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Location: Hidden Chamber beneath Dragonstone
Date: 13 BC
POV: Aegon Targaryen
I leaned against the dragon's skull, letting the cold bone press against my back. Time had worn it smooth—centuries of salt and soot had polished it until it gleamed in the torchlight like fossilized ivory. We had claimed this forgotten vault as our own, a place hidden beneath the Dragonmont where blades whispered truth and fire lingered in the walls.
The skull loomed above me, its hollow sockets staring forward like the empty eyes of fate.
I watched my sisters move across the stone floor.
Visenya struck like lightning, her blade an extension of her will. Each attack flowed into the next—forceful, sharp, relentless. She was fire personified, but not chaotic. No, there was method in her fury. Her style had shifted lately; I saw pieces of Orys in her—his crashing offense, his refusal to yield. But she'd shaped it with discipline, with control. A little of me had crept into her too—positioning, timing, the eye for an opening. Fire, yes—but fire with a blade's edge.
Orys fought like the storms off Driftmark—loud, merciless, and impossible to ignore. He didn't wait for his opponents to act. He broke their rhythm before it began, blew through their defenses like wind through rotted wood. If they pressed, he overwhelmed. If they held back, he shattered them.
Me? I was something else entirely. Not a storm. Not a blaze.
I was wildfire.
Unpredictable. Unrelenting. I didn't rely on sheer strength—I waited. I watched. I let my enemies give me their weaknesses, then struck like a falling star when they least expected it. Where Orys made openings, I exploited them. His strength was in overwhelming. Mine was in inevitability.
A loud crack snapped me out of thought.
Wood struck wood, and Rhaenys danced away, laughing. Her silver braid whipped behind her like a comet's tail as she ducked another strike from Visenya. She turned, twisted, then tapped the tip of her wooden blade against Visenya's ribs with a triumphant smile.
"Point," she said, light as air.
I tilted my head. She was smaller, younger—but fast. Graceful. Where Visenya was fire, Rhaenys was water—fluid, patient, and clever. She didn't oppose strength directly. She bent around it, waited for imbalance, then struck like a hidden viper.
She had talent—raw, blooming talent. That much was clear.
But her heart wasn't in it.
She didn't love the blade the way Visenya did. Or the way I did. Her passions lay in the library, in the solar, by our mother's side. She learned languages with ease. She recited lineages for sport. She could charm the teeth out of a snake if she tried hard enough.
A dangerous talent in its own way.
"Your footwork's improving," I said, stepping forward and crossing my arms.
Rhaenys beamed at me. "Because I imagine the floor is lava and Visenya is a grumpy dragon."
Visenya shot her a withering look. "Grumpy?"
I couldn't help the chuckle that escaped me. A ghost of a smile touched my lips as I watched the two of them bicker like storm and breeze.
This. These quiet moments beneath the weight of a dragon's skull—these were the moments I'd remember. The world didn't know it yet, but it would come to know our names. The three of us would change the shape of history.
Soon.
The bout ended, and laughter echoed off the stone. Rhaenys skipped ahead to collect her tunic. Visenya muttered something about "lessons at dawn" as she wiped sweat from her brow and followed.
But I stayed behind.
I pressed my palm against the dragon's horn. Cold. Immovable. The silence returned, and with it, the thought I could never quite banish.
Soon, I told myself. Soon, we will take to the skies.
Balerion. Vhagar. Meraxes.
The last of the great Valyrian beasts. The final children of the Freehold. One day, the three of us would ride them. One day, we'd cross the Narrow Sea not as exiles, but as conquerors. One day, kings would kneel, and the world would burn—or rise—by our will alone.
But that day hadn't come.
Not yet.
For all I knew—all the glimpses of what was to come, the truths whispered in dreams, the visions like fading echoes—so much remained uncertain. The shape of the future was mine to walk… but the steps were still hidden in shadow.
How?
When?
How would I claim Balerion?
He was beneath me now. Sleeping. Dreaming fire. The Black Dread. The largest of them all. A creature older than the Doom itself. A beast that had seen Valyria—truly seen it—and lived.
No gate guarded him. No rite forbade me. Claiming a dragon wasn't ceremony. It was bond. It was blood. It was will.
And I had all three.
I watched my sisters go, their laughter fading up the winding corridor toward their chambers. I turned, slowly, toward the stair at the far end of the room. The one that led deeper. Lower. Into the fire.
Toward Balerion.
Why not now?
What was I waiting for?
Tradition? There was none. No scroll in the Citadel. No chant from the Seven. No rite passed from tongue to tongue. Just this: if you stepped before the beast, and the beast accepted you, you rode. If not… you died.
That was the only law.
The blood of Old Valyria ran strong in us. Stronger than most. Kept pure by fire and intent. It was why our people married blood to blood. Not out of love—but to preserve the gift. To bind dragons to flesh. Let it thin, and the gift faded—or worse, spread.
I took a slow breath. The air here was heavy with dust and the ghosts of flame.
The future was calling. And I could feel its weight pressing into my ribs like a drawn sword.
I stepped toward the stair.
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The stair spiraled downward, carved from black stone veined with red. Each step echoed beneath Aegon's boots, a soft drumbeat in the silence of the mountain. The torches lining the walls flickered low, their flames dancing like whispers of old Valyria.
Night cloaked the world above, but down here, time felt suspended—held in the breath of fire and shadow.
"No one will be there," Visenya had said once, her voice low and certain. "Not at night. Not unless they're mad."
Maybe he was.
But madness and destiny often shared a face.
He walked the same path his family had taken years ago, when he was barely old enough to stand. He remembered the heat, the smell of sulfur, the way the walls pulsed like veins. He remembered the dragons—Vhagar's restless wings, Meraxes' golden eyes.
And he remembered him.
Balerion one day known to the world as the black dread.
Even then, something had passed between them. A moment. A breath. A recognition.
Aegon had felt it like a spark in his blood. Not fear. Not awe.
But a Bond.
Now, the air grew heavier. The heat pressed against his skin like a second cloak. The torches thinned. The silence deepened.
He reached the final archway—the one carved like open jaws, fangs etched into the stone. Beyond it lay the cavern. The hollow heart of the Dragonmount.
He stepped through.
The chamber was vast, cathedral-like, lit only by the molten veins that ran through the walls. Shadows danced across the stone, flickering like ghosts. The air shimmered with heat, and the silence was so complete it rang in his ears.
The first I found was Vhagar the she dragon lay curled next to a vent that seemed to emit heat i could see the distortion caused in the air.
Meraxes was next but she wasn't with Balerion this time but curled into herself like a snake or cat while sleeping.
But for a second I saw her eyes open her golden eyes landed on me for a heartbeat I stared into them until she closed her eyes once again.
I didn't hesitate to keep going deeper into the Dragonmount and then I saw him.
Balerion.
He lay curled like the others in the far recess of the cavern, a mountain of black scales and slumbering power. His wings were folded like cloaks of night, his tail coiled around him like a fortress wall. His breath came slow and deep, each exhale a gust of heat that stirred the dust.
I stepped forward.
No guards. No keepers. No chants. Just me and the beast.
The dragon's head shifted slightly. Not much. Just enough to let Aegon know he was sensed.
Aegon stopped a dozen paces away. His heart thundered. His mouth was dry.
I stood tall my body still not in fear but in anticipation.
"I am Aegon," I spoke softly in Valyrian. "Son of Aerion. Blood of Valyria. Born of stars."
The Balerion did not move.
"I do not come to tame you," I said. "I come to find a partner one with fire like my own."
The silence stretched.
Then movement.
Balerion's head lifted, slow and deliberate. His eyes opened.
Red. Deep. A Endless fire.
They locked onto Me.
And the world held its breath.
Aegon felt it again—that spark. That pull. Like a thread of hot silk winding through his veins. His vision blurred. His thoughts scattered. He saw cities burning. Thrones crumbling. Wings blotting out the sun.
He saw himself—older, armored, crowned his siblings by his side standing over the world.
Balerion behind me its wings incumpusing us.
The dragon exhaled, a low rumble that shook the cavern.
Then he lowered his head his eyes never leaving mine.
I stepped forward, slowly, until I stood beside the beast. I reached out, hand trembling, and placed it against the dragon's snout.
Warmth. Power. Acceptance.
The bond was made but not strong it was a new thread weak but with each breath it grew stronger.
But I knew how to make it stronger right now as I stared at the saddle attached to Balerions back.
I smiled and I felt Balerion growl and somehow knew he was waiting.
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