The Skies Above Dragonstone.
"Aemond! I can't hold on!" Aegon roared in despair.
"Sunfyre can't fly anymore! His right wing is failing! We're... we're going to fall!"
Aemond glanced back.
Sunfyre was indeed losing altitude. Every beat of the golden dragon's wings was a visible struggle, raining down a thick mist of blood.
His once-regal golden body was now a canvas of claw marks and charred burns. Aegon clung to the saddle, his face as pale as parchment.
In a few minutes, under this relentless pressure, Sunfyre would lose all lift and crash into the jagged black cliffs of the coast, or be torn apart by Silverwing and Grey Ghost.
And here...
The struggle between Vhagar and Vermithor had reached a brutal war of attrition.
Both dragons were wounded, bleeding, and fighting through sheer agony.
Vhagar, however, was more experienced; she was dealing maximum damage with minimal wasted movement.
Vermithor was relying on raw strength and fury, but the wound on his neck was draining him, and his movements were beginning to lag.
Vhagar would win. But she needed time. Time that Aegon and Sunfyre did not have.
Aemond was drenched in dragon blood. The extreme heat of the blood made his own pulse thrum with a draconic fever.
Everything in his vision became sharp and crystalline; time itself seemed to slow to a crawl.
Vhagar and Vermithor were currently locked in a vicious clinch, their forelimbs grappling as their jaws tore at each other at point-blank range, wings beating frantically to stay aloft.
It was primal wrestling, a contest of pure power.
Aemond let out a command in High Valyrian, the ancient tongue of the dragonlords.
"(Close in! Now! I will kill the rider! You go and kill those dragons!)"
Following the order, the old dragon did not retreat after the next exchange of bites.
Instead, she used her massive foreclaws to latch onto Vermithor's shoulders, not to strike, but to pin him. Her immense weight and strength held the Bronze Fury in place. The two dragons hung in a momentary, violent stalemate.
The distance was close to twenty feet. Fifteen feet. Ten feet.
Aemond leaped from his saddle.
Time stretched. Valos watched in sheer disbelief as the silver-haired Prince launched himself from Vhagar's back, tracing a lethal arc through the air.
A boarding action? At hundreds of feet in the air? Between two thrashing, snarling titans that could roll or plummet at any second?
Madness. Complete and utter madness.
But the disbelief lasted only a second, because Aemond landed.
He slammed onto the bronze scales, driving the blade of Blackfyre into a gap between the scales to anchor himself.
Vermithor let out a roar of irritation. A parasite had just bitten him.
The bronze titan rolled violently, attempting to shake Aemond off.
As the world flipped, even Valos struggled to maintain his seat. Only the heavy iron chains locking him to the saddle kept him from falling.
Aemond gripped the hilt of his sword with one hand and dug the fingers of his other hand into a raised scale.
His fingernails cracked and bled under the strain, but his grip remained like an iron vice as he dangled over the abyss.
Vermithor could not maintain the inverted flight for long and leveled out.
Aemond seized the moment, wrenching Blackfyre free.
High-temperature dragon blood sprayed across his face and chest. He used the momentum to lurch forward, sprinting along the dragon's spine.
Valos watched the blood-soaked madman approach, his body trembling with terror.
This monster was fighting a duel on the back of a rolling, diving dragon?
Valos frantically tried to unhook his safety restraints, not simple leather straps, but iron chains the thickness of a wrist, wrapped three times around him and locked to the saddle base.
In this moment, his security became a death trap.
Vermithor steadied his flight, and Aemond stood upright.
Blackfyre hung at his side. He stepped forward, a terrifying smile cutting through the dragon blood on his face.
"You're going to die," Aemond whispered.
"Bastard."
He lunged.
Valos, paralyzed by panic, couldn't clear his chains.
Aemond didn't give him a second chance. He reached out and tore the helmet from Valos's head.
Rip!
Valos's face was revealed, twisted with fear, silver hair matted with sweat, purple eyes wide with the realization of his end.
"Wait!" he shrieked.
Blackfyre lunged. A simple, direct thrust.
The tip of the Valyrian steel entered Valos's open mouth, pierced through the skull, and erupted from the back of his head.
Half the blade passed through the bone.
Squelch.
The sound was muffled. Valos's body went rigid, the light vanishing from his eyes instantly.
Aemond twisted his wrist, grinding the blade inside the skull for half a turn, then wrenched it free.
Blood and brain matter sprayed from the twin wounds.
Valos slumped, but the chains kept him from falling, his head lolling uselessly as blood bubbled from the hole in his neck.
Aemond didn't spare him a second look. He gripped the saddle edge and hacked at the chains.
CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!
Three strikes. Valyrian steel sheared through iron like dry grass.
Valos's corpse slid from the saddle, tumbling and spiraling down toward the black surf of the coast below.
The body shattered against the reefs in a small mist of red before being swallowed by the waves.
Aemond did not take the seat.
He knew he couldn't; Vermithor was an adult dragon, and losing its rider would only make it more volatile.
But at that moment, a piercing shriek echoed from the right.
"BROTHER!!!"
Mirax, atop Grey Ghost, had witnessed the entire execution.
The Dragonseed had been preoccupied with harassing Sunfyre, but seeing his brother killed turned his fear into a singular, burning hatred.
"Kill him! Grey Ghost! Burn him alive!!" Mirax screamed in High Valyrian, forgetting his terror as he yanked the reins.
Grey Ghost responded to the raw emotion.
The pale dragon wheeled around with a sharp shriek, wings beating fiercely as he dove toward the silver-haired figure standing on Vermithor's back.
At thirty meters, Grey Ghost opened his maw, the orange glow igniting in his throat.
Dragonfire erupted.
A waterfall of flame poured over Vermithor's spine, completely engulfing Aemond in the blaze.
----
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