The Black Dragon Apart from the Pack

The stone dome of Dragonflame Hall seemed to tremble faintly beneath Corlys Velaryon's footsteps.

The Sea Snake's cloak still bore the salty frost of a long voyage. Upon the deep green and silver-white silk, House Velaryon's seahorse sigil shimmered with iridescence beneath the torchlight—the distinctive sheen of Tidehead Island mother-of-pearl, now frozen into ice by the chill in his eyes.

The moment he stepped onto the obsidian floor, his gaze cast over Daemon behind Rhaenys like a net. Silver hair and violet eyes glimmered in the shadows like phosphorescent fire, making him instinctively press a hand to the pearl-inlaid dagger at his waist.

"Looks like my lady is faster than ravens," Corlys said, his voice carrying the salt-rough rasp of a sailor. His gaze slid across the faint brand on Daemon's shoulder before settling on the wet ends of Rhaenys's hair. "Not even Meleys's dragonfire could dry out your stubbornness, could it?"

Rhaenys did not answer. She merely pulled Daemon half a step farther behind her. The tiny movement was like a needle piercing the last thin layer of civility between husband and wife.

The muscle at the corner of Corlys's eye twitched. By the time he turned toward Baelon, his lips had already formed the familiar curve of a politician's smile. "Your Highness, the news from Myr is worse than expected. Those silk merchants' guilds are conspiring with their newly formed Triarchy. They call our taxation in the Stepstones 'piracy conducted beneath the scorching dragonfire.'"

He deliberately stressed the words "dragonfire," but his gaze remained fixed on Daemon's pale face like a cold anchor. "As for this child..."

"His name is Daemon." Rhaenys suddenly spoke, her voice as cold as winter waves around Tidehead Island. "He is my father's blood, my brother."

Corlys's hand abruptly clenched around the silver clasp of his cloak, the edges of the mother-of-pearl digging into his palm.

He should have expected Rhaenys to say that. From the moment she had burst into the cabin three days ago carrying the unconscious boy and pointed at the mark on his shoulder, saying, "Look at that dragon sigil," he had known this storm could not be avoided.

Aemon Targaryen's bastard? What a perfect lie—perfect enough for everyone wounded by succession to willingly believe it.

"Blood?" The Sea Snake gave a soft laugh, and the scent of sea salt in it suddenly became pungent. "Rhaenys, have you forgotten how those Blue Septons in Oldtown judged 'blood' last year? They said even Princess Maegelle's greyscale proved that the blood of true dragons could rot."

He walked slowly toward Daemon, his leather boots striking the stone with dull knocks, as though measuring the distance to prey. "That boy's mark was branded on. It was not born with him. I have seen Lysene slave traders forge Valyrian sigils with branding irons. Their work was ten times finer than this."

Daemon suddenly raised his head.

There was no fear proper to a boy in those deep violet eyes, only the cold gleam of offense—just like the look in his eyes on the Red Grassland when he had split the shield wall of House Arryn's duke.

For that instant, Corlys felt his throat tighten, as though Blackfyre's edge were sliding across his skin.

That was not the look of an ordinary drifter, much less of a bastard who needed to cling to Targaryen blood to survive.

"Lord Sea Snake." Daemon's voice still held a youth's clarity, yet it was wrapped in ice. "The craftsmen of Tidehead Island say the mother-of-pearl sheath at your waist draws its hardest iridescence from the deepest trenches." He paused, his gaze passing over Corlys's tense jaw. "Blood is the same."

"Presumptuous!" A Velaryon guard behind Corlys barked, his hand falling to his sword hilt.

Baelon suddenly began coughing. It was hoarse and urgent, as if burning grit were rolling through his lungs. He waved a hand to stop the guard, his knuckles whitening with the effort. "Corlys, when Rhaenys found him on Meleys's back, this child was nearly drowned. A dragon would not accept blood that did not belong to it." He looked at the mark on Daemon's shoulder. In the firelight, the black three-headed dragon sigil rose and fell faintly with the boy's breathing. "And besides, this mark..."

"And besides, this mark would unsettle the succession to the Iron Throne again, wouldn't it?" Rhaenys's voice suddenly rose, like dragonfire cracking open ice. "Just like back then, when they gave the inheritance that should have been mine to you, Uncle, because I was a woman!"

The words struck the hall like a heavy hammer. Baelon's coughing stopped at once, and Corlys's face darkened like a black sea.

Daemon sharply caught that moment of stillness. Rhaenys's accusation concealed an old wound, while Corlys's silence concealed calculation.

He suddenly understood why he had been thrown into Dragonglass Prison. It was not because he was "pirate scum," but because he stood upon the scales of succession, even if only as an insignificant weight. Targaryen blood was both his talisman and his death warrant.

Just then, a muffled tremor came from the depths of Dragonflame Hall.

It was not the rumble of a volcano, but something sharper, as though the claws of some enormous beast were tearing through rock.

Then a long, violent dragon roar came from the Dragonpit on the western side of the castle. It differed from Meleys's clear cry and from Caraxes's arrogant roar. It was muddy and rasping, like rust grinding in a throat, carrying a hunger that would devour everything.

Baelon shot to his feet, fear flashing through his violet eyes. "It's Glutton!"

Corlys's expression changed completely. Glutton—the ancient dragon that dwelled in Dragonstone's deepest Dragonpit—had rarely appeared since King Jaehaerys's youth. Rumor had it that it fed on the corpses of other dragons, its scales black as congealed blood. It had not let out such a roar in ten years.

A searing pain suddenly erupted from Daemon's right shoulder!

The black three-headed dragon mark seemed to come alive, dark red light racing wildly through it. Beneath his flesh, something seemed to be straining to break free of its shackles.

He pressed hard against his shoulder, cold sweat seeping between his fingers. In his mind, that wail from hell rang out again—overlapping with Glutton's roar at this very moment.

It was him! The pitch-black dragon shadow he had seen as he lay dying on the Red Grassland had been him!

"This child..." Rhaenys noticed something was wrong and reached out to support him, only for Corlys to yank her away.

"Take him to the Night Watch Tower near the Dragonpit." Corlys's voice was cold as ice. "Post ten men to guard him. Without my orders, he is not to approach any dragon nest, including Meleys's."

He looked at Baelon, his eyes hard with unquestionable resolve. "Your Highness, until we uncover his true background, keep him away from dragons. Glutton's roar is no good omen, especially at a time like this."

Baelon stared at Daemon's pain-twisted face, then at the redness in Rhaenys's eyes. At last, he waved a weary hand. The pain beneath his ribs was growing clearer, as if dragon claws were stirring inside him.

As the guards carried Daemon away, he looked back.

Rhaenys stood where she was, her black hair hanging down to conceal her expression. Only her clenched fists revealed her anger.

With his back to her, Corlys was speaking to Baelon in a low voice. The shadow of his Sea Snake cloak enveloped him like some massive beast poised to strike.

Outside Dragonflame Hall, Glutton roared again, shaking the torches violently and stretching everyone's shadows into twisted, elongated shapes.

The stone window of the Night Watch Tower faced the Dragonpit.

Daemon leaned against the icy wall, listening to the faint dragon roars drifting from afar.

The mark on his right shoulder was still burning. Its heat gradually overlapped with the temperature of the Red Grassland, when Blackfyre had cleaved through enemy ranks.

He suddenly laughed. Corlys thought locking him here would sever his connection with dragons, but he did not know that Daemon and that most savage black dragon had long been entwined by a force even Daemon himself did not understand.

Outside the window, an immense black shadow flashed through the sulfurous mist, passing across the silver glow of the full moon.

Glutton was circling the night sky above Dragonstone, as if searching for something.

Daemon touched the mark on his shoulder. The burning sensation there was spreading through his blood, producing a strange resonance with the distant dragon's heartbeat.

He knew that before long, he would meet that legendary evil dragon.

Not as a prisoner, but as... kin.

After all, both of them were beings forgotten in the shadows by the Targaryen Lineage, both longing for the moment they could tear their cages apart.

And when Glutton's massive claws settled upon the stone eaves of the Night Watch Tower, the fate of the Seven Kingdoms would never return to its original course.