Vhagar lay on the beach beside the coastal cliffs, her dark green scales gleaming like bronze in the deepening dusk.
The largest and oldest dragon still alive rested her enormous head on her forelegs, her amber, slit-pupiled eyes half closed. Each breath stirred fine shell dust from the sand and rumbled like distant thunder.
When Aegon landed Cannibal at the other end of the beach, Laena Velaryon, who had been waiting for some time, was leaning against Vhagar's foreleg, toying with a piece of sea glass polished smooth as a mirror by the waves.
This time, she wore dark blue riding clothes, her long silver-gold hair woven into a loose braid that hung over one shoulder. Her deep violet eyes narrowed slightly against the gust Cannibal raised as he folded his wings, and a wholly unsurprised smile curved her lips.
"You came straight here. Surely it wasn't to see Vhagar?" Her voice was quiet, scattered a little by the sea breeze, yet Aegon heard every word.
Sitting in Cannibal's black steel saddle, Aegon found himself at a loss for how to answer.
All the swagger with which he had recited that long string of titles on the beach earlier had vanished. All that remained was a boy who had sneaked away to meet his "pen pal." He scratched at his wind-tousled silver-gold hair, looking helplessly resigned to being seen through.
Of course he had not come to see Vhagar-that was an excuse, an afterthought. Ever since their parting at Storm's End five years ago, when he had promised, "I'll write when I reach Highgarden," they had never lost touch. Nor had they been shy about privately arranging "chance encounters" on dragonback above Blackwater Bay.
Now that he had happened to be "passing by" her doorstep, it hardly seemed right not