The crowd stood frozen as the Cannibal bore Prince Aegon away. Sickly green flame bled through the air, warping sight and numbing the limbs. Arrows and steel were worthless before such a beast. Everything had unfolded in the span of a heartbeat.
"Princess… the prince must still live," Ser Harold said, his voice unsteady, his legs barely holding him upright. "But his state of mind…"
The Cannibal was the king of the wild dragons, more savage and violent than any of its kind. Harold could not say whether the prince had gone mad, or whether terror itself had driven him there. Perhaps the two were one and the same.
"I have only this one brother left," Princess Rhaena cried, fixing Harold with a blazing stare. "No matter the cost, I will save him. I will save him."
She felt it herself, the change in him. Warrior, or madman. Targaryen blood burned hot within his veins, dragonfire awakened, dragon wrath unchained.
Those around her fell silent in dread. The fiery temper of House Targaryen, and the madness buried deep within their blood, were feared throughout the realm.
After all, what sane boy, scarcely ten years of age, would dare attempt to face the king of wild dragons?
"Maester," Rhaena demanded, "is there any way to pursue or subdue the Cannibal?"
"Your Grace," the maester answered grimly, "none that I know. The Cannibal was hatched in the earliest days of King Jaehaerys's reign. Its cunning and cruelty are both dreadful. To subdue such a monster would require vast numbers of men and scorpions laid in ambush, or a dragon of equal size. We have neither. Westeros no longer possesses a dragon capable of challenging it. Those that once might have done so, Vhagar and the Blood Wyrm, are long dead."
Dragonstone was thinly peopled now, its dragons largely slain by war. Only the feral king of the wild dragons yet lived. Even Grey Ghost had met an undeserved end.
The knights were loyal, but they were not mad. The Cannibal's name alone was enough to drain courage from the stoutest heart.
Wild dragons were born hating chains and restraint, despising all human mastery.
During the Red Sowing, countless dragonseeds had perished. No one had imagined Aegon would prove so reckless, so utterly unhinged.
The wild dragons of Dragonstone were unclaimed beasts, infamous for their savagery. Nettles taming Sheepstealer had been a miracle of fate. No one had ever dared provoke the Cannibal.
"Leave Sunfyre's corpse untouched," Rhaena commanded. "The Cannibal will return to feed. Leave the golden dragon where it lies. He will come back."
She spoke in haste, but there was no better course.
"Our cause has suffered a grievous blow. Prince Aegon is first in the line of succession. Knights loyal to the Queen, fishermen of Dragonstone, keep watch. If the Cannibal returns to Dragonmont, we advance."
Even as the words left her mouth, she knew they were not enough. She would have to send for aid from the Vale.
Rhaena prayed to the Seven, begging for her brother's safe return.
Only then did she understand why Aegon had insisted on coming to Dragonstone. He had his own design.
He was no different from his three elder brothers. Another Targaryen chasing glory.
For victory in war.For the crown.
She could not lose him.
The Cannibal tore itself from the earth, its pitch black body like living charcoal, a rare thing, a dragon of pure and unbroken color. Its wings unfurled like gathering storm clouds. Seventy or eighty meters from snout to tail, with a wingspan twice that, the beast was nothing short of apocalyptic.
Aegon did not hesitate. He forced every scrap of strength into flame hardened flesh. Without it, his body would never endure the heat, the inferno, the murderous heights.
The Cannibal plunged like a lesser Black Death made flesh, streaking toward the eastern slope of Dragonmont, its domain.
It roared and twisted through the air, climbing toward the clouds, spinning, then diving at terrifying speed. Bile rose in Aegon's throat.
Were it not for his reinforced strength, his endurance, his resistance to heat, and his death grip on the dragon's spines and scales, he would have fallen long before, shattered against the mountainside.
The Cannibal bellowed again, spewing its sickly green flame skyward. Aegon pressed himself flat against its back, barely escaping the fire.
Every dragon's flame bore its own nature, often echoing the hue of its scales. Blue, red, blackened crimson. The Cannibal's fire was a lurid, ghastly green.
It did not rise into the clouds, but plunged straight toward Dragonmont.
At the dawn of the Dance, six wild and half wild dragons had nested within the smoking caverns of the volcano. Now only the Cannibal remained.
Dragonmont still breathed. Pale gray steam poured endlessly from its vents.
The air above Dragonstone stank of sulfur and salt.
The Cannibal carried Aegon into a cavern high upon the eastern slope. Deep gouges scarred the stone at its mouth, and piles of bones lay thick within.
Smoke coiled through the chamber. Heat and sulfur pressed in from every side. Without his hardened flesh, Aegon would have perished at once.
The lair was vast, tunneling downward toward the volcanic heart, a monument to the Cannibal's long tyranny over Dragonstone.
As it advanced, the dragon roared and vomited green fire that flooded the tunnel. The flames clung and refused to fade, thick and unnatural, like wildfire given breath.
The Cannibal knew this place well. It thrashed violently, seeking to smash Aegon against stone or fling him into the depths.
The heat surpassed endurance. The cavern walls glowed, stone cracking and bursting apart. Volcanic fury and dragonfire became one unbearable inferno.
"We are the same," Aegon shouted. "Fire made flesh, lords of this world. Obey me, Cannibal."
The dragon did not heed him. It pressed deeper until a churning magma pool came into view, the molten heart of Dragonmont itself.
Liquid fire bubbled and surged, radiating merciless heat.
With a casual sweep of its claw, the Cannibal tore free a boulder and hurled it into the lava. Flame and sparks erupted in violent fury.
Magma splashed against the walls, hissing and screaming. By sheer fortune, none struck Aegon.
The Cannibal shrieked, attempting to cast him into the molten sea.
Aegon's heart lurched. Fire. Lava. The dragon was rage given form.
It roared and rolled above the magma, heat and sulfur rising until Aegon felt himself on the verge of melting alive.
Yet the Cannibal was not mad. It was playing, savoring the struggle, waiting to see when this morsel would finally fall.
Aegon clung to the spines until his fingers bled, his palms torn raw against blackened scales. Flames scorched his back, agony ripping through him.
This was the line between life and death. One slip, and he would be nothing but ash upon the lava.
"Cannibal, fly," Aegon cried. "I am your companion, your rider. We are bound by fate."
The dragon did not rise. It continued to roll above fire and magma, even casting stones into the molten pool for sport.
Aegon did not release his grip. He endured.
At last, the Cannibal tired of the volcano's furnace.
If it was to fly, then it would fly once more, back into the open sky.
With a thunderous roar, the black dragon beat its wings and surged upward, charging toward the vast blues above Dragonstone.
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A/N:
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