Waves crashed against the rocks, sending up white foam.
Four dragon silhouettes, one large and three small, swept across the sky and landed on Dragonstone's tidal flats.
When King Ghidorah folded his wings and landed, the entire stretch of flats seemed to tremble.
The three young dragons following him landed one after another, their claws leaving deep gouges in the sand.
Daenerys slid down Balerion's wing, the toes of her boots touching Dragonstone's beach.
She stood there, motionless.
This was Dragonstone.
This was where she had been born.
Yet standing here, she felt like a stranger setting foot in a foreign land for the first time.
Her childhood memories held no blackstone castle, no carved stone dragons, no salty tang of sea wind.
All she remembered was Braavos-that little courtyard with its red door, where a lemon tree grew.
She remembered Viserys's humiliated howls, Ser Darry's coughing on his sickbed, and those nights spent wandering in exile.
But everything here-the archway carved with gargoyles and dragons, the long blackstone staircase, the towering castle thrusting toward the sky like an outstretched dragon's claw-felt unfamiliar.
She had been born here.
Her mother had died in childbirth.
A storm had destroyed the last Targaryen fleet.
That was how she had received her name-Stormborn.
It was less an honor than a curse.
That name had accompanied her into a long exile, drifting from one port to another, fleeing from one refuge to the next.
Now she had returned.
But this land did not know her, and she did not know this land.
Daenerys stood there, the sea wind lifting her silver hair as she gazed at the castle built of blackstone, not taking a step for a long time.
Aegon approached from behind, his boots rustling over the soft sand.
He stopped beside Daenerys