Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 106: Chapter 106: Two Weeks of Wings

For two weeks, I remained on Dragonstone.

That was the simple version.

The truer version was less clean. I remained because Vaerya was still too weak to leave her bed for long. I remained because Celeste needed another adult in the castle who understood Vaeron well enough to answer for his absence without pretending it did not hurt.

I remained because Rhaenyra’s letters told me to come home when I was no longer needed, and because every time I decided that hour had nearly arrived, the Amethyst Shadow crossed the sky and made delay feel like preparation.

The island changed after my first flight.

Not openly. Dragonstone was not King’s Landing. Its people did not cheer every rumour until it became a performance. Still, eyes followed me more often in the halls. Guards stood straighter when I passed. Servants who had known me for years suddenly looked twice, as if the silver-white hair and purple eyes they had grown used to had become proof of something older.

A dragon had accepted me. Men made meaning quickly from that.

The smallfolk of the harbour made it quickest. Sailors had seen the dark shape lift from the cliffs with me on his back. Fishermen had watched him circle the island. Stable boys had sworn the wind itself bent aside for us, which was nonsense, though no one seemed eager to correct a stable boy who spoke of dragons with reverence. By the third day, one old woman near the lower steps pressed her fingers together when I passed and murmured that Valyria had not forgotten its sons.

That troubled me more than insult would have.

I had not been born for this.

Heinrich Adler had been born in Dresden with aching bones, awkward manners, and no expectation of dragons beyond books and screens. Othorion Galeris had been born with Valyrian blood, but he had become a sellsword, not a prince of old fire. The man the island now looked at was made of both, and neither explanation would have satisfied a sailor who wanted to believe a dragon had chosen a dragonlord.

Maeron was less impressed. "You sit too stiffly," he told me on the second morning after the first flight.

"I am sitting on a creature large enough to bite a tower."

"You are sitting on him badly."

"That distinction seems less urgent from my position."

"It will become urgent when he turns, and you continue travelling in the old direction."

The Amethyst Shadow stood on the upper shelf while three dragonkeepers worked around him with slow care. They had brought a practice saddle, not ornate, not royal, not yet worthy of court display.

It was leather, iron, heavy stitching, and practical straps designed by men who valued living riders more than pretty ones. The dragon tolerated it with the cold patience of a king allowing fools to measure his cloak.

He did not like the girth strap.

The first time a keeper drew it beneath him, his head turned so sharply that every man on the shelf stopped breathing at once. Smoke poured from his nostrils. The keeper froze, one hand still on the strap, face pale beneath his hood.

I stood near the dragon’s jaw and placed a hand against the warm scale. "Calm," I said.

The word was for both of us. The silver eye shifted toward me. For a moment, I felt the old question return. Why did he allow this? Why did he lower his head for my touch when he could scatter men like leaves? He rumbled low in his chest, displeased but not violent.

The keeper moved again, slower. The strap settled.

Maeron exhaled through his nose. "He dislikes being handled beneath the chest."

"I noticed."

"You will notice many things. The useful ones are the ones you remember before they kill someone."

The first proper saddle flight was not graceful.

From the ground, it likely looked magnificent. That was what irritated me most. The harbour below saw a dark amethyst dragon rise above Dragonstone with a silver-haired rider seated high upon his neck. They saw wings spread wide against the sea wind. They saw a man who looked as if every Valyrian tale had been written in his bones.

They did not feel my right foot slip from the brace during the first climb.

They did not hear the ugly sound I made when the dragon banked harder than expected, and the saddle saved my life more effectively than pride ever had. They did not know that the old leather strap in my hand became, for several breaths, the most beloved object in the known world.

The Amethyst Shadow flew as if he had always known the sky and expected me to learn without complaint. I gave the command to climb. He climbed. Too quickly. Wind slammed into my face, cold and wet from the sea. The island dropped beneath us with a speed that hollowed my stomach. I tightened my legs, gripped with both hands, and tried to turn fear into something useful before it became sound.

"Steady," I said.

He did not steady at once.

He climbed another length, perhaps because he wanted the higher current, perhaps because he chose to remind me that my word was not a chain. Only when I repeated the command with less panic in my voice did he ease into a smoother line.

Later, when we landed, Maeron said, "He heard fear more than instruction."

"I gave the instruction."

"You gave both. He chose which one deserved less obedience."

"That is an unpleasantly clever interpretation."

"It is also the one that keeps your skull attached to your body."

The landing was worse.

I commanded descent toward the shelf, but the dragon ignored the angle I wanted and swept past it, carrying us over the western cliffs instead. For one wild moment, I thought he had rejected me and chosen the sea as judge. Then he turned into the wind, circled once, and came down from the other direction with far more control than my chosen approach would have allowed.

He struck the ground hard enough to rattle my teeth, but we landed safely.

Maeron reached us with an expression that combined relief and annoyance in equal parts. "You commanded a bad descent," he said.

"I commanded descent."

"You commanded it at the wrong wind."

"I am glad the dragon knew what I meant to survive rather than what I said."

"That is not something to rely on."

The Amethyst Shadow rumbled beneath me. I suspected he agreed.

Those first days became a series of corrections.

Mornings began with Vaerya, who improved in ways small enough that the maester recorded them like treaty terms. She sat by the window longer. She kept broth down without making war against the cup. She managed three steps from chair to bed with Celeste’s hands steady at her sides and Aegor watching as though one misplaced foot might require his intervention.

"You walked badly," Aegor told her afterwards.

Vaerya, pale and sweating from the effort, looked offended. "I walked."

"Yes, but badly."

Celeste gave him a warning look.

He adjusted quickly. "Badly is still better than not walking."

Vaerya considered that. "Then I accept the compliment."

I visited before the flights whenever possible. Vaerya demanded reports about the dragon with the seriousness of a convalescent queen. Aegor wanted practical details: how high, how fast, whether the saddle had weak points, and whether his father would approve of the stitching. Celeste asked fewer questions and watched me more closely.

On the fifth day, she said, "You look alive in a way that worries me."

"That is a strange accusation."

"It is not. Men who discover new power often look either drunk or devout. You look like you are trying very hard to be neither."

"That may be accurate."

"Then keep trying."

Afternoons belonged to the yard and the officers.

Black Rat, Grey Worm, Grey Roach, Red Flea, White Moth, Scarred Eel, and Tall Louse continued drilling the smaller formations. The coming reinforcements from Astapor were not yet more than ships, coin, and hope, but armies had to be prepared before men arrived. We worked on locks of fifty, then smaller files for narrow ground. Dragonstone’s stairs, yards, and harbour paths became testing grounds.

"The new men will know discipline," Black Rat said, watching a unit reform after a false break. "They will not know us."

"They will know the old cruelty first," I replied. "Then they will learn whether we mean something different."

Grey Worm adjusted the rear rank of one group. "Words will not teach that quickly."

"No. Rations, pay, rest, and officers who do not strike them for confusion will."

Grey Roach glanced toward the sky as the Amethyst Shadow passed beyond the ridge. "The dragon will also teach them something."

"What?"

"That the man offering freedom is not without fire."

I did not like the way that sounded because I understood its usefulness.

By the second week, the flights grew longer. Not easier. Longer.

The Amethyst Shadow answered more commands, though never in the way a horse might. He rose when I commanded flight, but he chose the strength of the rise. He turned when I gave direction, but if the wind displeased him, he corrected my idea without apology. He landed more smoothly once I stopped trying to force the path in my head onto the air beneath us.

The first time he obeyed a clean descent from my command, I almost shouted with relief. I did not, because Maeron was watching and the dragon already had enough reasons to think me ridiculous.

Instead, I dismounted with aching legs and said, "That was better."

Maeron looked at the landing mark. "It was less bad."

"Your praise remains nourishing."

"I am not here to feed your pride."

The dragon lowered his head toward me, silver eyes catching the light. I touched his jaw and felt the deep vibration begin beneath the scale. That sound had become familiar without becoming safe. I was beginning to understand that the bond did not remove danger. It made danger intimate.

The fire came on the tenth day.

Maeron chose a stretch of black rock beyond the eastern slope, away from stores, ships, men, and anything the castle needed intact. The ground there bore old burns from previous dragon lessons, some pale with age, others dark and glassy where stone had melted and cooled in strange shapes.

"We test once," Maeron said. "Not for display. Not for pleasure. You give the word, then you hold him steady after. A dragon that breathes fire because he is excited must learn that the end of flame is still part of the command."

"I know the word."

"I assumed as much. Knowing it is not the same as understanding what he will do with it."

The Amethyst Shadow stood facing a line of broken stones placed far down the slope. They looked very small. Too small, perhaps, for what waited in his chest.

I sat in the saddle, hands steady because I forced them to be.

The command felt heavier than the others.

Flight thrilled. Descent frightened. Turning humbled. Fire was different. Fire was the reason men knelt to dragons, feared them, painted them on banners, and built histories around the families who rode them. Fire did not carry me. It left proof behind.

I drew breath. "Dracarys."

The Amethyst Shadow opened his jaws. The world became flame.

It was larger than I expected. Far larger. A deep torrent roared down the slope, orange at the heart, edged briefly with pale silver where the heat struck stone. The broken rocks vanished inside it.

Air rushed backwards against my face, hot enough that my eyes watered and the exposed skin at my wrists prickled sharply. The sound filled everything: throat, flame, stone cracking, the sea wind breaking around heat.

When it ended, the slope smoked. Two of the stones had split. One had partly melted into a dark shining smear. The smell was sulfur, ash, and scorched mineral.

I had commanded fire before, through men, ships, and dragons not my own. This was different. The word had left my mouth. The destruction had answered from beneath me.

For a moment, I said nothing.

Maeron’s voice came from below. "The word was correct. Your expectation was not."

I looked at the smoking stones. "No," I said. "It was not."

The Amethyst Shadow rumbled, not restless, not proud. Simply present, vast and warm beneath me. I placed a hand against the front of the saddle and felt my own pulse still racing. A weak man could become addicted to that. A cruel one could call it justice whenever he wished. I had seen enough of both kinds in history.

"We do it again another day," I said.

Maeron nodded once, approving despite himself. "Good."

By the end of the two weeks, Vaerya could walk the length of her chamber with help.

The castle treated this as if a siege had lifted. Not openly, not loudly, but with the quiet satisfaction of people who had survived the same fear and now had proof of it breathing among them.

Celeste slept through an entire night and looked almost guilty for it. Aegor began correcting Vaerya’s steps less and walking beside her more, which was better brotherhood than his earlier command style.

Vaerya demanded to see the Amethyst Shadow before I returned to King’s Landing.

Celeste refused immediately.

Vaerya negotiated from bed, chair, window, and finally from a slow walk across the rug. By the fourteenth day, the compromise became the upper window facing the eastern ridge. The dragon did not come close. He crossed the sky far beyond the castle, a dark shape with amethyst hidden beneath black, wings steady above the cliffs.

Vaerya watched with wide eyes. "He looks like night learned to fly," she said.

Aegor stood beside her. "Night already moves. It comes every evening."

"That is not the same."

"No," he admitted. "I suppose not."

Celeste looked at me over their heads. The relief in her face carried fear beside it, but that was true of most worthwhile things.

"You will go back soon," she said.

"Yes."

"With him."

"Yes."

She did not ask whether that was wise. We were past that.

Rhaenyra’s raven arrived that evening.

Her letter was shorter than usual.

I am glad Vaerya strengthens. I am glad you live. I am furious you claimed an ancient dragon while I was not there to decide whether to kiss you or strike you afterwards. The children know enough to be unbearable.

Jace pretends solemn pride. Luke asks sensible questions. The twins have begun arguing over whether your dragon could beat Caraxes. Viserys thinks Aeggel should meet him, which I have forbidden until everyone involved becomes less foolish.

Come home when Celeste releases you.

I read it three times. Then I went to the cliffs.

The Amethyst Shadow waited on the upper shelf, not because he had been called by a servant, not because the island had arranged a farewell, but because that was where he wished to be. The new saddle sat against his dark neck, plain and strong. His silver eyes followed me as I approached.

Maeron stood nearby with the weary satisfaction of a man whose work had kept someone alive despite that person’s choices.

"The saddle will need more adjustments after longer flights," he said.

"We are flying to King’s Landing soon."

"I know."

"You disapprove."

"I disapprove of many things. This one may at least be necessary."

"That is practically a blessing from you."

"It is not."

Grey Roach came up the path with a small escort, carrying final reports for King’s Landing. Below, the harbour prepared the ship that would take the rest of my party back. I would not sail with them.

That fact settled over me as I looked west. I had left King’s Landing as a man with soldiers, scars, warnings, and too many enemies.

I would return as a dragonrider.

The court would name that however it pleased. Triumph. Threat. Omen. Arrogance. Proof of old blood. Proof of ambition. Otto would find danger in it because there was danger in it. Viserys would be moved. Rhaenyra would understand the cost beneath the power before anyone else did.

The smallfolk would see silver hair, purple eyes, Valyrian features, and a great dark dragon over the city, and many would decide I had always been meant for the sky. They would be wrong. They would also, in the way of smallfolk and songs, be impossible to fully correct.

The Amethyst Shadow lowered his head beside me. Heat moved across my shoulder, familiar now without becoming ordinary.

I placed my hand against his scale. "Soon," I said.

His chest rumbled, deep enough that I felt it through the stone beneath my boots. For the first time, the thought of returning to King’s Landing did not feel like walking back into a cage of silk and knives.

It felt like bringing thunder to the door.