The first thing I remembered was fire.
Not pain, not heat that seared flesh, but fire in the sense of weightless warmth—like drifting in sunlight after years of shadow. I had died once, though the memory of it slipped in fragments. Lights. A world that was not this one. Cold machines whispering in tones I no longer understood. Then nothing.
And then, the cry of my new lungs.
I was born to stone walls, banners of bronze and black, and women who smelled of herbs and steel.
Runestone—ancestral seat of House Royce. My mother's cries had echoed through those ancient halls for hours before I came squalling into the world, her hair plastered to her brow, her face pale, yet her grey Royce eyes sharp with defiance.
The midwife declared me healthy, though small.
My father was not there to greet me.
Daemon Targaryen—Rogue Prince, rider of Caraxes, scourge of Stepstones—was no man to linger in the Vale longer than duty forced him. He had wed Lady Rhea Royce under his brother's command, but it was no love-match. Even in my infant sleep, some part of me understood that I was, if not unwanted, then at least unexpected.
But I did not need his presence to know who I was. I remembered.
This was Westeros. The Seven Kingdoms. The Song of Ice and Fire.
And I was no longer just a watcher of tales—I was within them.
Two days after my birth, they placed the egg in my cradle.
It was Daemon who'd ordered it, though he did not linger. His child, after all, bore both Royce blood and the blood of Old Valyria. By custom, the egg was set beside me beneath silken cloth. My mother had not protested, but I caught—in fragments of overheard voices in the months to follow—her suspicion, her distaste for the "dragon madness" she now found in her home.
But the egg was mine.
It was silver-gray, laced with veins of white so pale they shimmered against the firelight. And when I cried, it pulsed faintly—like a heart answering my wails.
It did not take years. Not even months.
On the seventh night after my birth, in the quiet of the chamber, the egg split with a sound like steel tearing. The wet hiss that followed silenced even my mother's guardswoman, stationed as nurse.
A creature tumbled out hatchling-small, claws scraping the blanket, wings damp and trembling. Scales like moonlit water. Eyes a raw molten gold.
It screeched—high, demanding—and turned to me, not to the fire, not to the cup of warmed goat's blood left burning, but to me.
In that instant, I felt it.
A rush of power, like a second heartbeat surging inside my chest. My mind sharpened, expanded. Thoughts that should have belonged to a mewling newborn arranged themselves into reason and purpose. My limbs tingled with strength too mature for their size.
We were bound.
Memory in FleshThe maesters whispered of miracles. The guards swore oaths of silence. Daemon was informed, but he was in King's Landing by then and cared little for the Vale's mutterings. My mother, though…
She looked at the hatchling dragon with both awe and bitterness. Lady Rhea had never been a meek woman; heir of Runestone, hunter, rider, sharper with a spear than most knights. To her kin, the birth of a dragon in her hall was no blessing—it was a threat.
"You will not call him to court," I heard her say suddenly, months later, while I toddled unsteadily to the hearth.
"He will not be Rhaenyra's rival, nor a pawn in the games of men who dream of crowns."
There was steel in her tone. And though I was small, though I played the part of child, I understood: she meant to shield me from my father's world.
And I, with memories of lifetimes past, was glad of it.
I wanted no throne. No crown. In fire and blood, kings were born and destroyed. I had no wish to die upon the knives of history.
But I would not be weak.
The dragon grew quickly. Within a year, he was the size of a large hound. The Royce hounds kept to corners when he entered. Servants whispered of ill omens, though secretly they bowed their heads when they thought me unseeing. For dragons were magnificent, and men—even the most devout First Men of the Vale—could not look upon one without awe.
I named him Aereryth. The sound came to my lips naturally, half memory, half invention of this new tongue. My mother allowed it, though she rarely spoke the name. To her he was always the creature.
But he was my other half.
Through him, I grew. My body strengthened faster than any child's. My thoughts sharpened; I learned to speak, to read, to reason at a pace that left my nurse pale with superstition. At times when Aereryth settled upon my lap, warmth coursed through me, and I felt the world more vivid: colors brighter, sounds clearer, knowledge easier to grasp.
Five times stronger, five times sharper—that was the gift of our bond.
And I swore to use it well.
By the time Rhaenyra Targaryen had grown from infant to precocious girl, I had passed my second nameday. Old enough to walk Runestone's halls, old enough to sit quietly when my mother heard petitions, old enough to feign innocence while plotting futures.
I would not scheme for Iron Thrones.
Instead, my gaze fell on the Vale itself.
Its mountains were proud, its fields fertile yet stubborn, its people resilient. But they clung to old ways—bronze-forged stubbornness, slow to change. With what knowledge I carried within me, and the gifts of Aereryth beside me, I could shape this land into a power to rival even Harrenhal's shadow.
Clearer glass. Stronger ships. Wine and spirits distilled. Tools that would raise yields from rocky fields.
Not conquest. Not ambition clad in steel.
But prosperity. Innovation. A power rooted deeper than thrones.
The Dance of Dragons would come—I remembered that much from story and rumor. Blood and fire would consume my kin. Thrones would shift beneath corpses.
And through it all, the Vale—the Dragon of the Vale—would endure.
That was the vow I made in silence, as Aereryth curled about me in sleep, his breath warm as a smithy's forge.
And for the first time in two lifetimes, I knew purpose not as a dream, but as destiny