The Old Freehold
The Smoking Seas whispered like a dying god.
Where once the Freehold stretched in molten splendor, only jagged bones of stone now jutted from the waves — broken spires, collapsed causeways, and bridges that led nowhere, all veined with black glass and crimson ore that still smoldered faintly in the dark. The air itself was a curse — thick with ash, sulfur, and the strange hum of magic that refused to die.
Valyria no longer glowed; it bled light. Faint veins of red ran through cracked basalt cliffs, pulsing weakly like the fading heartbeat of a world long dead. Rivers of congealed lava had cooled into glass plains sharp enough to flay flesh — not that people with flesh remained in these ruins.
The Temple of the Fourteen Flames still stood at the center of the Freehold — or what remained of it.
Its once-perfect dome had fallen inward, revealing the sky — a storm-wracked vault of crimson clouds and drifting cinders. The great sphinxes at its gate were half-buried in black ash, their proud faces melted into grotesque masks of sorrow. The carved dragons that had once spiraled around its pillars now seemed twisted in agony, frozen mid-scream by the fire that had devoured their makers.
Inside, the air was stifling and silent, save for the occasional hiss of steam rising from deep fissures — and the clinking of chains that none could hear, none still alive at least. The Heartfire still burned — a column of pale-purple flame flickering weakly in the shattered heart of the sanctum. It no longer roared as it once did when the Freehold was alive; it whispered, its light painting ghostly shapes across the ruins — shadows of people long gone, repeating their final movements in endless silence, or cursing the one bound by the chains of eternal life he so passionately coveted.
Argon Belaerys's eyes were glued to the crimson clouds of his motherland. How many days or moons had it been? It seems a day or two, but Argon knows that it must have been a decade, and he has yet to take his eyes away from these blood-stained clouds. He did not know when he would tear his gaze away from them, nor did he care — time had lost all meaning. Why should he? He was immortal. He had succeeded. He had achieved what had been his goal, his dream, his passion. The forty families had coveted it — all of them — but it was he who achieved it.
His eyes dropped from the crimson clouds to the ruin before him. To look at the cost of it — Valyrians and the Valyrian peninsula as a whole paid for Argon's eternal life. Argon would have shed tears, but there were no tears left in his eyes or body; all had long since dried in the smoldering heat of his beloved Valyria. In the first century, he had wept — Argon remembered it — days so full of torment he would not wish them even upon the greasy Ghiscari he had so earnestly hated.
But tears no longer came to him as they once had, not even when the ghosts of his loved ones came to curse him to icy hell, crying and raging before him for what he had done to their beautiful Valyria — and to them. Now he stood here alone and chained, bearing witness to the destruction he had wrought upon his home. But then again, what could be more tormenting than that? To stand eternal, watching as Firewyrms roamed freely across the dead remains of their masters, nesting where people of higher blood had once built their homes.
Argon cursed his hubris, cursed his mind — cursed himself for thinking that a few slaves would be enough for his eternal life. The price had been much higher — too steep. Now, after it was all done and gone, he realized he would gladly give his own life if only it would bring back his home again. But such a miracle and blessing would not be bestowed upon him, he knew.
"Then here is your chance, foolish child of mine," the Voice boomed across the ruined temple, still decorated with luxurious relics gathered from all corners of the world. Though they are in the same state as the temple is in, in ruin.
"Sire," Argon bowed his head low. His voice sounded strange to him — he had forgotten what it was to speak. One can only scream for decades before resigning to the fate assigned by a higher power.
"Argon," his sire, Arrax, King of the Fourteen Fires, acknowledged.
"Have you come again to remind me of my follies? If yes, then I admit I have long acknowledged them, sire. And now here I stand, a tormented immortal, repenting for the folly he committed centuries ago. I once heard lesser men working in the mines of the Fourteen complain that gods were cruel. Not that dragonlords believed them — for gods, we said, are merciful to their children, their real children, and not to barbarians. That was what we believed — until the dragonlords met their fate. A fate decided by their merciful sire. Oh, how joyous a sight it must have been for those lesser men — to see their masters punished for their crimes. At least, that's what they believed. Fools, I say—"
"Argon."
Argon raised his head and fell silent. His sire disliked it when he spoke of the lesser. So Argon held his tongue, as his sire preferred him to.
"We are not here to hear your mad ramblings," said Arrax, his voice shaking the broken walls. "We are here to present you with a choice. Give away your eternal life willingly, and you will accelerate our work in bringing back your brethren — and Valyria Panisuela — to life again. Or cling to your cursed existence, and be doomed here for eternity."
Argon's eyes widened, the action paining him as he blinked twice before replying hastily, fearful his sire might withdraw this mercy.
"I agree to give my life. I am ready to sacrifice myself, Sire."
Argon's legs moved, though every step burned with pain. Tears came pouring out — but these were not tears of despair, rather of hope and joy. Something he had not felt in centuries. The chains that bound him clinked heavily as Argon was forcefully dragged back into his position again.
"A good and prudent choice. We thought you would still be that arrogant boy you were when we first met you," his sire said as a hand — or limb — made of scales as large as the pillars of the Temple stretched out from the fiery, blinding light, the form his sire took to speak with him. A wisp of energy — blinding silver and deepest black — emerged from Argon's body and drifted into the outstretched draconic hand of his sire.
"Is that the curse those two put upon me, sire?" Argon asked, rage flaring in his tone. Those two had come especially for him — his sire had not cursed him here. It was them — that bloody, merciless pair. Argon cursed them every day; not one passed without him damning those two in his mind.
"It seems you still remain foolish, Argon. It was for your ambition and greed that you were cursed—not because Light and Night wanted to take some sick pleasure in punishing you, as you still believe."
The thread of energy remained tethered between them as Argon shook his head in anger. His sire was too kind to see that those two were jealous—jealous that it was Argon, a blood of the dragon, who was first to achieve eternal life. Something their flat-faced, silver-haired children had failed to attain, dooming half the continent in the process. Argon knew their true nature; why torment him alone, when they had forgiven their children? Why leave him alive in despair if they were merciful, when they granted simple death to their children who had coveted the same goal? And chaining him up in his own ruined home, it was no mercy. Not to Argon.
"You are as much of their blood as you are of mine, you foolish child. The blood of the children born of the Maiden of Light and the Lion of Night flows through your veins, just as the blood of dragons does. Valyria was our last attempt. You will never know how steep a price we three paid to bribe fate itself to lay the foundations and bless the Old Blood with enough so they could become a strong magic civilization."
The roar that followed made Argon's ears bleed and forced him to his knees. "Their anger toward you was righteous. Your mad pursuit cost us three more than your mortal mind could ever comprehend."
Argon did not answer. His sire never spoke lies—and Argon dared not risk losing the chance that had been given to him. "Lord Sire, you said you will bring back my brethren. Will they remember you raining fire upon them… or that it was I who caused the Doom?" he asked hesitantly.
The silence that followed was as tormenting as the ghosts of Valyria whispering curses in his ear. "They will not. They will only remember the Fourteen Fires erupting and dooming them to the afterlife," came the reply, bringing Argon a sigh of relief.
"My family, Sire? Would the Belaerys family know…?"
"They are no exception. They will mourn your death but not recall how it happened or what caused it."
"I am grateful for your mercy, Lord Sire. Truly, I am."
"It is not us you should thank. You know whom to thank. Even now, with their sliver of power, they used to curse you to these torment—I am using that very energy to bring back Valyria sooner than I could with my power alone."
Argon looked at the black-silver thread that seemed to dim with every passing moment. "I… I give my gratitude to them as well, Sire," he said half-heartedly. Why must his sire mention their aid? "But why, Sire? I know your power; you are far stronger than they are. Why do you need their energy to restore Valyria?" His sire is the strongest; he has seen it for a brief moment when he breached the veil that separates the plane of the Gods from mortals and saw the full breadth of his sire's power.
"Because we are not of this world, Argon. You already know this. They were born here—the first and among the oldest. The only ones who survived the Great War. We, on the other side, are outsiders and cannot fully manifest ourselves in the plane these gods occupy, lest our presence alone destroy it. That limits the amount of power we have access to."
As his sire withdrew their hand, the connection snapped. The thread was gone, and Argon already felt weakness seeping through his being.
"May I at least witness it, Sire? As you bring Valyria back to life?" he asked. He wanted to close his eyes looking upon Valyria as it once was—his home—not this desolation that had tormented him for centuries.
"Sadly, you cannot, Argon. It will be a moonturn before Valyria breathes again." Argon closed his eyes in sorrow, accepting his fate with quiet despair, ready for the end. "But if you wish, you may watch as I warn the last remnant of Valyria still alive on the mortal plane of its return. Do you wish that, my child?"
"Yes, Lord Sire," Argon replied with a nod.
Moments later, silhouettes took shape before his vision. Argon looked down at himself—he had no body. He was not alive. This was a realm of dream, and he was in a vision shaped by his sire's power.
He turned his gaze upon the figures becoming clearer—the Targaryens. Because who else could it be? One of the weakest of the Forty. The one who exiled themselves. His mother's house. His father had been ridiculed—though never to his face—for choosing a Targaryen bride. None dared insult Lord Belaerys openly, yet whispers filled the halls behind his back that he had made a mistake. But his father always believed that even if the Targaryens were the weakest and one of the recent to be counted among the dragonlords—through the mingling of Rhaegor blood—they were still special. Argon had never understood what his father saw in them, but he had been grateful when his father named him heir to House Belaerys, perhaps for that same unseen reason.
There were several members of House Targaryen before him, clad in clothing that reminded him of Westerosi merchants who once came to Valyria. "Have they not returned to Essos, Sire?" Argon asked.
"No, they remained on the outpost that Valyria built in the West and launched their conquest from there. They now rule that continent," came the reply that echoed in his mind.
Argon nodded in approval. At least the blood of dragons still ran true in them. Conquest and ruling were their birthright.
His brow furrowed when he noticed four other figures standing beside the Targaryens—clad not in black and red, but in silver and sea-blue, with a seahorse stitched upon their garments. Who were they? Why were they here? Argon tried to recall if there had ever been another dragonlord house that escaped the Doom and preferred seahorses over dragons, but none came to mind.
"They are Velaryons, a family of the Old Blood," his sire's voice murmured once again in his mind.
Ah! The sea lovers—how could Argon forget them? The only house of the Old Blood that had lost the gift of bonding with dragons. Some said it was because they loved the sea too much, that there was too much sea and salt in their veins, and not enough fire and blood—as there should be in those born of the Dragon's line.
"Why are they here, Sire? Haven't they lost their ability to tame dragons long ago? And if I remember right, the Velaryons who went to Westeros were led by the fourth son of the Lord Freehold of Velaryon, a man who was to inherit nothing but a few ships he took with him to that barren island, Driftmark," Argon said, his tone puzzled.
"Yes," his sire replied, "but they have recently been reinstated to their dragonlord status. The woman you see there, the one with black hair, is a Targaryen. After she married a Velaryon, their children gained the ability the Velaryons lost a thousand years ago."
"An interesting development, I must say. There has never been such a case…" Argon trailed off abruptly as one of the Velaryons—the one with striking blue eyes—turned and looked directly toward him.
At first, Argon thought it a mere coincidence, until the Velaryon tilted his head slightly, eyes narrowing in confusion as they lingered on Argon's ancient Valyrian attire.
Here we go!
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