Chapter 7: The Price of a Shadow
The news did not travel; it detonated. It was one thing for a Targaryen to claim a dragon. It was another thing entirely for a nine-year-old boy to not only survive an encounter with the three most fearsome dragons on the island but to bend the most monstrous of them to his will. The name "Aemon Targaryen" ceased to be that of the spare heir, the failed egg-hatcher. It became a whisper on the wind, a story told with a mixture of awe and fear. He who rode the Cannibal—Shadowwing—was not a prince to be trifled with.
But the bond was a double-edged sword. The Cannibal's mind was a constant, low roar in the back of my own. His hunger was my hunger, his rage a simmering coal in my gut. Sleep was fraught with visions of blood and scorched earth. The gentle touch of Laena felt distant, muted behind a wall of primal fury. The white light's gifts had allowed me to forge the bond, but they did not shield me from its cost. I wore my shadow like a second skin, and it was a heavy one.
It was this new, grim perspective that sharpened my vision for what came next. We had trade. We had a dragon of unimaginable power. But we lacked reach. We lacked a navy that was truly ours, not just leased through alliance with the Velaryons.
I retreated to the Stone Drum, not to the forges of scent and spirit, but to a new chamber: the design room. Scrolls of parchment were strewn across a large table, weighted down with chunks of dragonglass. Using the precise, analytical mind of my first life and the steady hands of my second, I began to draw.
I did not design mere cogs or galleys. I designed monsters.
The first was a warship I called the "Leviathan." It was longer, lower, and broader than any dromond, its hull sheathed in iron plates boiled in linseed oil for protection. Its prow was not a ram, but a fortified castle for archers and a mounted scorpion, designed to rake enemy decks before boarding. Below the waterline, the hull shape was altered for greater speed and stability, a concept from a world of naval architects that I alone understood.
The second was a new "Swift-Class" trader. It had a deeper hold, a narrower beam, and a revolutionary lateen sail rigging system that would allow it to sail closer to the wind, outrunning pirates and bad weather, delivering our goods faster than any competitor.
The designs were insane. Revolutionary. They would require shipwrights of unparalleled skill and vision.
"There is only one man on this side of the world who can build these," I said to Rhaenyra and Lord Corlys, unrolling the schematics before them in the Sea Snake's solar at High Tide.
Corlys's eyes, once skeptical, widened as he took in the details. He was a master of the sea. He saw it immediately—the sheer brutal efficiency of the Leviathan, the elegant speed of the Swift. "This... this is not possible. The balance, the hull strength..."
"It is possible," I said, my voice flat, still carrying the echo of Shadowwing's growl. "I have seen it. In my dreams." The lie was now a well-worn tool. "We need the best. We need the men of the Arbormaster Guild of White Harbor."
The North was famously insular, but the Arbormasters were legends, their techniques passed down through millennia. Getting them was the true challenge.
"And how do you propose we acquire them?" Corlys asked, intrigued but doubtful.
"We don't acquire them," I said, a cold plan having already formed in my mind. "We acquire their loyalty. And to do that, we need to acquire the North."
---
The key, I knew, was the Vale. And the key to the Vale was the young Lady Jeyne Arryn, a girl ruling a kingdom of mountains and stubborn lords from the Eyrie. My previous, clumsy attempts to foster goodwill through trade had been just that: clumsy. A child sending gifts to a child. It was time for a different approach.
I sent a letter. Not a trade proposal. A confession.
Lady Jeyne, I write to you not as a prince, but as a fellow soul trapped by the expectations of others. They see a title. They do not see the weight of it. I am told you feel this weight every day. I understand isolation. I am surrounded by people yet accompanied only by a dragon whose mind is a storm of rage. Perhaps you understand what it is to be alone in a high place. I seek not an alliance, but counsel. How does one rule when others only see one's youth? Yours, Aemon Targaryen
It was a gamble. A calculated exposure of vulnerability. I was not the fearsome dragonrider in this letter. I was a boy, just as she was a girl. It was the only thing I could offer that no one else could: genuine understanding.
Weeks later, a reply came, carried by a lone, hardy Vale rider.
Prince Aemon, Your letter was... unexpected. The weight is indeed heavy. They listen to my words, but their eyes are always on my uncle, waiting for him to contradict me. To rule, you must make them forget your age. You must act with such certainty that they are forced to see the ruler, not the child. It is exhausting. Your dragon sounds a fearsome companion. I should like to see him one day. Jeyne Arryn
It was a start. A crack in the ice. A correspondence born not of politics, but of shared loneliness. It was the deepest connection I had yet forged, and it was with a girl I had never met.
---
Back on Dragonstone, the fruits of my other labors were beginning to ripen. The first batch of orphans, now teenagers, had been transformed. The clever ones managed ledgers and trade routes with a fierce loyalty that no hired merchant could ever match. The strong ones had become the core of my personal guard, the "Dragon's Teeth," drilled in the ruthless, efficient combat I had designed. They were shadows, moving with a discipline that unnerved the traditional knights of the household.
Yohanna was the maestro, conducting this symphony of ambition. She stood in the bustling harbor, directing the unloading of grain for the distilleries and the loading of finished goods onto Velaryon ships. She was the public face of our empire, her authority unquestioned.
And I stood in the shadows of the keep, watching it all. The dragonrider. The designer. The strategist. The boy who had traded his childhood for a crown his sister would wear, paid for with gold, steel, and the shadow of a monster that now slept in the volcano, its mind forever tethered to mine.
The pieces were moving. The North was in play through the Vale. The navy was a dream on parchment, soon to be made real. And the world was beginning to learn that the greatest threat from Dragonstone was not just a dragon's fire, but the cold, calculating mind of the boy who commanded it.