The city smoldered beneath the clouds. Black smoke rose to mix with white wisps and the world before Aelina was painted grey.
Through the billowing plumes, squinting and shading her eyes from the rising morning sun, she could see verdant waters capped with white foam. Tiled roofs of homes and shops and palaces spread out on cramped, winding streets and twisting canals far below. But nothing seemed to stir. Only the fire lived.
It raged and danced across the rooftops, carried onward by the wind.
Her attack had come in the hour before daybreak. Surprise will aid you, Aelina told herself. The sleepers will not be stirring and the guards will never see the black underbelly of the winged beast against the pitch sky.
The moon was hiding behind black clouds when she made her descent. A thousand thousand fires burned below her in windows and hearths, but they were an army of ants against her mighty beast.
She bathed the bay in radiant reds and oranges. The wooden fleets broke and burst into tiny splinters. The walls shattered into pebbles. And the palaces crumbled against the monster’s hot breath.
The bells never rang. Not for danger. Not for surrender. They were silent, lifeless. Like the Titan that stood motionless, almost dead.
Aelina circled the city, painting the red, brown and grey stones black. She turned toward the Free City’s last guardian. She bathed its shield and sword and helmet in wrings of red fire and swore she heard it scream in terror as its head and torso exploded into pieces.
A long, low moan bellowed from the churning sea, as her massive fleet appeared on the horizons. Quickly, they crawled beneath the melting, buckling legs of the giant and swarmed the islands and docks of the floating city-state.
She landed near the Palace of Truth. The ancient structure, testament to the power of the Braavosi’s system of governance, was smoldering and split in two. The green copper domed roof had collapsed in on itself.
She had grown intimate with the smell of charred bones, blistered stone, and melted coin, and it filled the air with a pungent, abnormal, familiar smell.
Aelina swung her high black boots over the beast’s saddle and dropped to the cobblestones, her red armor glistening in the arching sun. Her inky-black hair swirled behind her and her cloth-of-gold cape snapped in the wild breeze.
A column of soldiers marched toward her. The Fiery Hand of R’hllor flapped on tall poles above their ornate armor and orange robes, and the men carried long spears in the shape of flames that seemed to blaze and whirl in the sun.
She turned and pierced them with her onyx eyes and they halted. A solitary figure strode forward. He went to one knee and bowed his head before her.
“My queen,” Shakar smirked. “Braavos is yours.”
“Did any ship escape?” Aelina asked.
“No, your grace. Our fleet waited in the fog, as you commanded. Once we heard the first burst of dragonfire, we were on their defenders before they could muster. Those who escaped were pursued. They are now drowned and dead.”
“What about the birds? Did any take flight?”
“Our archers shot all they saw. Even the pigeons,” he laughed.
“Good, commander. I can’t risk word reaching Westeros.” She bid him rise. “Walk with me.”
“If I may, your grace. It’s no doubt the Westerosi know of your many victories. They’ve heard the stories. I hear they watch the east, waiting for a third conqueror to appear.”
The dragon has three heads. She paused for a moment. Am I the third? Aegon and his sisters. The mother of dragons. Me.
She stopped and stared up at him. Shakar was six and a half feet tall. He looked like a giant shadow looming above her, blackened from behind by the bright sun. His golden locks, speckled with patches of salt and pepper, waved in the hot air and he stared back through ice-blue eyes.
“I know they wait for me,” Aelina responded. “But Braavos was the last of the great cities to stand against me. Westeros may be watching, but they are not prepared.”
The old king - who had been called Bran the Broken - had died only two years past. Some said he had ruled for eighty years. Maybe a hundred. Some said he crawled into a tree and protected the realm still. Ever watchful over the Seven Kingdoms.
It mattered not. She was Aelina the Defiant. Blood of the freehold. The last dragon. A shy, timid girl found wandering among the smoking ruins of Old Valyria. She was anointed by the Red God as Azor Ahai Reborn Anew. She was the Stallion Who Mounts the World, or so she was told the Dothraki had prophesied once.
What were their names? she asked herself. Kinvara? Benerro? Moqorro? They were the ones who saved me, who found me, who sheltered me, who told me these things. But their lights had gone out.
Not long after they brought her to Volantis, to the Red Temple, their magic waned and their order disbanded. And the red priests and priestesses had removed their glowing gems and died out as the long summer descended upon the world.
Aelina’s power, however, only grew with each passing year.
In the long absence of the red order, slavers came with chain and collar, with whip and wheel and took back what they claimed was theirs by rights. Their power and might crept across Essos, until all the Free Cities were under their yoke. Even Braavos, the Secret City, was pressed down by the slavers’ heavy boots.
For years, she hid behind Kinvara’s last gift, an ancient magic that allowed her to change appearance. Only death can pay for life, the red priestess offered. Take it.
Men and women cried out but Aelina did not stir. She was only a girl, alone in the world.
East and east she fled. Until she came upon a great mountain and a long lake. Womb of the World, she thought it was called. Mother of Mountains.
There in an abandoned city, she lived her long days, staring into the flames, dipping her naked body into the cool waters, and staring up at the open sky with its sun and moon and stars.
Once, she glimpsed a red comet, hanging low in the sky. It crawled across the sky, east to west. She traced her hand over its tail and wept.
That very night, alone in the desolate waste of the vast grasslands, a voice spoke to her through the brazier.
Remember who you are, the woman demanded. The dragons know. Do you?
As she tossed and turned, trying to find the woman’s face, an old dream came to her of a gaunt dragon dressed in silks with silver-gold hair and lilac eyes, wielding a borrowed sword. You don’t want to wake the dragon, do you? it snarled and snapped at her.
Wake the dragon... wake the dragon... wake the dragon... she dreamed.
The next morning, she rose in defiance. With fire and blood.
She walked - barefoot and bloody - back to Volantis.
At the Red Temple, the few who remained, huddled in the darkness and hiding from the chains, begged her to save them. To lead them. To free brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers. And the children.
They placed a silver crown on her head. Its points were wrought like flames and its band was decorated with colored gems - amethyst and opal, emerald and onyx, topaz and tourmaline, ruby and amber, obsidian and pearl.
In her hand, they placed a blade of curved Valyrian steel. They dipped it in blood and called Lightbringer when it burst into flames.
She raised it high above her head and men and women chanted Lightbringer, Lightbringer, Lightbringer as they spilled forth from the temple.
She swept east with a vast host at her back - the remnants of the Red God’s army and the many slaves and smallfolk who came to her side.
They fought beneath the pyramids of Meereen, but the slavers - emboldened by the death of the long-forgotten Dragon Queen - pushed them back.
That’s when the old dragon appeared, a growing shadow on the western sky. The beast eclipsed the sun and descended on the slavers in a blind rage. He torched the city and all its inhabitants. Stones tumbled down from atop the high pyramid, crushing the masters and breaking their whips and wheels.
At Daznak’s Pit, the mammoth beast laid his head and long neck low into the sand and beckoned her forward. She struggled up his thick, swollen neck, her soldiers pushing her up and up until she mounted him and cried out a word.
He took flight, his great arms and legs and wings smashing the stones of the fighting pit as he climbed. He turned back on the ancient arena and baked it back into the earth.
On to Yunkai and Astapor they flew. The dragon melted stone. Then they marched on Qarth and the greatest city that ever was and ever will be was no more.
Next Aelina turned back west and Mantarys was crushed. Even Old Volantis couldn’t stand against her red ruin. They shattered the sea walls of Lys and leveled Tyrosh and Myr.
Her army and navy smashed Qohor and Norvos and Lorath, but Pentos she left as her own prize. There, she burned magisters and their many mansions from atop the old creature.
Now, it was Braavos’ turn. The last Free City - or so it had once been called.
Next, it would be Westeros. The land of green hills and blue rivers, white knights and black crows would have its day. She would free the lands her ancestors once conquered. The realm that had rejected the girl Daenerys Targaryen.
At a dock on the Green Canal, a ship waited to carry Aelina through the winding gullets of Braavos. They wound east and turned south toward the Long Canal before heading west then north into the open bay of the lagoon.
She saw the House of Black and White burning.
“The Sept Beyond the Sea and the Temple of the Moonsingers as well,” Shakar informed her.
All along the waterfront, buildings burned and the survivors’ screams were silenced by sharp, swift swords.
A thousand fires burned north and south, east and west. Harbors and watchtowers. The Fishmarket and the Drowned Town. Bridges were broken and waterways were filled with corpses.
The islands seemed alive though, like mountains aflame and spewing smoke. Like Old Valyria, she dreamed. I remember it.
But the Temple of the Lord of Light, like the vast one in Old Volantis, was spared.
“Have our forces gather there,” Aelina had ordered. “We’ll use it to plan my invasion of Westeros.”
They landed there and crossed a long bridge. Her men had to help her find a clear path through the untold destruction.
She stared forward, waiting to see the palace. If I look back, I am lost.
Ahead was the Iron Bank of Braavos. The gilded powerhouse, filled with coffers of gold and iron coin, had been smashed into rubble and ruin. Her soldiers were clearing the debris and digging deep beneath the rock, searching for caverns and vaults of treasure.
“Let the men have the gold,” Aelina offered. “I have no need for it. I don’t mean to purchase my victory.”
Beyond the Moon Pool - now filled with a blood tide - was the long causeway and columns of the peninsula that led to the Sealord’s Palace.
Atop its splendid high roof, the old dragon waited. He snapped his tail and the golden thunderbolt spinning on the tall spire was struck. It twisted, toppled, and crashed to the ground.
A few soldiers emerged from behind the thick front door. “The way is secure. All are dead.”
“Leave me, commander,” Aelina held out a hand. “Take your men. The dragon will protect me.”
Shakar bowed and told the men to spread out. “We will be close, my queen.”
Slowly, she floated through the ornamented doors. Inside, the rooms were charred, the glass windows shattered, and the paintings and tapestries burned or crumpled into heaps on the marble floors. Many bodies lay strewn at her feet.
Out of the darkness, she emerged onto a long bridge connecting the large building with a watchtower and the main house on a separate isle.
On and on she walked. Through beds of blood and flickering flames.
At last she reached the gardens. Animals called out to her from cages. Some were loose and running wild, trying to escape the inferno. A few jumped into the sea and swam away.
The menagerie, she smiled. The lemon tree. I remember it.
Wildflowers and hedges and ancient trees swayed in the breeze, beckoning her home to a scorched land. Fountains were cracked and the fresh water spilled and covered grass and stone, washing away some of the raging fires.
The red ruby pulsed at her neck. The gold chain was tight about her copper skin and the jewel burned even in the heat of the day.
It will give you life, the red priestess had promised. Long, long life. And protection. Like it gave me, like it gave all of R’hllor’s champions, she had said as she slipped away from this world. But it is a chain, a knot to bind you to the here and now, Kinvara had warned. And it will burn.
Fire cannot kill a dragon, Aelina remembered. Who said that? Was it me? She had forgotten. It was a different girl, a different age, a different time, a different land.
But the words, the words still echoed in her mind. The truth was hidden somewhere in the deep darkness. Through mists, she could see faces with her third eye.
A long handsome face, sad and cold and aged, sometimes stared back from the flames.
A beautiful queen with long auburn hair and vivid blue eyes, wrinkled and grey and long since dead.
A girl with many faces looked west, her many eyes shut.
A small man rested in a cavernous tomb beneath a mighty rock.
Who were they? she always asked herself. I know their faces, but I forget their names. The girl she had been would remember; the woman she was had no need for such reminders.
I am no longer that girl, she thought. I am a woman, born again but not the same.
The Red God’s followers had once called her Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen. Mother of Dragons. Breaker of Chains. Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea. The Silver Queen. The Unburnt. Mysha.
Remember who you are, Daenerys. The dragons know, a haunted voice called out. Do you?
She removed the glamour and tossed it into the writhing flames.
A dragon is not a slave, she smiled, sadly. I will be bound no longer. To the magic or the name.
The chain and ruby did not melt, however. She watched it for a very long time, then knelt and picked it up. It was cold to the touch, and she gripped it tightly in her fist, trying to break it. The gem glowed and throbbed. It called to her.
I will use it, she decided. It will not use me.
Behind the spells, she was just an old woman with long silver-gold and white hair streaked with shades of darkening grey. Her black eyes lifted their veil to peak through the violet eyes of her ancestors.
She was tired and weary of the path laid before her, but her heart was a fire and that fire was made flesh.
The old dragon circled above and spread his huge black leather wings flapping them violently and roaring toward the heavens. The beating spurred the flames to rise higher and higher and higher until they swirled upward, reaching out toward the midday sun.
At the center of the fury, she paused as if trapped in the eye of some gloriously awful storm sent by the gods. The wind died down. The world calmed around her and the flames languished and became small again.
A lemon fell to the ground and rolled to touch her feet. Half of it was singed.
Before her stood the house. But its red door was painted black.
