(The Dragonmont, Dragonstone, 120 AC)
The throat of the world was black, jagged, and smelled of the grave.
The ascent to the smoking vents of the Dragonmont was not a path made for men. It was a scar torn into the side of the volcano, a treacherous incline of razor-sharp obsidian shards and loose basalt that shifted treacherously underfoot. The air grew thinner with every step, replaced by a thick, yellow sulfurous fog that tasted of rotten eggs and copper.
Aeryn Royce-Targaryen, seven years old and small for his age, was dying.
Every breath was a battle. The sulfuric acid in the air stung his eyes, turning them red and watery, blurring his vision until the world was nothing but a haze of grey ash and black rock. His lungs burned as if he were inhaling crushed glass. His boots, fine leather made in King's Landing, were shredded, and his hands were slick with blood where the volcanic glass had sliced through his gloves.
"My Prince... please..." Ser Vardis Egen wheezed from behind him.
The knight of the Vale, a man built of muscle and endurance, was failing. The heat radiating from the ground was cooking them in their clothes. Vardis stumbled, his heavy boots sliding on the scree. He caught himself, gasping for air that simply wasn't there.
"We go back," Vardis choked out, grabbing Aeryn's shoulder with a desperate grip. "This is madness, Aeryn. This is suicide. The heat alone will stop your heart before you even see the beast."
Aeryn shrugged off the hand. He didn't turn around. He couldn't. If he looked at Vardis—at the concern and love in the knight's eyes—he would break. He would cry, and he would turn back to be the "good boy" that everyone expected him to be.
And the good boy was dead. Daemon Targaryen had killed him with a laugh.
"Go back if you wish, Ser," Aeryn rasped, his voice sounding like grinding gravel. "But I am not leaving this mountain without my soul."
He took another step. Then another.
Inside his head, the loop was screaming, louder than the wind, louder than the distant rumble of the earth.
White. Rock. Blood.
White. Rock. Blood.
The memory of the Vale canyon tried to claw its way out—the screaming horse, the woman's broken body, the smell of ozone. Aeryn grit his teeth so hard he felt a molar crack. He forced the memory down, burying it under a new layer of strata: Anger.
He reached the plateau. Ahead of him, the mountain opened up.
The Smoking Vent.
It was a cavern mouth so large it could have swallowed the Red Keep's throne room whole. Darkness poured out of it like a liquid, heavy and absolute. The heat coming from the opening was a physical wall, a blast furnace that singed the eyebrows and dried the sweat on the skin instantly.
Ser Vardis fell to his knees at the edge of the plateau. He vomited, his body finally rejecting the poison air. He looked up, his eyes streaming tears, watching the small grey figure of his charge walking toward the abyss.
"Aeryn!" Vardis screamed, his voice cracking. "Don't! Think of your mother! Think of Rhea!"
Aeryn stopped at the threshold. The mention of his mother pierced him. He touched the emerald ring on his thumb.
"I am thinking of her," Aeryn whispered to the darkness. "She died because she fell. I will never fall again."
He stepped into the gloom. The shadows swallowed him whole.
...
Inside the cavern, time did not exist. There was only heat.
It was a suffocating, crushing heat that made the blood boil in the veins. Aeryn walked forward, blindly at first, his hands outstretched. The floor of the cave was covered in a thick layer of ash, soft and silent as snow, but scorching to the touch.
Thump.
Thump.
The sound vibrated through the soles of his boots. It wasn't a noise; it was a pressure wave. A heartbeat. Something massive was sleeping in the dark.
Aeryn stopped. He tried to steady his breathing, to engage his "Bronze" mind—the analytical, logical part of him that Viserys loved.
Variable: The dragon is dormant.
Strategy: Wake him gently. Establish resonance. Use the High Valyrian of the Conciliator.
He opened his mouth to sing, but the air was so dry his throat clicked shut. He forced a swallow, tasting ash.
"Drakari... pykiros..." Aeryn croaked.
The sound was pathetic. It was swallowed by the immense silence of the cave.
A low, tectonic rumble answered him. Dust filtered down from the invisible ceiling.
Then, the darkness shifted.
Two eyes opened.
They were vertical slits of molten gold, burning with an inner light that illuminated the swirling dust motes. They were huge—each eye larger than Aeryn's entire body. They were not the eyes of a beast of burden. They were the eyes of a god that had been disturbed.
Vermithor.
The Bronze Fury rose.
The sound was deafening—a cascade of scales grinding against stone. He was colossal. In the dim light cast by his own eyes, Aeryn saw the expanse of him. Scales the color of dirty pennies and old shields, scarred by a hundred battles from a previous age. Great bronze horns twisted back from his skull like a crown of thorns.
He did not look majestic. He looked hateful. He looked like a mountain that had decided to wake up and kill something.
Vermithor lowered his head, bringing those terrible golden eyes level with the intruder. He exhaled, and a cloud of grey smoke rolled over Aeryn, smelling of brimstone and charred meat.
Aeryn stood paralyzed. The "Scholar" in him began to calculate the odds of survival.
Probability: 0%.
"Tīkummo... jimi..." Aeryn tried again, his voice trembling uncontrollably. "I am... I am of the blood of..."
Vermithor snarled. It was a sound of pure disgust. The dragon had heard the songs of King Jaehaerys, the wisest man to ever live. He had heard the songs of the Old Valyria. He did not have patience for the stuttering of a terrified child.
The dragon's throat began to glow.
It started deep in the chest, a sullen red light that traveled up the long neck, brightening, intensifying, until the maw of the beast shone with the blinding brilliance of a forge.
Aeryn's eyes widened. The logic center of his brain shut down.
He is going to burn me.
"Drakarys!" Aeryn shrieked, throwing his hands up in a futile, instinctive gesture to stop the fire.
Vermithor did not obey.
WHOOSH.
The dragon exhaled. It wasn't a full stream of concentrated war-fire—that would have vaporized Aeryn instantly. It was a warning breath, a wave of superheated flame and air meant to clear the vermin from his den.
Aeryn dove.
He threw himself to the left, scrambling behind a jagged spire of basalt rock just as the orange torrent washed over the space where he had been standing.
The heat was agonizing.
Aeryn screamed as the edge of the flame licked his left side. The fire melted the leather of his tunic instantly. He felt the skin on his shoulder and upper arm blister and pop. The pain was a white-hot spike driving itself into his nervous system.
He hit the ash hard, rolling to extinguish the smoldering wool of his cloak. He came to rest against the cold rock, gasping, sobbing, curling into a tight ball.
"It burns... it burns..." he whimpered, clutching his arm.
The pain was overwhelming. It stripped away his composure. It stripped away his plans. He was seven years old, he was alone in the dark, and a monster was hunting him.
Run, his instincts screamed. Run back to Vardis. Run back to the boat. You are not a dragonlord. You are a Royce. You are stone. Stone doesn't play with fire.
He heard the heavy, rhythmic thud of claws on stone. Vermithor was circling the rock. The beast was toying with him.
Aeryn squeezed his eyes shut. Tears streaked through the soot on his face.
I failed.
And then, in the darkness of his closed eyes, he saw it.
He saw the Hall of Nine. He saw Daemon Targaryen leaning against the pillar, looking down at him. He saw the sneer. He heard the laugh.
"Look at him. The Scholar. A worm that curls up."
Aeryn stopped sobbing.
The image of Daemon didn't bring fear this time. It brought something else. Something hot. Something that hurt more than the burn on his shoulder.
I am not a worm.
Aeryn opened his eyes. He looked at his hand—blackened with soot, trembling, the skin red and angry.
If he ran now, he proved Daemon right. If he ran now, he would spend the rest of his life looking at the floor, waiting for Aemond or Aegon or Daemon to crush him. He would be the "Bronze Bitch's" son forever.
Aeryn's breathing shifted. The hyperventilation stopped. A cold, terrifying clarity settled over him.
He pushed himself up. His burnt arm screamed in protest, but he ignored it. He locked the pain away in a box in his mind labeled "Later."
The Bronze is useless here, Aeryn realized. Logic is useless. He is a predator. He respects only one thing.
Aeryn Royce died behind that rock.
The boy who stepped out was a stranger.
He walked out from the cover of the basalt spire. He stood exposed in the center of the cavern.
Vermithor was there, waiting. The great dragon had paused, perhaps expecting the rat to scurry away toward the exit. When he saw the small figure return to the light, the dragon hissed, the sound like steam escaping a boiler.
The glow in Vermithor's throat began to build again. Brighter. Hotter. He opened his jaws wide, rows of black teeth gleaming in the firelight.
Aeryn didn't flinch. He didn't look at the teeth. He looked straight into the golden eyes.
"BURN ME THEN!"
The scream tore from Aeryn's throat, raw and bloody. It wasn't High Valyrian. It wasn't polite. It was the screech of a cornered animal that had decided to bite back.
"DO IT!" Aeryn roared, spreading his arms wide, exposing his burnt chest to the coming inferno. "FINISH IT! TURN ME TO ASH! BUT DO NOT DARE IGNORE ME!"
Vermithor paused. The fire in his throat pulsed, uncertain. The prey was not acting like prey.
Aeryn took a step forward. He was limping. He was bleeding. But he was advancing on a dragon three times the size of a ship.
"YOU THINK I AM AFRAID OF A LITTLE HEAT?" Aeryn laughed, a jagged, manic sound that echoed off the cavern walls. "I HAVE LIVED IN HELL SINCE I WAS BORN! MY FATHER IS A MONSTER! MY MOTHER IS A GHOST! I AM NOTHING!"
He pointed a shaking finger at the dragon's snout.
"I AM THE BLOOD OF THE DRAGON! I AM THE FIRE THAT EATS THE STONE!"
The madness took him. The "Targaryen Coin" spun in the air, glittering in the dark.
"SERVE ME!" Aeryn commanded, his voice cracking with the sheer force of his will. "OR KILL ME! BUT MAKE YOUR CHOICE, YOU LAZY, OVERGROWN LIZARD! MAKE YOUR CHOICE!"
Vermithor stared.
For twenty years, men had come into this cave. They had crept in with spears. They had crept in with trembling songs. They had all smelled of urine and fear.
This one... this tiny, broken thing... smelled of ozone. He smelled of blood. He smelled of an arrogance so profound it rivaled the Old King himself.
Vermithor closed his jaws.
The blinding light in his throat died down, fading from white to orange to a sullen red, until finally, it was just smoke.
The dragon lowered his head. Slowly. The massive neck snaked down until the snout was level with the boy.
Outside the cave, on the ledge, Ser Vardis Egen watched the orange glow die. He gripped the stone, his heart hammering against his ribs.
He saw the silhouette of the dragon lower itself.
Vardis felt a chill run through his body that had nothing to do with the wind. He remembered the old stories. He remembered the Maesters saying that the Targaryens were closer to gods than men, and that when they were born, the world held its breath.
I thought he was a Royce, Vardis thought, staring at the scene in horror and awe. I thought he was safe. I thought he was stone.
Vardis watched as the boy did not run, but reached out a hand.
The coin didn't land on the stone, Vardis realized, the truth settling on him like a heavy shroud. It didn't land on the good side either. It landed on the edge. Sharp. Dangerous.
Inside the cave, Aeryn stood before the beast.
Vermithor exhaled, a gust of hot, dry air that ruffled Aeryn's singed hair. The dragon waited. It was a test. A final test.
Aeryn looked at his burnt hand. The skin was red, peeling, ugly. It throbbed with a pulse of its own.
He reached out.
He pressed his raw, injured palm against the dragon's snout.
SSSSZZT.
The contact was agonizing. The dragon's scales were still burning hot from the internal fire. The heat seared Aeryn's damaged skin.
Aeryn cried out, a short, sharp gasp of pain. But he didn't pull away. He dug his fingers in. He let the pain anchor him. He let the heat fuse them together.
"Sōvegon..." Aeryn whispered, his forehead resting against the burning metal of the dragon's nose. Tears of pain mixed with tears of triumph. "Sōvegon, Vermithor."
The Bronze Fury let out a sound that shook the foundations of the island. It was a purr. A deep, resonant acknowledgment of the bond. The dragon had found a rider who was not afraid to burn.
Aeryn didn't mount gracefully. He scrambled up the dragon's wing like a feral cat, his movements desperate, clawing at the scales, heedless of the scrapes and burns. He pulled himself up the neck, settling into the hollow between the massive bronze spines.
He looked down at the dark cave. He looked at the ash.
"NOW!" Aeryn screamed, his voice echoing with the power of the bond. "FLY!"
Vermithor moved.
With a roar that shattered the silence of the night, the Bronze Fury launched himself.
They erupted from the Smoking Vent like a cannonball fired from the depths of hell. The cool air of the Narrow Sea hit Aeryn's face, rushing past him, but he didn't feel the cold. He felt the muscles of the dragon beneath him, a living engine of war.
They climbed. Higher. Higher. Until the Bronze Hawk was just a toy in the water. Until Ser Vardis was a speck on the cliff.
Aeryn clung to the spines, his burnt hand throbbing, his body aching. He looked toward King's Landing, invisible in the distance.
He wasn't the victim anymore. He wasn't the "Little Scholar."
He threw his head back and let out a scream—half laugh, half sob—into the wind. The sound was swallowed by Vermithor's answering roar, a duet of bronze and fire that announced to the world that the game had changed.
The Warden had found his weapon. And he would never, ever be afraid again.