The wind howling through the Stepstones tasted of salt and iron, flaying the skin like a thousand ice-cold razors.
Daemon Blackfyre adjusted his fresh cloak and leather pauldrons, his knuckles turning stark white as he gripped the reins against the biting chill. He rode The Cannibal low over the swell, the black dragon's wings beating a heavy, muffled rhythm against the air.
Sea spray kicked up by their passage froze instantly on his black armor, sliding down the dark steel like tears before pooling on the scabbard of the sword Blackfyre.
Grey Ghost shadowed them closely. The pale dragon was slender compared to the hulking nightmare that was The Cannibal, but his wings cut the air with a dancer's grace. Every few seconds, the smaller dragon spat a controlled burst of flame, searing a bright, temporary marker into the heavy fog.
It was a navigational trick learned from the Sea Snake himself—using the residual heat of dragonfire to chart a path through the blinding mist, marking the projected escape routes of the Dornish scouts.
Grey Ghost took to the task with focused intensity, dipping low to let the embers hiss against the water, drawing a line of fire and steam through the treacherous, reef-choked labyrinth.
"Your Highness! Three fast-galleys, dead ahead!"
Rayford Rosby's voice cut through the drone of the wind, sharp but controlled.
Daemon looked down. The Golden Sheaf, a sturdy Reachman supply hauler painted with the Tyrell rose, was plowing steadily through the chop. On the foredeck, Rayford braced himself against the roll of the sea, a brass spyglass pressed to his eye. His free hand rested on the pommel of his sword.
Behind him stood Mace Florent and Lucas Tyrell, two highborn scions of the Reach, their new mail coats gleaming wetly in the mist.
Daemon followed Rayford's pointing finger. Three grey-painted ships were threading the needle through the reefs, approaching fast. Their hulls were long and narrow, drawing almost no water—vessels built for speed and shallow ambush.
The Martell sun-and-spear on their sails was barely visible through the gloom, the gold thread tarnished by the grey dampness. But the threat was clear enough: archers lined the rails, black bows drawn taut, arrowheads glinting with the oily purple sheen of poison.
"Cannibal. Burn the canvas."
The command was spoken softly, but the black dragon heard.
The Cannibal climbed, banking hard, and unleashed a cascade of night-dark fire. The stream hit the lead ship's sail like a physical blow. The canvas vanished in a roar of flame, ash scattering on the wind.
Robbed of propulsion, the Dornish galley spun wildly, the current slamming it broadside into a submerged rock with a sickening crunch. Soldiers on deck scrambled, panic breaking their formation.
Grey Ghost dove into the chaos. The small dragon hooked his talons into the gunwale, pivoting to breathe a precise jet of fire onto the rudder assembly. The wood blackened and cracked.
Several sailors, realizing their ship was dead in the water, leaped over the rail.
"Now!" Rayford shouted from the supply ship.
Heavy fishing nets, weighted with lead, were cast from the Golden Sheaf. The Dornishmen thrashing in the freezing water were entangled instantly, dragged toward the supply ship like a haul of tuna.
Just then, a piercing, high-pitched shriek tore the air from the west.
Caraxes.
Unlike The Cannibal's low rumble or Grey Ghost's chirps, the Blood Wyrm's roar sounded like tearing metal.
Daemon's head snapped around. A lance of scarlet fire erupted from a dense bank of fog, illuminating the silhouette of a massive iron-clad vessel.
It was three times the size of the Dornish skiffs, armored in heavy black plates and sporting a vicious iron ram. But it was the banner snapping from the mast that made Daemon's blood run cold: the Three-Headed Chain. The Triarchy.
Daemon scowled. The intelligence reports had been wrong. Obara Sand was supposed to have five thousand spears, all Dornish. But these weren't Dornish ships. The decks were packed with soldiers in the garish purple-and-green armor of Tyrosh, wielding heavy Myrish crossbows loaded with barbed steel bolts.
It's a trap.
He patted The Cannibal's neck, urging the dragon lower to get a better look.
"Little Daemon! Wake up!"
The Rogue Prince's voice carried over the wind, thick with adrenaline and fury. Daemon Targaryen hovered Caraxes above the ironclad, the red dragon tearing the mainmast into splinters with his claws.
The Rogue Prince vaulted onto the enemy deck, Dark Sister a blur of silver death as he carved through a mercenary.
"I grabbed a tongue!" he shouted, kicking a corpse aside. "The Dornish are barely here! Obara Sand sent three ships as bait! The real force is the Triarchy remnants and the sellswords! It's a double-cross!"
Daemon's eyes narrowed. He signaled The Cannibal into a dive.
Black fire washed over the iron plating of the nearest Triarchy ship. The metal glowed cherry-red, hissing violently. Tyroshi mercenaries screamed as the heat cooked them inside their armor. Those who dove overboard found no sanctuary; the white-hulled Velaryon ships were already closing in, long hooks extending to drag the survivors out of the sea.
From the crow's nest of the Sea Snake, Corlys Velaryon watched the chaos through his spyglass.
"More contacts to the north!" he bellowed. "Twenty sails! Pirate markings!"
Skeleton flags fluttered in the distance—the remnants of the pirate fleets the Triarchy had absorbed. They were circling the reefs, looking to flank the supply convoy.
"Rayford!" Daemon shouted down to the Golden Sheaf. "Get the convoy to the eastern defensive line! Move!"
"Hard a-starboard!" Rayford screamed, his voice cracking. "Get us to the Celtigar line! Now!"
The supply ships heaved as they turned, narrowly avoiding the encroaching pirate vessels.
"Lord Corlys!" Daemon commanded, his voice projecting with the unnatural amplification of a dragonrider. "Take the silver ships and screen the flank! Big Daemon, take the Westerlands contingent and crush the mercenaries! I'll take the dragons and strip these iron-hulls to the water! We need prisoners—alive!"
"Run up the colors!" Corlys ordered calmly. "Ramming speed!"
The silver seahorse banners of House Velaryon snapped up. The elegant white ships surged forward, their bronze rams smashing into the clumsy pirate vessels with the force of a hammer blow.
Daemon Targaryen was already in the thick of it. He landed on a mercenary galley, laughing as he fought.
"You Tyroshi peacocks!" he taunted, ducking a clumsy swing and running a man through. "You spend so much coin on hair dye, you forgot to buy decent steel!"
Above him, Daemon Blackfyre guided The Cannibal into a strafing run. The black dragon slammed into an ironclad, tilting the massive ship on its side. Daemon leaped from the saddle, Blackfyre singing as it cleared the scabbard.
He landed amidst a cluster of mercenaries. The Valyrian steel sheared through a spear shaft and the man holding it in a single motion.
"You die for coin?" Daemon sneered, kicking a bag of Tyroshi gold that spilled from a dead man's tunic.
Grey Ghost, small but nimble, darted to the stern of another ship. He melted the winch mechanism of the primary scorpion battery, rendering the massive weapon useless. The dragon then snatched a piece of burning debris and flung it onto the deck of a third ship, sowing panic.
The battle was brutal and short.
The Velaryon fleet, disciplined and precise, tore the pirate rabble apart. The Redwyne archers rained green-fletched death from the flanks, while the Manderly ships smashed through the formation like battering rams.
An hour later, the sea was a graveyard of timber and bodies.
Daemon stood on the deck of the Blackfyre, watching the smoke drift over the water. The prisoners were mostly Tyroshi and Myrish, with only a handful of Dornish sailors among them.
He picked up a bloodstained coin from the deck. It was stamped with the Tyroshi tower.
"They played us," Daemon muttered. "And they played their allies."
"Obara Sand used her own men as worms on a hook," Corlys said, stepping over a pile of debris. He held a crumpled letter. "The Archon of Tyrosh promised these fools triple pay and three days of looting in the Stormlands. He didn't know he was just a pawn for the Sand Snakes to bleed us."
"I interrogated the Dornish captain," the Rogue Prince said, wiping Dark Sister with a rag. "Obara isn't even in the Stepstones. She sent this suicide squad to fix us in place while she moves elsewhere."
Rayford approached, looking exhausted but relieved. "The convoy is safe, Your Highness. We're moving the grain to Bloodstone under heavy guard."
Daemon nodded, his hand drifting to the charm in his tunic. The dragon scale felt warm against his chest.
"The Triarchy and the Dornish are coordinating better than we thought," Daemon said, his voice grim. "We need to tighten the net between Grey Gallows and Bloodstone. If they can assemble a fleet this size without us knowing, we're blind."
A deep, resonant roar shook the sky.
Vhagar.
Prince Baelon descended on the bronze beast, the wind from her wings flattening the whitecaps.
"Well done, lads," the Spring Prince's voice boomed. "I've sent word to King's Landing for reinforcements. We won't let these vipers strangle our supply lines."
Daemon looked up at the massive dragon, then back to the sunset bleeding across the western horizon. The water was gold and red, beautiful and terrible.
He felt a surge of resolve. They had held the line.
But as the sun dipped lower, a nagging thought tugged at the back of Daemon's mind. He looked at the empty horizon, the dying light reflecting in his violet eyes.
He couldn't shake the feeling that he was forgetting something. Something vital.