Chapter 343: The Price (Part II)
Daenerys pinched her thigh; there was pain. Filled with anticipation, she hurried to the riverbank and picked up the Compendium of Dragon-Riding left by the mysterious woman.
The material of the book's pages was singular—though it bore a heavy sense of age, there was not a trace of decay. The entire volume was written in High Valyrian, featuring a clear table of contents and rich illustrations. A mere glance confirmed it was no forgery. Instantly forgetting her fatigue and hunger, Daenerys turned to the first page and began to read word by word, quickly becoming immersed.
The opening section contained nothing profound; in fact, it was quite simple and easy to understand. With her excellent foundation in Valyrian, Daenerys finished the first chapter with ease.
Rather than an instruction manual, the beginning served more as a historical background.
The first volume of the Compendium of Dragon-Riding centered on the "Prerequisites for Dragon-Riding," emphasizing the definition and origin of "Dragonblood."
Dragonblood, or "The Blood of the Dragon" in the Common Tongue.
The Valyrians were divided into two categories: broad and narrow. In the broad sense, "Citizens of the Valyrian Freehold" referred to all free-born, land-owning classes within Valyrian territory.
In the narrow sense, Valyrians referred to those with silver hair and purple eyes who possessed the talent for dragon-riding—those who truly possessed the blood of the dragon.
And the protagonists of this history were a smaller subset of these narrow-sense Valyrians: the Dragonlords, who legally owned dragons and were capable of riding them.
Originally, in all of Valyria, only the members of a single house possessed that strange, inhuman beauty and the gift for dragon-riding; all other citizens were subjects, servants, or vassals of this house. The members of this first family of Dragonlords—also known as the Primordial Dragonlords—inevitably produced bastards during their interactions with other Valyrian citizens. These were special citizens who did not bear the Dragonlord surname but had dragonblood flowing in their veins and shared the same physical characteristics as the Primordial Dragonlords.
At that time, the number of dragonriders was far fewer than the number of dragons. Vast numbers of wild dragons flew freely among the Fourteen Flames of Valyria, and no one could command them. Driven by the desire to rapidly increase the number of riders to bolster the Freehold's strength, and out of the Primordial Dragonlords' affection for their own bastards, the leaders of the first house generously issued a far-reaching decree:
Any bastard of the Primordial Dragonlords, or even the descendants of such bastards, who successfully tames a dragon shall become the founder of a new Dragonlord house, enjoying noble status and privileges.
This decree remained in effect for nearly a century. During this period, wave after wave of bastards with silver-gold hair and eyes of purple or indigo—those possessing dragonblood—stepped into the Fourteen Flames, risking their lives to tame wild dragons. The failures were shattered and turned to ash under claws, fangs, or dragonflame, vanishing into the long river of history. The successful ones, however, "leaped the dragon gate," instantly becoming dragonriders and founders of brand-new Dragonlord houses, engraving their surnames into Valyrian history forever.
And so, one by one, the wild dragons of the Fourteen Flames dwindled, while the number of Dragonlord houses grew from one to two, to three... eventually expanding to over a dozen, and finally, forty.
Ultimately, the founder of the fortieth Dragonlord house tamed the last visible wild dragon among the Fourteen Flames, marking the end of the Primordial Dragonlords' decree of grace. Following this pivotal moment, the forty houses jointly established and clarified the constitution of the Freehold regarding intermarriage and dragon ownership, which remained in use until the Doom of Valyria—commonly known as the "Dragonlord Laws." It stipulated that only Valyrians born of intermarriage between the forty houses, or within them, bearing the blood and surname of one of those forty families, were eligible to ride dragons. Anyone else, even those with dragonblood and talent, was ineligible to become a dragonrider.
A bit complex? No matter; remembering one point is enough: these forty houses monopolized the taming, breeding, and riding of dragons, along with the resulting influence and control at the highest levels of the Valyrian Freehold. From then on, even as the traits of silver hair and purple eyes—and the dragonblood itself—spread across the world due to the philandering of dragonriders, every law of the Freehold and every dragonrider came from these forty families until the Doom. The rare exceptions were usually bastards who, while herding dragons for their masters, secretly mounted a riderless hatchling. Under Freehold law, this was a capital crime. The offender either had to be legalized through the master's recognition and granted a surname, or face a relentless hunt by every other Dragonlord in the world.
At the end of the Compendium's first chapter was a list of the forty Dragonlord surnames. The Primordial Dragonlords occupied the first line alone, while the derivative houses below were listed three to a row.
1+13—fourteen lines in total, occupying a full page.
And Targaryen was listed clearly in the penultimate row, one of the lucky ones to finally become a legal Dragonlord house. House Velaryon, another Valyrian house famous in the Seven Kingdoms, was not among them; they were a vassal house to the Targaryens, not one of the Dragonlord families of the Freehold.
Forty houses, hundreds of dragonriders... Valyria's past prosperity and power seemed to appear before her eyes. Sadly, all the forerunners, including the Primordial Dragonlords, had been extinguished in the torrent of time by the mysterious catastrophe of the Doom and the subsequent upheavals. Now, only a solitary Targaryen remained...
If the Young Aegon currently opposing the Usurper's house in Westeros was an impostor, then House Targaryen, the last of the Dragonlord houses, was down to its very last woman, destined to vanish from the world entirely.
Feeling the desolation of the ages, Daenerys sighed, turned the page, and entered Chapter Two.
The Principles of Dragon-Riding.
This was the core. The young Queen cast aside her melancholy and began to read closely.
After a long while, she realized that her previous superficial, experience-based understandings of dragon-riding were almost entirely off-track.
A dragonrider's taming of a dragon was not at all like riding a horse, as she had assumed—relying on technique and training to create conditioned reflexes to commands and physical cues. Whether it was special words or whips, those were inferior methods. True dragon-riding utilized the dragon's recognition of a Valyrian with dragonblood. Through a magical and complex contract, one bound themselves to the chosen dragon at the soul level. From then on, the rider could control the dragon through intent, directing and manipulating it as if it were a part of their own body.
Regarding becoming a dragonrider, the beginning of Chapter Two listed several universally accepted empirical laws:
Riding ≠ Controlling: A person, due to a special status (Dragon-breeder) or great power (magic or otherwise), might experience the feeling of riding several dragons. However, in their lifetime, they can only be bound one-on-one with a single dragon as its master and rider.Longevity: Dragons live longer than humans, but a bound dragon will not accept a second rider until the death of the previous contractor, regardless of familiarity or strength.Purity of Blood: The closer the kinship to the Primordial Dragonlords and the purer the bloodline, the higher the success rate of dragon-riding. A Primordial Dragonlord who never intermarried with outsiders is guaranteed to tame a dragon. As the bloodline dilutes, the success rate drops at an alarming speed and proportion.Necessity of Blood: Having dragonblood does not guarantee one can tame a dragon, but lacking dragonblood guarantees one cannot—this was a lesson the Freehold learned through countless failed and bloody experiments.
These laws did not contradict Daenerys's own experiences: she was the nurturer of three dragons, the mother of the black, white, and green. Though she hadn't tried, if she ever felt the urge to ride Rhaegal or Viserion, she likely wouldn't be bitten or thrown off. But what she wanted was not a simple ride; it was mastery—to be the arm that directs the spear. Only true dragon-riding would allow her, like Aegon the Conqueror, to precisely and ruthlessly bring fire and blood to her enemies and reclaim what was hers.
Very well. The Dragon-Riding Contract and the Binding Incantations were on the following page. This was exactly the knowledge Daenerys sought.
Then, she quickly discovered that Chapter Three was completely different from the first two: though written in the same Valyrian script, with no change in style or size, she could not understand it.
To be precise, she could recognize every single word, but the combinations were utterly incomprehensible to her; she had no idea how to perform them.
In her less than eighteen years of life, the only time she had brushed against magic was when she followed Mirri Maz Duur's example, awakening the three dragon eggs through blood sacrifice and self-immolation. But that had been a crude imitation, acting entirely on intuition with a maegi's demonstration as a guide. Now, the Dragon-Riding Contract required her to stimulate the power within her dragonblood, while the Binding Incantations required her to use mental strength to precisely control a "second" body.
What... did this even mean? And how was it to be done?
After an exercise in futile effort and struggle, Daenerys realized that without the necessary foundation, she could not master true dragon-riding on her own. She needed guidance, and she would have to pay the price she was meant to pay.
She did not wait long. At roughly the same time the following day, the mysterious woman appeared before her once more.
"Spare me your lines. I want you to teach me." For some reason, Daenerys was certain the other possessed this ability. "Tell me the price."
Quaithe found the young Queen's urgency and directness amusing. Her shoulders shook as if she were smiling, yet she spoke in her usual measured pace.
"Countless dragon-seekers are monitoring my movements, intending to find the lone Mother of Dragons through me. For your safety, I must use this method to meet you via sorcery. To do so requires magic, much magic—more than I can bear alone." The red lacquer mask hid the mysterious woman's face, but it could not hide the inscrutable light shimmering in her eyes. "And in the blood of the Dragonlord, there is power."
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