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Davon stood at the edge of the pond looking down, his face pale. Not from fear — he had grown up in King's Landing and had seen fights, killings, and corpses — but he had never seen anything like the holes in the mud or the fish bones scattered across the bottom. He didn't know what had done this, but he knew it wasn't normal.
"What the hell is that?" he asked.
Limpick didn't answer. He crouched at the edge of the pond, staring at the holes and the fish bones. His hands had started trembling again. He clenched them into fists until his nails bit into his palms, and the shaking stopped. He stood up and took two steps back, scanning the area. The fish pond sat beside the river, the river ran through open fields, and the fields lay outside the city walls. This place wasn't far from Pentos — close enough that people lived nearby, farmed, and raised fish. If something — or someone — wanted to hide, they wouldn't choose a spot like this. Too many people. Too exposed.
Unless it didn't think it needed to hide.
Unless it didn't know where it was.
Unless it had fallen from the sky, landed in this pond, and had no idea how to get back or where to go. All it knew was that it was hungry. All it knew was how to eat.
"Dig," Limpick said.
Davon and the two guards started digging with the shovels. The mud was soft and gave way easily, but they found nothing — just mud, water, and rotting fish bones. They dug one hole, then another. Nothing. Davon stopped, wiped sweat from his face, and looked at Limpick. "There's nothing here. Maybe it already left."
Limpick didn't speak. He walked to the edge and crouched again, studying the largest hole. The mud around the opening was wet and smooth, as if something regularly passed in and out. He reached inside. The mud was cold and slick. His fingers probed deeper and touched something — hard, smooth, cold. He paused for a second, then pulled his hand back and stood up, stepping away.
"Dig that one open," he said. His voice was steady, but his heart was hammering so hard he could feel it in his ears.
Davon and the guards dug into the hole. Mud flew out in chunks. The hole grew wider and deeper. When it was about chest-deep, the shovel struck something solid with a dull thud — not mud, but something hard, like stone… or something else. Davon stopped and pried at it with the shovel. The thing moved.
The entire ground shuddered.
Not an earthquake — something underneath had shifted. From deep in the mud, from inside the hole, from beneath their feet, something was moving. Waking up. Rolling over. The ground split open. Cracks raced outward from the hole like spiderwebs, like roots, like lightning striking the mud. Thick black mud erupted from the fissures — not flowing, but spraying upward like a fountain, like a volcano, splattering across Davon's chest and the ground.
Limpick stepped back, hand dropping to the rusty dagger at his belt. He didn't know how to use a sword. The dagger was the only weapon he had carried since Harrenhal — never used on a person, only to skin rabbits. His knuckles turned white around the hilt.
The mud stopped spraying. The ground stopped shaking. The cracks remained, dark and bottomless. From the largest fissure, something emerged.
A tentacle.
Gray. Slick. Covered in tiny scales — fine, dense, pale gray-white, almost translucent, softer and thinner than fish scales. The tip was pink, like an infant's fingers, waving in the air as if testing, sensing, searching. It brushed against Davon's shovel, recoiled slightly, then stretched forward again and wrapped around the handle. The tentacle was thin — no thicker than Limpick's finger — but strong. When Davon tried to pull the shovel free, it wouldn't budge. The tentacle dragged the shovel toward the crack. Davon held on and was pulled forward, his boots sinking into the mud. He almost fell. He let go. The shovel vanished into the fissure.
Davon stumbled backward, hand on his sword hilt, face white. The two guards also backed away, one gripping his shovel, the other clutching the bucket, legs shaking. Limpick didn't move. He stood at the edge of the crack, watching the tentacle wave in the air, watching the fine gray-white scales catch the morning light. He recognized it. He had seen something like this before — on the beach at Dragonstone, on Yuan's body. Much larger, much thicker, much darker. But the shape was the same. The pattern of the scales was the same. The pink tip was the same.
This was one of Yuan's offspring.
One of the eggs had hatched. One of the eggs had fallen into this fish pond and hatched into a baby dragon. It didn't know how to return to the sea. It didn't know how to find its mother. It didn't know where to go. All it knew was hunger. All it knew was how to eat the fish in the pond.
Limpick crouched and reached toward the tentacle. Davon shouted from behind him — "Don't touch it!" — but Limpick didn't listen. His fingers brushed the pink tip. It was soft, wet, cool. The tentacle curled gently around his finger — very lightly, like a baby gripping its mother's hand — then released and withdrew into the crack.
The ground began to shake again. Harder this time. The cracks widened. Mud erupted once more, not spraying but surging upward in thick, heavy waves that smelled of rotting fish and wet earth. From the largest fissure, something crawled out.
First the head — round, smooth, slightly larger than a human head. Two golden eyes sat on top, large and bright, pupils vertical slits like a snake's, like a cat's, like a dragon's. Below the eyes was a mouth — not an octopus beak, but something harder, sharper, like a bird's beak but shorter and more curved, with serrated edges. On either side of the head were three gill slits that opened and closed like a fish's, but the inside was black, like the bottom of the abyss.
Then came the body — round and swollen, three times the size of the head, gray and slick, covered in scattered scales that hadn't fully grown in yet. Below the body were eight tentacles of varying lengths — some thick as a child's arm, others thin as fingers — each lined with suckers that contained tiny white teeth, sharp as needles. Beneath the body were two short, thick leg-like appendages that helped it move across the mud.
It pulled itself fully out of the crack and lay on the pond bottom, eight tentacles spread like a spider's legs. It couldn't fly. It had no wings. It was too small, too young — hatched only recently, not yet grown enough to develop wings, not yet old enough to learn how to fly. It had fallen into this pond, thrashed in the mud, eaten the fish, and grown in the dark.
Its golden eyes were huge and bright, pupils narrowed to vertical lines as it stared at the people in front of it — Davon, the two guards, then Limpick. When it saw Limpick, something in its eyes changed. Not brighter, not darker — just… different. The aggression faded into hesitation. It didn't recognize him, but it sensed something. The scent on him. The dragon bone inside his robe. The dragonglass that had soaked into his blood. It hesitated.
But only for a second.