Dancing with dragons

In the years since Danyla had first succeeded in riding a dragon, she had rarely attended royal banquets except on major holidays, so she really was rather unused to socializing with the nobility.

With Aemma and Rhaenyra leading her around, she had been forced to grin and make polite conversation for over two hours. It had been sheer torment for Danyla, so she found an opportunity to return to her room and rest early.

Perhaps they were hoping to keep drinking Danyla's fine wine for free. Several days had passed, yet the king and the nobles still showed no intention of leaving.

The banquets ran late every night, and who knew how many lovesick men and women had lost themselves in those days of revelry.

Even her four maids had been dazzled by the young noblemen. Had Danyla not kept such strict control over her subordinates in this regard, she had no idea whether they would have managed to preserve their chastity.

The ten three-masted sailing ships Danyla had won had also arrived the day before. They were fully equipped and crewed, with a month's worth of supplies aboard. This was Duke Boremund's last display of pride and dignity.

Danyla had begged His Majesty Jaehaerys to exchange half their crews for royal sailors. That way, even if any of these men harbored ulterior motives, they would be unable to stir up trouble.

To refit the ships, Danyla took two million gold dragons from her private treasury and gave them to Samwell, telling him to find a reliable captain to take the ships to Braavos for modifications and buy another ten warships while he was there.

To ensure Braavos took the matter seriously, Danyla also invited the father of her personal maid Jarelle, the Earl of Gulltown, to oversee the venture.

Samwell also planned to gather some specialty goods from Westeros to take along, allowing them to make a handsome profit on the round trip.

That day, at the first faint light of dawn, the mischievous Myracis woke Danyla again.

The powder-pink Myracis rubbed against Danyla like a hungry puppy, gazing pleadingly at her with pinkish-purple slit pupils to make her hunger known.

Danyla hurried out of bed and told the personal guards outside her door to have the kitchen send over the prepared roast lamb.

Myracis ate the meat with its added ingredients with great enthusiasm. Only after eating several pounds did she settle contentedly into the blackstone nest Danyla had built for her and fall asleep.

No longer sleepy, Danyla summoned her maids to help her wash and dress. After a simple breakfast in her room, she changed into her leather dragonriding armor and rode Dreamfyre out to hunt over the Narrow Sea.

The previous night's banquet had ended late as usual, so the nobles certainly would not be rising early.

Her lessons had also been suspended for the past few days, leaving Danyla to find her own amusement!

Soaring over Dragonstone on Dreamfyre, Danyla noticed that the residents of White Sheep Town had already begun working in the fields.

Spring had returned to the land, and it was time for the season's sowing. The hardworking farmers enthusiastically planted the seeds of their hopes.

Meanwhile, the chimneys of the distillery on the mountainside north of White Sheep Town had scarcely stopped smoking lately. After all, Dragonfire Wine had officially made its debut in the Seven Kingdoms.

Demand had soared, and they dared not slacken for even a moment if they were to keep up with the market.

Fisherman's Village by the harbor was much quieter. With so many nobles arriving over the past few days, its taverns, inns, and brothels had enjoyed a rare flood of customers, so they stayed open late every night.

The most popular establishment in the harbor village was Firekiss Garden, which Danyla secretly had others operate for her.

It was a three-story, garden-style pleasure house in the Lysene fashion, painstakingly built by craftsmen from the Kingdom of the Three Daughters whom Danyla had hired at great expense.

Everything inside, from the decorations and furnishings to the prostitutes and bed slaves, had been carefully procured by Earl Tarth at Danyla's request, at no small cost.

Merchants visiting Dragonstone found themselves reluctant to leave. It not only brought Danyla considerable income from shady dealings but also served as an important source of intelligence.

Many nearby nobles were regular patrons as well, and on this visit, it had become the favorite haunt of the great lords.

Although Firekiss Garden was expensive, those noble lords did not care in the slightest. Great handfuls of gold dragons flowed straight into Danyla's pockets.

Her cousin Daemon was one of Firekiss Garden's major clients. He often came by dragon to spend the night, and over the past few days, he had practically taken up residence there.

However, Danyla used all the income from Firekiss Garden to send people to major cities to gather orphans and recruit informants.

Since Firekiss Garden had opened, they had gathered no fewer than a thousand bright, quick-witted orphans from various places.

In this world, almost every city held large numbers of displaced people and orphans, so the work was not difficult.

After the orphans arrived on Dragonstone and passed through successive rounds of testing and selection, the hundred most outstanding children were placed in Danyla's estate in a valley on New Dragonstone Island.

Although the estate was simply built, it had every necessary facility. It also housed many skilled people, including champion gladiators, assassins, scholars, and healers whom Earl Tarth had purchased from Slaver's Bay at great expense.

The children were sent there to learn from them, forming the loyal core of followers Danyla was preparing for her future.

Those who failed the selection were sent to the distillery, smithies, and farms to learn basic ways of earning a living. Some with exceptional talents were sent to Firekiss Garden.

This was the season when whales, dolphins, sharks, jellyfish, and other marine creatures migrated from the Summer Sea to northern waters, making it a rare opportunity for fishing and hunting. Dreamfyre had caught quite a few large ocean fish lately.

Danyla had not been flying on Dreamfyre for long before they encountered several large schools of fish. Dreamfyre needed only to skim the sea and beat her wings hard to fling large fish into the air, cook them with a breath of dragonfire, and swiftly swallow them.

A little over half an hour later, they spotted a vast school of migrating tuna, followed by a pod of dolphins and several great white sharks.

Once she and Danyla had chosen a target, Dreamfyre plunged straight toward a great white shark. She moved so fast that Danyla's ears almost went deaf.

Dreamfyre's enormous talons sank into the great white shark's body, and she swiftly gained altitude. Carried into the air, the captured shark did not even dare move.

Many creatures in this world were far larger than those in the world Danyla had lived in during her previous life. Perhaps it had something to do with the much higher oxygen levels here.

This great white shark was a full fourteen or fifteen meters long and certainly weighed ten tons.

"A fine catch!"

Pleased with her catch, Danyla rode Dreamfyre back.

But just as they were about to reach New Dragonstone Island, they came face-to-face with three young dragons, each over ten meters long, fleeing in panic.

One was silver-gray and slender, its scales shimmering like morning mist in the sunlight.

"Grey Ghost?!"

Danyla immediately recognized the poor little dragon whose name had appeared in Dragonstone History, only to be eaten by Sunfyre in the end.

What was going on with the other two?

The other two were much stronger than Grey Ghost, and considerably larger.

The green young dragon looked much like Dreamfyre, with a verdigris body, black teeth and claws, and emerald-green and bronze scales that reflected the light like jade.

The largest was pitch-black. Its scales, wings, and horns were all black as coal; only its eyes, like green phantom gemstones, marked it as something extraordinary.