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123 AC, Valyria
The dragon was flying ahead, ready to roast them or eat them, and Helaena's every instinct told her to run, and yet the Potters looked still, completely unfazed. Lord Harry even raised an eyebrow, the small glint of mischievousness appearing in his eyes once more, "Well, isn't that interesting?"
Helaena couldn't help but stare upwards as the dragon prepared to roast them alive; the only thing that stopped it from becoming a certainty was the sorcerer's reaction to the wild beast. She didn't dare speak up and ask Lord Harry about what he had seen that was interesting, or how they would survive this. Lady Daphne had simply put a comforting hand on her shoulder and given her a confident smile that relaxed the young princess.
Then, as she expected, the dragon released a jet of flames that could have likely burned the entire Red Keep to cinders in seconds at most, given the size of the Dragon. The flames were beautiful, even if they were coming right at her. They were dark crimson, a bit like the setting sun. They approached, and so did the heat. Helaena, despite it all, closed her eyes and thought of her children, her wonderful, beautiful children.
She hoped that they wouldn't be forced to play that cursed Game of Thrones. It had been one of her greatest dreams to see them happy, one that she had only gained after the Potters' arrival, which had scrambled the Fate that she had resigned herself to enduring.
In that moment, something cleared. The tapestry in her mind, the one that she was cursed with all her life, the one that Harry Potter had put at the back of her mind, appeared once more, but the usual pain and misery were not there. Instead, she saw a beautiful strand of Jaehaerys and Jaehaera running around a garden, happy and smiling, with two small dragons trotting behind them. They were safe and happy, and exactly what she wished they could have, a warm, small share of happiness.
Despite her imminent death, she felt a lone tear, a happy one, slowly fall down her cheek. If that was to be her children's fate, then she would happily burn for it. Helaena decided to dismiss the tapestry in her mind, choosing to enjoy the quiet before the dragon's flames took her.
Of course, the heat never came, and Helaena opened her eyes, only to see the fire warp around them, as if an invisible shield was protecting them.
Helaena cursed her idiocy. The was a reason why the Potters did not fear the royal family or their dragons, and this ability was likely a main contributor. She should have had more faith in them, even if everyone, even a Targaryen, would be resigned to dying if a dragon was preparing to set them aflame.
The dragon stopped its attack and tilted its head, as if confused by the entire affair, and Lord Harry pulled his hand down, and the beast seemingly fell with it. He looked at his wife, who waved her hands, and trees sprouted from the ground and bound the beast.
It tried to struggle, but somehow the trees held him. Magic again, she supposed.
Lord Harry spoke up to her softly, "Good job, Helaena."
The young princess tilted her head in confusion, and the man snickered at her reaction, "Not with the dragon. I don't quite think you can fight one just yet. You activated your 'Sight' on command and then dismissed it all on your own."
She blinked in realisation, "You saw that?"
"It was very beautiful, Helaena."
Helaena looked away, slightly embarrassed, before changing the subject slightly, "Does that mean that I can control it now?"
"Not really," Lord Harry replied, "My spell held your hand quite a lot with this. Imagine that I made a wall but left a small door. You have just learned to use the door. The end-goal is to be able to do the same without a wall at all, without me being involved, if you would."
The princess looked away as she realised that she wouldn't be free of her dreams just yet.
The sorcerer must have known what she was feeling; he knelt down and looked her in the eyes, "This is a big step forward, kiddo. A very big one. You should be proud. You even perceived a vision despite being in this place. Whatever happened here is messing with Time and Fate in a very interesting way, and it would stop any divination attempts. Of course, you didn't predict anything here, just side-stepped Valyria to look at your children, but that's still very impressive. I wasn't lying when I said that you were very talented at this."
"Thank you," she stated, ignoring the rant near the end, which she barely understood.
Lord Harry's expression turned back to being jovial, and he told her excitedly, "Now, let's see that Dragon, huh? I had a bit of a theory that I want to test."
Lady Daphne was waiting near the dragon, who was still thrashing in his wooden prison, "You sure took your time."
"Oh, nothing, we had a bit of a talk, that's all. Now, let's get a proper look at this beauty."
The four-winged beast looked at Lord Harry with a very wary expression, terrified even, but it calmed down when the man simply petted the beast. It was obviously still afraid, very much so, but it acted resigned and slightly confused at the sorcerer's actions.
As for the sorcerer, she could see him muttering to himself and keep shaking his head, conjuring glowing circles with odd symbols, before nodding, "It seems that I was right, and I was also wrong."
Lady Daphne raised an eyebrow at her husband's admission, "What were you wrong about? I'm very curious."
"From a quick look, I thought that Valyria fell through some kind of sacrificial ritual gone wrong, a few idiots shattering a ley line, which also activated the fourteen volcanoes around here. I assumed this, given how distorted our scans of the local ley lines were. The ley line's energy would have ended up being affected by the sheer misery of this place, the cruelty that the Valyrians displayed so casually, which caused a wide, corrupting event that could have caused mutations in the long run."
"That makes sense. Are you telling me that this didn't happen?"
The sorcerer shook his head, "This corruption is too much for just a couple of centuries. We've seen this effect for thousands of years, and it wasn't that pronounced. You remember that old Mayan tomb, where the sacrificial magic of a woman whose misery at her child's death as a human sacrifice ended up somehow connecting to a ley line and lingering for millennia, mutating the area around it. Even that wasn't anywhere close to what happened here."
"So, what did happen to cause the Doom?"
"I have no idea, but if I had to guess, it had to do with the connection to the White Walkers."
The golden-haired woman hummed in agreement, "I do admit that I had my doubts about this place as well. It feels wrong."
Helaena didn't really understand what they were talking about, but couldn't help but speak up, "What about the dragon? You said that you were right about something."
Lord Harry smiled at her, "I thought I might have been hopeful, but I now know for certain. That dragon doesn't have any corruption."
For the first time since she had ever met the woman, Lady Daphne's jaw dropped, and she started waving her arms and muttering, "How is this possible? It has four wings for god's sake."
"It does, and I have no idea how that happened. My best guess would be that its egg was already predisposed to it, like a small error down the line that happened by chance as an aberration of the Dragons' initial flesh-crafting. If you take a closer look, you'll notice that the wounds aren't because of some disfigurements but from battle. This poor thing has been fighting all of its life, trying to survive."
Helaena couldn't help but pity the dragon before her. She couldn't imagine surviving in such a place alone for so long, constantly fighting for her life against monsters who could swallow her whole, a plague of Greyscale that seemed to even infect dragons, given what she had seen in the Smoking Sea, never seeing the sun in her life.
She stared at the restrained beast, her voice soft, "Are you going to hurt it?"
Lord Harry shook his head. "No. We're going to release it. A creature that large surviving here without corruption? That means it has a sanctuary. A nest. Somewhere in Valyria, where the corruption can't reach. It'll go there now that it's been threatened."
Lady Daphne stepped forward, her hands weaving a short gesture. The wooden chains binding the dragon retracted into the ground like roots being pulled, vanishing completely.
The dragon hesitated for a second, then spread its wings, two main ones, and a second, smaller pair underneath. It looked down at them one last time before launching into the air. The gust of wind from the beat of its wings forced Helaena to step back. It gained altitude quickly, turned once in the air as if memorising the area, and then flew off towards one of the volcanoes on the other side of the ruined city.
Lord Harry stared at the distance for a few minutes, and she turned towards his wife with confusion on her face, "What is he doing?"
"Waiting for that Dragon to land in what it would consider safety. It shouldn't take long."
Helaena stayed silent and instead decided to stare at what remained of her ancestral lands. Her father was so proud of this place, of this legacy, and all she could see were ruins and horror. She wished to know what might have happened, what could have turned a prosperous city into such a horror so quickly. It felt almost impossible.
Her eyes widened as something flashed so quickly in the back of her head that she froze in her tracks. She saw something crack her father's marble model of Valyria in two, like a blade of shadow, and a horrible laughter echoing faintly in her mind.
She blinked, and it disappeared. The young princess shook her head, but noticed that Lord Harry had turned and given her a serious look. He'd definitely noticed something, but Helaena could barely remember most of what she had seen, just the horror and the laughter.
It was likely just a trick anyway. Lord Harry had said that having visions of what happened was impossible. Whatever serious look he had morphed back into his normal jovial self, "The dragon landed near one of the nearby volcanoes. It seems we need to get back to the boat and sail there."
"Couldn't we finish exploring Valyria itself?" Helaena couldn't help but ask.
"Maybe. But I'll feel a lot more comfortable if I can mimic whatever protections are in this volcano, or if I can remove the corruption altogether. This is a lot more dangerous than I expected to see here."
She might be uninterested in many affairs of the court, but she had lived in King's Landing all her life. Helaena immediately knew that Lord Harry was rethinking bringing her with them, and perhaps even considering sending her away.
Something inside of her absolutely refused that, "I need to be there with you until the end."
Her voice was slightly gravelly, and Lord Harry's eyes widened slightly before rolling his eyes, "You've barely had a single lesson, kid. You're hardly an expert with your Sight. But fine, I'll take you to the Volcano. The journey should be safe enough. We'll see about the rest of the expedition afterwards."
Helaena nodded appreciatively and followed him as they all made their way back to their bloat. As Lord Harry stated, there weren't any attacks during their sailing there. Lord Harry had done his trick to hide them from what was underneath the Smoking Sea and was protecting them from the cursed fog.
It took a few minutes at most, but Lord Harry stopped in front of a massive volcano. If anything, calling it massive might have been an understatement. Alas, there was no other word for it. The volcano ahead of them was larger than any they had seen so far. She couldn't even see its peak beyond the clouds, other than the orange light that seemed to peer through it, illuminating it, cutting through the greyness of Valyria somewhat.
Lord Harry stood still for a few seconds, then gestured for them to disembark. The moment his foot touched the ground, he smirked, "Well, this feels familiar, doesn't it?"
His wife nodded in agreement, "And no corruption…"
"Exactly, no corruption," he raised the wolf medallion that he had kept hidden when they arrived in Valyria, as it kept humming and almost shaking all of the time, yet this time, it stood completely still, "It seems we're in the right place."
They walked forward and saw a litany of caverns through the volcano. She could see some molten stone pouring through a few of them, but the Potters walked as if they had seen it before and through a specific cave.
The moment they had entered, the heat became unbearable, and Lady Daphne touched her shoulder, cooling everything off. She muttered faintly, "Be ready with that sword of yours."
Helaena gave the woman a hesitant look, "It didn't go well last time."
"This is different," Lord Harry replied without looking back at her.
And yes, she could feel that it was different. She wasn't even sure why, only that the fire in her veins felt hotter, and there was a faint sense of belonging. Of course, she did not have the time to think of it, as the ground rumbled, almost making her trip while holding her unsheathed sword.
The ground shook again, more violently this time. A loud crack echoed from above as a massive shape broke through the rock near the ceiling. She immediately recognised it for what it was, a Firewyrm, only this one was not corrupted and was far larger. It also melted the stone around it as it slithered and breathed fire, similarly to a dragon.
Thankfully, Lord Harry immediately stopped the incoming flames with a magical barrier and waved his hand. The giant creature stopped in mid-air, as if frozen by time, before slowly being overrun by frost from somewhere else and falling down, shattering into pieces.
The moment it hit the ground, dozens, perhaps even hundreds of similar creatures crawled out of the ground, attacking them. One of them got close and Helaena blindly swung her sword, cutting the creature down. She froze and stared at her hands and weapon in shock, but thankfully, Lady Daphne created spikes of ice, impaling every creature in sight, killing them all. The tunnel went silent.
Helaena stayed quiet, catching her breath, with Lord Harry giving her an understanding gaze, "I suppose that this was your first kill. Even if it's not human, it's hard to take a life. You should hang onto that feeling. It should always be hard. The moment you get used to it, you can never go back."
The young princess nodded and was tempted to ask if he had gotten used to it as well, but restrained herself. Something in the man's eyes stopped her. There was a hardness in him, despite all of the kindness. After all, how can someone be kind if they weren't capable of cruelty and chose otherwise?
As if he had read her thoughts, Lord Harry gave her a sad smile and walked forward, with her and his wife following after them.
They kept walking, deeper into the volcano. The path turned narrow, the walls closer. That was when she noticed the chains. They weren't made of Valyrian Steel, but it looked blackened for some reason, in a way that she had never seen before. They ran up the walls and across the ceiling. Lady Daphne let out a mutter, "Dragonsteel chains. They had Dragonsteel available, but still chose to sacrifice people to create Valyrian Steel."
The woman looked at the walls of the tunnel, and Helaena saw a smattering of similar black ore across it, which she had confused with Dragonglass when they first entered.
Lord Harry, on the other hand, didn't speak. His gaze was neutral as he walked forward, observing everything he could without saying a single word. Then something emerged from the other side of the wall, vaguely human-shaped beings made of Fire and Vapour, releasing a hiss as they tried to skewer them with their claws, only for them to dissipate into nothing as they approached. He hadn't even moved a muscle, but they were just gone, like that.
Finally, they reached a dead end. A massive black wall blocked their way, too smooth and uniform to be natural. It wasn't rock, not in the way the rest of the tunnel had been. There were no seams, no signs of wear. It simply existed, like a sealed door without hinges or edges.
Lord Harry stepped forward and stared at it for a few seconds. He didn't speak. He raised his hand and pressed it against the surface.
Nothing happened.
Then, slowly, the wall began to ripple. The solid mass shifted, liquefying under his touch. It flowed backwards without sound, retreating along the walls like water crawling uphill, until the path ahead was revealed.
A cavern stretched before them, wider than she ever thought possible. She would easily believe that someone could fit the entirety of King's Landing inside it. Looking up and around, she came to the sudden realisation that the inside of the volcano wasn't filled with stone. It was hollow. At the centre was a lake of molten stone large enough to drown a city.
But that wasn't what drew their attention.
It was the dragon.
It curled along the edges of the lava, its body coiled like a sleeping serpent. It was enormous, larger than any living thing Helaena had ever imagined, bigger than entire mountains.
When she took a closer look, she noticed that the dragon was also different. It shimmered faintly somehow, like it wasn't fully there. She didn't know how else to describe something like this. With every breath, its chest moved, and she could feel the cavern heat up despite Lady Daphne's magic.
However, while she was awestruck by the sight before her, Lord Harry hummed appreciably, "Well, that explains a lot and certainly raises a lot of questions too."
"At least it's not boring," his wife joked.
A mischievous smirk appeared back on his face, one that had been absent for most of the expedition. He tilted his weird brown hat and spoke up, "Yep, it's certainly interesting. Now, I think we spent enough time staring at the thing. How about we go say hello, huh?"
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AN: I didn't know whether to put this reveal at the start or the end of the Valyria Arc, but I decided that what comes next will be more interesting with the proper context of the lore and connect Valyria with the eggs found in Dragonstone and Skagos. Don't worry, we'll return to explore Valyria soon, and Helaena is slowly starting to be more involved. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
[---]
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.