleed them as much as possible in the process. They had traded cheap wood and pirate lives to gather intelligence. That was the only possible reason that both Corlys and Aemon could imagine for the absence of the true Triarchy fleet.
If the Royal fleet pushed forward now, bloated with the hubris of an easy victory, they could be sailing blindly into the hands of the enemy, straight into the jaws of the real armada.
"Signal the fleet," Aemon ordered. "No ship sails further east. We hold the beaches and consolidate for now. Double the patrols in every direction."
Corlys nodded grimly, turning back and stepping down the hill to deliver the orders.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
The Arbor Gold tasted like ash in Rhaegar's mouth.
It had been roughly a day since he had met Aeryna in the hidden chamber of the brothel. Since the shattered pieces of Melisandre's ruby had spilled across the wooden table.
He sat alone in his chambers within the Red Keep, the only light coming from the dying embers in the hearth. He held a silver goblet in his hand, though he had barely taken three sips in the last hour. He was perfectly still, but inside, his mind was a violent mess.
Two moons.
For two entire moons, he had been completely blind.
Aeryna's ragged confession replayed in his mind on an endless loop. According to the scarred acolyte, the silence from the East was the result of an extermination.
Magister Varos, the puppet he and the Red Priestess had so carefully installed in Lys to manipulate the Triarchy, was dead. Melisandre of Asshai was dead. She was apparently the first to die in the purge. How it was even possible for her to be killed, he did not yet know. And those two were only the first to die.
In a single, bloody night, at least half of the ruling magisters of Lys had been slaughtered.
Every contact, every informant, every coin-counter and dockside spy Rhaegar had placed within the Free Cities had been hunted down like dogs. The communication blackout had been planned and surgical. Aeryna had only survived by the grace of a few R'hllor worshippers in the city, who had treated her wounds crudely and smuggled her out in a barrel of salted fish.
But it was the name of the executioner that troubled Rhaegar the most.
Craghas Drahar.
In the story Rhaegar remembered, the man yet to be named 'Crabfeeder' was a brutal, capable Myrish admiral. A pirate lord who staked his enemies to the beaches to drown in the rising tide and feed them to crabs. A thug with greyscale and a penchant for cruelty.
And as far as his memories served him right, the man was not a political mastermind capable of orchestrating a flawless coup against the magisters of Lys. He was not a spymaster capable of rooting out the deep-cover agents. And he was certainly, absolutely not powerful enough to kill the likes of the Red Priestess.
The calculations did not add up. The pieces were moving in ways the board should not allow.
Rhaegar set the goblet down heavily on his desk. He leaned forward, resting his face in his hands.
Someone was moving against him. Not against the Iron Throne. Not against King Jaehaerys or the Targaryen dynasty. This was a deliberate, targeted strike against him. Whoever had orchestrated the slaughter in Lys knew exactly where Rhaegar's eyes were, and they had killed them all.
Was it Drahar himself, as unlikely as it was? Or was he simply a pawn of someone else? And if so, Whose?
He did not know. And that was what made it so incredibly dangerous.
Rhaegar stood up, pacing toward the balcony. He looked out over the sleeping city of King's Landing, the cool night air doing nothing to calm his racing heart. His grand strategy of letting the Realm bleed in the Stepstones before swooping in to save them was now a fatal liability. The enemy they were facing was not a fractured alliance of greedy merchants. He could not be sure who or what the enemy even was.
He needed to revise his play. He needed a new set of eyes in the East. And he needed to determine quickly if the secret legions had to be mobilized.
And so three days passed, and the news reached King's Landing offering some answers to Rhaegar's questions but ultimately leaving him with even more puzzles.
Pentos had fallen.