Rewriting Targaryen History

Chapter 97: Chapter 97: The Open Sky

The Dragonpit had been built to hold dragons, not teach them flight.

That was the first thing I understood when I saw Vermax brought through the great doors and into the open air beyond Rhaenys’s Hill. The vast dome behind him could swallow men, horses, wagons, and the noise of half a court, but it was still a cage when measured against wings. A hatchling might leap within it. A young dragon might stretch and test his strength beneath its shadows. Vermax had passed beyond that.

He needed sky.

The dragonkeepers had chosen the broad ash yard east of the hill, where the ground sloped away from the Dragonpit and the air came clean enough from the bay to thin the stink of King’s Landing.

The place was not beautiful. No dragon yard ever truly was. Burn marks scarred the earth where old lessons had gone poorly or well, depending on whether one judged by survival or obedience. Heavy posts stood in a wide ring. Chains lay coiled nearby, not fastened, but ready.

Barrels of butchered goat waited in the shade beneath canvas. Dragonkeepers moved with their usual calm, speaking in High Valyrian and watching everything except the things fools thought most important.

My sons stood near the edge of the yard.

Jace was beside Vermax.

Not the little creature I remembered from earlier years, all awkward wings and hungry pride. Vermax had grown while I held the Stepstones. His neck had lengthened, his chest had deepened, and his wings folded against his sides with a weight that made nearby men keep respectful distance. Green scales darkened along his spine and brightened where the morning sun struck them. Smoke drifted from his nostrils in thin, impatient threads.

Jace looked small beside him.

That was what caught me first. Not that Vermax was large. I knew dragons grew. I had watched Syrax, Caraxes, Vhagar, and Seasmoke from close enough to learn humility. But knowing a truth was not the same as seeing my ten-year-old son stand beneath a creature that could crush men by accident and burn them by instinct.

Jace held himself carefully. Not afraid. Not careless. He had the posture of a boy who had already learned that love did not make a dragon safe. That told me how much I had missed.

"You began while I was gone," I said.

Jace looked at me, then quickly back to Vermax, as though the dragon might resent being forgotten. "The dragonkeepers said he was ready. Mother made them say it more than once. Grandfather sent another man to ask the same question, though he sounded less patient."

"That sounds like your mother and your grandfather working from opposite ends of the same worry."

"She made them show her the saddle three times."

"That sounds entirely like your mother."

Jace’s mouth curved, but his eyes remained on Vermax. "I wanted you to be there for the first flight."

"I wanted that as well."

He swallowed. "I thought it would feel wrong without you. It did at first, but then Vermax moved, and there was no room left to think about anything except staying with him."

That was the truth of dragonriding, or one truth of it. The sky did not pause for grief, guilt, or absent fathers. The oldest dragonkeeper, Maeron, stepped forward. His hair had gone iron-grey, and one hand bore old burn scars that had pulled the skin tight across his knuckles.

"Prince Jacaerys has made good progress," he said. "He listens before he commands, which is rarer than blood would prefer."

Jace looked faintly embarrassed.

"Good," I said. "Blood is a poor substitute for listening."

Maeron inclined his head. "Vermax will make one circuit above the yard, then a wider turn if the wind remains steady. He is young, but he is past indoor exercises. He needs space to learn what his wings can do without stone punishing every mistake."

Vermax lowered his head toward Jace. His eye moved to me, bright and unreadable. The dragon knew me as part of his rider’s world, not as master. That distinction mattered.

Jace approached his shoulder, speaking softly in High Valyrian. The words were not grand. No courtly flourish. Just steady command shaped by repetition. Vermax shifted, talons scraping against the burned ground, then lowered enough for Jace to climb.

My hands remained still at my sides. They wanted to move. A father’s body did not care about dignity, royal blood, or the calm of trained dragonkeepers. It saw a child climb onto fire given muscle and wings, and it wanted to drag him back down.

I did not move.

Jace checked his strap. He did it with practised fingers, which pleased me and wounded me in the same breath. He had learned the motion without me. He had become capable in a way I wanted and resented.

Maeron stepped back. "Let him find the lift before you ask for height. Do not fight the first push unless he climbs too sharply."

Jace nodded. He gave the command. Vermax gathered himself and sprang.

The first beat of his wings struck dust outward in a hot wave. Men stepped back even though they had prepared themselves. Vermax rose low at first, skimming the yard in a powerful line before lifting above the outer posts. Jace bent with him, shoulders tight for the first few breaths. Then he settled. Not perfectly. Not elegantly. But enough that the dragon’s movement and the boy’s body began to agree.

They climbed into open sky.

A cry tore from Vermax as he passed above the yard, younger and rougher than Caraxes, less deep than Syrax, but already carrying the old terror of dragonkind. The sound moved through my chest and into the place where pride and dread were not different enough to separate.

My eldest son flew over King’s Landing on a beast that would one day be able to burn ships, gates, fields, and men who had never heard his name.

I had wanted my children strong enough to survive.

Watching Jace circle above me, I was forced to remember that strength did not arrive cleanly. It came with teeth. It came with hunger. It came with a will of its own and the terrible possibility that one day a child might be praised for using it.

Vermax made one circuit, then another wider turn that took him briefly beyond the yard and over the slope toward the bay. Jace corrected late on the second turn, but he corrected. When Vermax descended, the landing shook the ground beneath my boots. One claw scraped through ash, and the dragon snorted smoke as if offended by the earth’s existence.

Jace dismounted only when Maeron allowed it. He came toward me, trying not to look desperate for approval.

I gave him honesty. "You ride better than I feared, and not well enough to boast at dinner."

His control broke into a grin. "I was not going to boast."

"You were considering a modest version of boasting."

"That is different."

"It is usually more dangerous because it pretends to be manners."

Jace laughed, then sobered when he saw I was not entirely teasing.

"You did well," I said. "Do not let doing well convince you that Vermax has become small enough for pride to handle."

He nodded. "I understand."

"I believe you are beginning to."

Luke waited farther down the yard with Arrax.

He had been quiet during Jace’s flight, watching with admiration and a kind of restrained impatience. Arrax was smaller than Vermax, but he had grown more than memory allowed. His pale scales caught the morning light, and his wings had stretched long enough that two dragonkeepers kept near his flank while giving him room to feel unconfined. He moved more quickly than Vermax, head turning often, tail flicking whenever a sound displeased him.

Luke touched him before every instruction.

That was the difference I noticed first. Jace commanded Vermax through practised steadiness. Luke seemed to reassure Arrax and himself in the same gesture, as though each borrowed courage from the other until there was enough between them.

"You took to flight before I arrived," I said.

Luke looked down briefly, then back at Arrax. "Only a few days before your ship reached the harbour."

"You nearly waited for me."

"I tried to wait." His voice lowered. "Arrax kept climbing the lower wall whenever Vermax trained. He screamed until the keepers said delaying for my feelings would teach him worse habits."

"The keepers were right."

"I know."

"That does not make it painless."

Luke met my eyes. "No. It does not."

Maeron came beside us. "Prince Lucerys has made one true flight and two shorter lifts. Today should remain simple."

Luke’s chin tightened at the word simple.

I almost smiled. A year ago, caution would have been his shelter. Now it pricked him.

"Simple is not shameful," I said.

"I know that."

"Knowing and liking are different lessons."

He gave me a look that belonged entirely to Rhaenyra. "You say that when you want me to accept being annoyed."

"I say that because your mother is not here to say it better."

That earned the smallest laugh.

Luke mounted with less smoothness than Jace, but with more resolve than I expected. Arrax shifted beneath him, restless and eager for the air. The first command came too quickly. Arrax tossed his head and stamped once hard enough to send ash around his claws.

The keepers did not rush in. Neither did I.

Luke breathed in. I saw him force his shoulders to loosen. He spoke again, slower this time, the High Valyrian shaped carefully rather than pushed by nerves.

Arrax stilled. Then he launched.

The lift was sharper than Vermax’s. My heart rose before the dragon did. Arrax beat upward with hard, uneven strokes, keeping lower over the yard, closer to posts and men and all the things I wished were farther away. Luke leaned too much during the first turn and corrected late, but he did not panic. Arrax dipped once, recovered, then climbed high enough to make the second turn cleaner.

The landing was poor.

Not dangerous. Poor enough that one claw skidded and a keeper called a warning. Luke held on. Arrax snapped at the air afterwards, deeply offended by the ground’s lack of cooperation.

Only when both were steady did the keepers move. Luke climbed down with legs that shook despite his effort to hide it. I pretended not to see. That seemed kinder than praise spoken too soon.

"That was not as graceful as Jace’s landing," he said before I could speak.

"No," I said. "It was not."

His face tightened. "It was more difficult," I continued. "Arrax made you work for the ground. You nearly let fear take the reins from you, and then you did not."

Luke’s expression changed slowly. "I nearly did."

"Nearly is not failure."

Jace came to stand beside him. "Your second turn was better than mine was when I started."

Luke narrowed his eyes. "Are you saying that because it is true, or because Father is listening?"

"Both," Jace said.

That was brotherhood at its healthiest: useful honesty wrapped in enough kindness to survive being received.

The dragonkeepers brought Vhalalor forward next.

Rhaegar’s dragon had not yet taken a rider into the sky, but he looked closer to it than I wanted. He was leaner than Arrax, darker along the spine, with eyes that seemed to notice movement before it became sound. His wings were still growing into their strength, but they were no longer hatchling wings. When he spread them briefly against the morning light, I saw the shape of future danger.

Rhaegar approached him slowly. Not timidly. Measured. He kept his hands visible, steps even, voice low. Seven years old, and already he treated danger as if it had rules he could learn before it decided to kill him.

Maeron watched them with quiet attention. "Prince Rhaegar is close."

"How close?" I asked.

"Soon. Not today, unless the dragon chooses to test us more than I prefer. But soon."

"That comforts me in the way a warning bell comforts a man in a burning tower."

"A prince who listens is safer than a prince who only wants height."

"Safer is not the same as safe."

Maeron’s scarred hand flexed once. "Dragons do not give us that word."

Rhaegar stopped before Vhalalor and raised his hand. The dragon lowered his head without hesitation. It was not soft. It was not affectionate in the way singers would pretend. It was recognition, quiet and exact.

Rhaegar touched the side of his snout. "His breathing changes when mine does," he said.

Maeron answered him seriously. "Then learn what your own fear does before you ask him to obey through it."

"I have been trying."

"I know."

That was what unsettled me. Not that Rhaegar lacked fear. I could see tension in his jaw and carefulness in his fingers. What unsettled me was that he had already begun studying his own fear like another strap to be checked before mounting.

Jace wanted to be worthy. Luke wanted to be brave. Aerion wanted glory. Rhaegar wanted understanding. That could become wisdom. It could also become something cold if praised without restraint.

The lesson remained on the ground. Maeron made him move with Vhalalor at the shoulder, step away, approach again, command stillness, reward obedience, and withdraw before impatience entered either rider or dragon. Vhalalor obeyed more than he resisted. Once, a younger keeper moved too quickly near his left wing. Vhalalor’s head turned with a sharp hiss.

Rhaegar spoke before the man flinched back. The dragon stilled.

I looked at Maeron. "Did he correct the dragon or the man?"

The old keeper’s mouth twitched. "Both, perhaps."

"That is what worries me."

Aerion came last, and Tyraxes made certain none of us mistook him for patient.

He was restless from the moment the keepers led him from the Dragonpit. Not much larger than Vhalalor, but broader in movement, full of tail lashes, wing flicks, and irritated heat. He wanted the meat barrels, the open sky, the handler’s sleeve, the shadow of a passing bird, and possibly the right to object to being taught anything at all.

Aerion looked delighted.

Maeron looked tired in the specific way of a man who had survived many brave boys. "Prince Aerion has courage," he said.

"That is not the tone men use when courage has helped."

"It has helped him return after being humbled."

"How many times has he required humbling?"

"Enough that the lesson has begun to recognise him."

Aerion approached Tyraxes with too much confidence and not enough quiet. The dragon snapped toward the nearest chain, not trying to break it, only making his opinion known. Aerion laughed.

"Aerion," I called.

He turned. "I am watching him."

"You are enjoying him."

"That is still watching."

"It can stop being watching if excitement becomes louder than judgement."

He looked ready to argue, then noticed Maeron waiting beside him with the patience of stone. To Aerion’s credit, he swallowed the argument.

"I will listen," he said.

Maeron nodded. "That is better than promising to be careful. Careful boys often decide they have been careful long enough. Listening must continue."

Tyraxes did not make the lesson easy.

Aerion’s voice rose when the dragon resisted. Tyraxes resisted more because the voice rose. The circle fed itself until Maeron raised one hand and made the boy step back.

Aerion’s face flushed. "He knows what I want."

"Yes," Maeron said. "That may be why he refuses."

Aerion stared at him. "Why would that make him refuse?"

"Because wanting is not commanding. If a dragon obeyed every desire placed near him, he would belong to appetite, not rider."

For once, Aerion did not answer quickly.

I walked closer, staying well outside Tyraxes’s reach. The dragon turned one bright eye toward me, smoke curling from his nostrils. He was young and wilful, yet already powerful enough that carelessness could make a father’s pride into a funeral.

Aerion looked angry now, but not at the dragon. At himself. "I am not bad at this," he said quietly.

"No," I said. "You are young at this."

"That sounds like a softer way of saying bad."

"It is not. Bad means you cannot learn. Young means the lesson is still larger than you are."

He looked toward Tyraxes. "Rhaegar will fly before me."

"Most likely."

That hurt him. I saw it land.

"Should I be pleased for him?" he asked.

"You should try."

"That is a difficult answer."

"Most useful answers are."

Aerion took a breath, then faced Tyraxes again. "Then I will try, though I may do it badly at first."

"That is acceptable."

The lesson resumed for only a short while. This time Aerion listened more than he pushed. Tyraxes still resisted, but less dramatically, as though disappointed to find fewer sparks to bite. By the end, Aerion managed to make him lower his head and hold still long enough for one hand to rest between his brow ridges.

Aerion did not cheer. That restraint may have been the best thing he did all morning.

When the dragons were led back toward the Dragonpit, the boys gathered near me, smelling of ash, smoke, sweat, and the sharp excitement of children allowed too close to danger.

Jace tried to look as though flying had become ordinary. Luke kept glancing back at Arrax with pride he had not yet learned to hide. Rhaegar watched Vhalalor disappear through the great doors, lips moving faintly as if repeating the lesson in order. Aerion looked frustrated, but not broken. That mattered.

"You are all learning different things," I said.

Aerion sighed. "I am learning waiting."

"You are learning command."

"Command feels much like waiting."

"Then you are further along than you think."

Jace glanced toward the sky Vermax had crossed. "Were you afraid watching us?"

"Yes."

All four boys looked at me.

I did not soften it. "You should know that. I was proud, but I was afraid. Any father who watches his children take to dragonback without fear is either lying or lacks imagination."

Luke’s voice quieted. "Were you afraid when you first saw Mother ride Syrax?"

"I was afraid when I first understood what dragons truly were."

Rhaegar studied me. "What are they?"

A simple question, wrongly shaped for a simple answer.

I looked toward the Dragonpit’s great doors. Heat breathed from within. Somewhere inside, Vermax rumbled low in his throat, answered by another young dragon deeper in the dark. The sound moved through the ground beneath our feet.

"They are not horses," I said. "They are not swords. They are not proof that you are better than men who do not have them. A dragon is power with a will of its own. If you ride one, you are responsible not only for where it carries you, but for what it can do when your anger, pride, or fear reaches it before your judgement does."

Jace listened with the weight of an eldest son. Luke listened with the memory of fear. Rhaegar listened as if placing the words into a pattern. Aerion listened because Tyraxes had humbled him enough to make listening possible.

"You will hear men praise you for flying," I continued. "They will call you brave because praising a prince costs less than correcting him. Hear the praise if you must, but do not feed on it. Dragons already have enough appetite."

That landed differently on each of them. Maeron stood nearby, silent, but I saw approval in the slight lowering of his scarred hand.

The boys were dismissed after that.

Jace and Luke walked together, already discussing turns, lift, and the misery of landings. Rhaegar remained a few steps behind, quiet. Aerion caught up to him and said something I could not hear. Rhaegar answered. Aerion shoved him lightly. Rhaegar shoved back with less force and better timing. They continued up toward the keep as brothers rather than rivals, which I counted as a mercy.

I stayed behind with Maeron.

The dragonkeepers were securing the yard. Barrels were moved. Chains were checked. A patch of burned earth near Arrax’s landing was marked for repair, though I doubted any repair would truly hold for long. Dragon yards were places where men negotiated with damage and called the result maintenance.

"Vermax and Arrax are larger than I remembered," I said.

Maeron looked toward the Dragonpit. "You remembered them as they were when you were last down here a couple of years ago. Dragons do not honour a father’s absence by remaining small."

"Children do not either."

"No, my prince. They do not."

That was the cruelty of it. I had gone away to hold the Stepstones partly so my children might have safer years. In return, the year had taken its payment from the very thing I meant to protect. They had grown. Their dragons had grown with them. Jace had flown without me. Luke had nearly done the same. Rhaegar was close. Aerion was impatient enough to make delay feel like punishment.

And beneath all of it stood the knowledge I carried from another life.

Boys on dragons became princes in war very quickly. Too quickly.

I thought of histories that had once been pages and performances to me. Lucerys and Arrax over Shipbreaker Bay. Jacaerys and Vermax at the Gullet. Children and dragons turned into messages, then martyrs, then reasons for the next cruelty. I had changed much. Their blood was trueborn now. Their hair was silver. Their father was not a rumour’s shadow but a man with armies, scars, and enemies who knew his name.

Still, the sky did not care about legitimacy. Storms killed the trueborn and the bastard alike. Crossbows did not ask whether a boy’s claim was clean. Dragons made children powerful before they made them wise.

Maeron watched me without pretending not to. "You fear their dragons," he said.

"I fear what men will ask my sons to do with them."

"That is not the same fear."

"No. It is worse."

The old keeper accepted that without comfort.

From within the Dragonpit, Tyraxes cried sharply, answered by Vhalalor’s lower rumble. Young dragons, restless and growing, each tied to a child who still argued at dinner, bruised in the yard, and wanted praise from a father returned too late for too many firsts.

I had spent years fearing what sort of men my sons might become.

Standing in the open yard, with ash beneath my boots and dragon smoke drifting from the doors behind me, I understood that I had not feared enough the monsters growing beside them.

Not because the dragons were evil. Because they were dragons.

And one day, if I failed, my sons would climb onto their backs not to circle above a watched yard under the eyes of careful keepers, but to fly into a war that would teach every child of my blood how quickly the sky could become a grave.