Rebel Against Fate

Glutton's pitch-black head rose, its green-fire eyes fixed unblinkingly on Daemon Blackfyre.

Drool dripped from between its massive teeth, eating small pits into the Dragonglass floor with a hiss. Its scales were as black as a lightless night sky, and when its wings folded in, they nearly covered half the cavern.

Sulfur crystals had formed on the stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Glutton's breath made them tremble and crumble into powder, which fell into Daemon Blackfyre's silver hair.

Daemon Blackfyre stood where he was. His twelve-year-old body looked especially frail beneath the giant dragon's shadow, yet he remained as immovable as a Dragonglass pillar driven into the heart of the earth.

The brand on his right shoulder burned like a red-hot iron. The veins beneath his flesh throbbed violently, resonating strangely with the deep rumble rolling from Glutton's chest.

He suddenly recalled the tremor when Blackfyre had pierced Donnel Arryn's shield on the Red Grassland—the clash of metal and will. The same contest was unfolding now between him and this savage dragon.

"Have you been chained too?" Daemon Blackfyre asked softly, his voice echoing through the cavern with a rasp no child his age should have possessed.

He did not know why he had said that. Perhaps Glutton's green-fire pupils reflected the same violence and unwillingness to yield that dwelled within him.

A muffled rumble rolled from Glutton's throat, like a beast whose tail had been stepped on.

It suddenly thrust forward, its enormous head hanging above Daemon Blackfyre. The sulfur stench in its breath was so thick it seemed almost solid, scorching his skin with pain.

Daemon Blackfyre could even make out fragments of half-rotted dragon scales lodged between its teeth—perhaps trophies left behind from devouring its own kind.

At that moment, the brand's red glow suddenly flared!

Dark crimson light crawled up Daemon Blackfyre's neck and across his cheeks, igniting two dancing flames within his deep violet eyes.

Glutton's pupils suddenly contracted. As though it had seen some familiar phantom, its immense body actually shrank back a little.

Mu Jin cracked deep within the cavern. The dragon was scraping its claws anxiously, gouging deep furrows into the Dragonglass floor that glimmered with broken silver light.

"I know what it feels like to be imprisoned." Daemon Blackfyre's voice suddenly rose, the force with which he had commanded cavalry charges on the Red Grassland breaking through the limits of a boy's throat. "To have your wings bound in iron chains, to have people point at your back and call you a monster—" He tore open his soaked collar, exposing the savage black dragon mark on his shoulder. "Look! We both bear brands!"

Glutton let out a deafening roar. Yet this time, there was no savagery in it—only a tremor of pain.

Its immense wings abruptly spread, and the gale they raised sent Daemon Blackfyre staggering backward. But just as he was about to fall, its foreclaw gently hooked his belt—the gesture was as clumsy as a hatchling learning to fly. Its sharp talons scraped his clothes without harming him in the slightest.

Daemon Blackfyre seized that fleeting chance. Following the pull of the dragon's claw, he leaped up and drove his fingers into the gaps between the scales on Glutton's neck. The scales there were relatively soft and still bore old scars, as though some enormous weapon had once cleaved them apart before they healed.

"Roar—!" Glutton jerked its head up, trying to throw off this tiny human. Daemon Blackfyre clung desperately to its neck, his nails digging into the tender flesh of the scars. The searing pain made his vision go dark, but it also stirred the ruthlessness buried in his bones.

He remembered how, after three poisoned arrows had pierced his chest on the Red Grassland, he had gritted his teeth and driven Blackfyre into the scorched earth—pain was never a reason to retreat. It was a whetstone that sharpened one's will.

The red light of the brand and the scars on Glutton's neck began glowing at the same time, like two ignited fires of blood.

Daemon Blackfyre felt a scorching power pour into him through his arm, intertwining with the warrior's pride deep within his soul.

He was no longer Daemon Blackfyre, nor was he merely this twelve-year-old body. He was a will that had become one with this black dragon, a will that would cast off every shackle.

"Fly!" he roared into Glutton's ear, his voice carrying the edge of Blackfyre cleaving through enemy ranks. "Show those who call you a monster!"

Glutton released a dragon's cry that tore through the clouds. It was no longer the wail of a trapped beast, but the roar of one breaking free from its chains.

It kicked off the ground with both claws, its enormous body smashing through the cavern ceiling as it carried Daemon Blackfyre straight into the sky. Sulfur mist was split apart by the dragon's body, forming a swirling gray column. Moonlight poured through the breach, illuminating Blackfyre's flying silver hair and Glutton's ink-black scales.

At that moment, Caraxes's roar sounded outside the cave.

Daemon Targaryen rode atop the scarlet dragon's back, circling anxiously above the volcanic crater.

The moment he saw Glutton burst through the cavern roof, his heart nearly leaped from his chest—he had expected to see flesh and blood flying everywhere, yet the silver-haired boy was firmly pressed against the black dragon's neck, his right hand gripping a horn while his left arm was raised high, as if commanding a storm.

"Daemon!" Targaryen's cry held equal parts shock and barely restrained excitement.

He urged Caraxes to accelerate. The red dragon understood and pursued Glutton as it shot into the heavens, the rhythm of its wingbeats still carrying traces of how Aemon had ridden it in years past.

The two dragons began a chase through the night sky. Caraxes was as fast as a shooting star, a gift it had possessed ever since earning the nickname Blood Wyrm. Aemon had once ridden it around Dragonstone three times in only a quarter hour;

while Glutton's explosive power was astonishing. Every beat of its black wings produced a sharp crack as it tore through the air, like a colossal axe splitting the night.

Blackfyre lay low on Glutton's back, watching Caraxes's scarlet form carve a smooth arc beneath the moonlight. He suddenly understood why people had named this dragon Blood Wyrm—when it swept through the sky, the red light reflected from its scales truly resembled a flowing pool of blood, swift and blazing.

"Uncle Aemon said Caraxes can sweep down skylarks with the tip of its tail!" Targaryen's shout was shattered by the wind. He suddenly lowered his body, and Caraxes dove like an arrow released from its bow. Its tail-tip grazed Glutton's wing, scattering sparks.

Blackfyre laughed loudly and patted Glutton's neck. "Then let him see who the true king of the skies is!"

Glutton suddenly rolled over, its immense body tracing a black arc through the air to evade Caraxes's attack. At the same time, it opened its jaws and spewed a stream of black dragonfire—unlike Caraxes's dazzling red flames, it carried a piercing, scalding heat. It struck a bank of clouds and instantly burned them into vapor.

Caraxes passed through the billowing white mist, its claws lightly stepping upon Glutton's back as though answering this contest that spanned life and death.

Baelon stood for a long while before the Mu Jin windows of Dragonflame Hall, his cloak covered in sulfur ash drifting in from outside. He had just coughed so violently it seemed to tear him apart. When the maester offered him poppy syrup, he had waved it away and knocked it over, the dark medicine spreading across the black Mu Jin floor like a pool of congealed blood.

But now he had forgotten to cough, forgotten the pain beneath his ribs, even forgotten that he was the Prince of Dragonstone.

His gaze remained fixed on the two intertwined giant shadows in the night sky. His heart pounded like a drum within his chest, each beat jarring his old wounds with fresh pain.