13th Day of the Fourth Moon, 56 AC, King's Landing, Westeros
A colossal black dragon, vast as a castle and borne upon wings like storm clouds, swept across the skies above King's Landing.
Dragons passed over the city often enough. When travelers pointed skyward in awe, the locals would merely chuckle and mutter that another group of country bumpkins had arrived from the hinterlands.
But today was different.
Every man, woman, and child stopped where they stood, craning their necks toward the shadow gliding across the sky.
For the dragon above them was one thought lost for more than a year-
Balerion, the Black Dread.
"Ahhhh—!"
A scream of agony tore through the street.
Several pedestrians suddenly collapsed to the ground, smoke curling from their bodies as they writhed and thrashed in unbearable pain.
People rushed forward. Some stripped off their coats to beat at the victims' burning flesh, while others shoveled sand over them in frantic desperation.
None of it helped.
The crowd thickened as more onlookers gathered, whispering in horror. Among them were those who understood what they were seeing.
"Dragon blood!" someone shouted in terror.
"It's dragon blood—Balerion's blood fell on them!"
"Stand back!"
"Seven save us!"
The droplets that had rained from the sky struck like molten iron. Where the dragon's blood touched skin, it burned through cloth, hair, and flesh alike.
The screaming slowly faded.
Before the horrified eyes of the crowd, great patches of clothing and skin sloughed away from the victims' bodies. Flesh blackened and cracked, and the smell of burning meat filled the air.
The Seven rarely worked miracles for common folk.
All the people could do was watch as the unfortunate souls burned down to charred corpses.
*
Two days earlier, Rhaegar had experienced something far stranger than death.
While walking down a street in another world, he had suddenly been pulled into the sky, his body enveloped by an unknown energy and hurled into this realm from the clouds above like a blazing meteor.
That same mysterious force had shrunk his adult body into that of an infant.
The enormous black dragon that tried to catch the falling meteor with its own body, and the white-haired girl who later lifted him from the ground, were both injured by the same power.
Wrapped tightly in a black cloak and bound with thin cords beside the saddle on the dragon's back, the swaddled infant Rhaegar lay on his back. From that position he could see only the endless sky above... and the pale-haired girl watching over him.
At first he had assumed she was an adult.
Only after he crashed straight through the dragon's body and slammed into the earth did he realize the truth. The girl had run into the muddy crater, lifted him gently into her arms beneath the dragon's watchful gaze, and spoken words he could not understand.
Up close, he saw she was no more than fourteen or fifteen.
Perhaps fate had guided both dragon and girl to save him.
But fate would show her little further mercy.
The energy carried through the dimensional passage had been too violent for even a dragon's scales to withstand. Rhaegar's fall had torn open a massive wound in the dragon's body.
And when the girl held the infant against her chest, a trace of that lingering energy seeped slowly into her flesh.
For two days and nights the dragon flew without rest.
By the end of the journey, the once healthy and beautiful girl had withered into something skeletal and exhausted. Her face was hollow, her limbs trembling so violently she could barely hold the reins.
At last the wind against Rhaegar's face began to weaken.
The dragon shifted its wings and descended.
Below them rose a vast red castle. Crowds gathered beneath its walls, shouting in alarm.
When the dragon finally touched down within the courtyard of the Red Keep, the rider slumped motionless across the saddle.
ROOOAR—
Dust cascaded from the ceilings of nearby chambers.
Gravel trembled across the ground. Castle windows rattled in their frames.
With a thunderous roar that shook the air itself, Balerion the Black Dread proclaimed his return.
Alarm bells clanged throughout the city.
City Watch soldiers flooded the streets, some armed with cudgels to control the crowds, others rushing toward the Red Keep to maintain order.
By now all of King's Landing knew the truth.
The dragon lost for over a year had returned-
and with him, his rider:
Princess Aerea Targaryen.
Dragonkeepers in rough grey robes hurried into the courtyard. As tradition dictated, they carried long hooked poles meant to catch the ropes hanging from the dragon's saddle.
Normally such actions were routine.
But today they provoked the dragon's fury.
Balerion twisted his massive body, lashing his tail and growling low in his throat, refusing to allow anyone near.
As dragons age, their scales grow ever harder. Even heavy castle-breaking scorpion bolts could not pierce Balerion's armor.
Yet now...
On the left side of his chest lay a half-healed wound nearly three meters long, so deep that bone could be seen within.
The sight froze everyone in place.
The wound was jagged and torn, its outer skin partly healed. Much of the muscle near it had vanished entirely.
Fresh blood seeped slowly from the gash and dripped onto the stone below.
Each drop struck the ground with a sizzling hiss, releasing pale blue smoke that reeked faintly of sulfur.
King Jaehaerys I Targaryen, alerted by the commotion, leaned from a castle window.
When he saw the wounded dragon, shock overtook him.
Without even bothering to don the robe offered by his attendants, he snatched his crown to his head and ran toward the courtyard.
Balerion was more than a dragon.
Over one hundred and sixty years old, enormous as a fortress, armored in impenetrable scales, and capable of melting metal and stone with his flames.
He was the greatest weapon of House Targaryen.
His disappearance had been an unbearable loss to the royal family.
Even so, numbers meant nothing before an enraged dragon.
Jaehaerys waved off the Kingsguard who rushed forward to protect him and walked alone toward the dragon's immense head.
He brushed his tangled silver hair aside.
Then, in a low voice, he began to chant an ancient Valyrian song.
Gradually, the fury in Balerion's eyes faded.
The people waited in the courtyard for a long time before movement finally stirred atop the dragon.
Princess Aerea slowly regained consciousness.
Clutching the swaddled infant to her chest, she descended the rope ladder with agonizing slowness.
Two Kingsguard in white cloaks hurried forward to support her.
Her body trembled uncontrollably. She could barely stand.
Aerea's once-bright silver hair had grown dull and brittle. Her face was sunken, skeletal.
Bloody tears streamed from her eyes.
The clothes on her body had rotted into foul, pus-soaked rags that clung to her skin.
She had grown so thin that her arms were little more than bone beneath the skin. One of the Kingsguard lifted her easily.
Then something even more horrifying occurred.
The knight suddenly froze, horror spreading across his face.
Slowly, he raised his armored hand toward the king and queen.
In his trembling palm lay a large strip of fresh red flesh...
A piece of skin that had just peeled away from Princess Aerea's arm.
The Grand Maester could do nothing.
No one could.
That very night, whatever burned inside Aerea consumed her entirely.
Her flesh and blood were reduced to ash from within.
By dawn, only a charred, smoking skeleton remained upon the bed.
"The black-haired infant has a foreign face! He is a heretic! an ill omen!"
"He cursed his own mother to death the day he arrived in King's Landing!"
"Hundreds of innocent people died because of him!"
"The child must be burned!"
The grieving families of the dead gathered before the gates of the Red Keep, shouting their fury.
When the king ordered an investigation, it was discovered that several of the ringleaders were remnants of the militant Warrior's Sons, the old Faith militant.
That very night, more than a dozen corpses drifted down the Blackwater Rush, feeding the fish before reaching the sea.
"He carries royal blood, whatever his origins," one lord argued.
"Let us wait until Aerea's mother arrives. The grandmother has the right to decide the fate of her newborn grandson."
"The people died because of dragon blood," another countered.
"Aerea's illness has nothing to do with the child. The infant is healthy. We cannot murder an innocent baby."
The Grand Maester could not even promise that Aerea's terrifying illness would not spread.
The nobles argued endlessly.
Some sought to pressure a certain woman through public outrage.
Others loudly proclaimed their own fairness and mercy.
Two days later, Rhaena Targaryen arrived in King's Landing.
She held a funeral for her daughter and scattered Aerea's ashes into the sky.
After a bitter argument with the king, and because no one knew who the child's father was, Rhaena decided to raise the infant herself.
She gave him a name-
Rhaegar Therys.
A name in High Valyrian.
A name never before heard in Westeros.
And now it belonged to the royal bastard presented before the realm.
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