ULF
Day 145. The training yard at dawn.
My legs buckled on the sixth Soru burst.
Not enough.
I hit the stone hard, shoulder taking the impact. Pain flared through my arm, sharp and immediate. Three guards watched from the colonnade, pretending not to stare.
Get up. Get up. Get up.
I pushed myself vertical. My muscles screamed. The weighted vest—one hundred sixty kilograms now—dragged at every movement like chains.
Again.
Soru. The world blurred. Ten meters. Fifteen. Twenty.
Again.
Thirty meters. My calves cramped. I pushed through.
Again.
Forty meters. Blood vessels burst in my eyes. Red haze at the edges of my vision.
Again.
I collapsed at fifty meters. Vomited on the training yard stones. The guards looked away.
Not enough. Never enough.
The war wouldn't wait for me to be ready. Rhaenyra had dragons. Daemon had experience. They had armies, fleets, centuries of Targaryen fury behind them.
I had stolen techniques from a world that didn't exist here. A half-bond with a dragon who might still cook me alive. A woman who needed me stronger than I'd ever been.
I wiped my mouth. Stood. Stripped off the weighted vest.
Rankyaku. Work on Rankyaku.
My right leg snapped forward. Air compressed, hardened, flew—
The blade struck a practice dummy fifteen meters away. Cut halfway through.
Halfway. Not enough.
Again.
Seventeen meters. Two-thirds through.
Again.
Twenty meters. Clean cut.
I laughed. Blood and bile on my lips, body trembling, and I laughed.
Progress. Finally, progress.
HELAENA
I found him in the godswood at midnight.
He sat beneath the weirwood, shirtless despite the cold. Bruises covered his torso—purple and yellow and green, layered like geological strata. Fresh ones overlapping old ones overlapping healed ones.
"You're destroying yourself."
He looked up. Those strange eyes—the ones that saw too much, knew too much—met mine.
"I'm building something."
"Building what? A corpse?"
"A weapon." He rose, movements stiff. Pain in every line of his body. "The Blacks have Caraxes. Vermithor. Seasmoke. A dozen others. We have—what? Sunfyre. Vhagar. Dreamfyre."
"We have enough."
"We don't. Not if Daemon coordinates an attack. Not if they strike before we're ready." He picked up his shirt, pulled it over his head with a grimace. "I need to be stronger. Fast enough to matter. Tough enough to survive dragonfire."
"You already survived dragonfire."
"Silverwing was testing me. Playing." His jaw tightened. "Caraxes won't play. Neither will Daemon."
I stepped closer. Touched his arm—felt him flinch, then relax.
"When did you last sleep?"
"I sleep."
"When?"
Silence.
"Ulf."
"Four hours. Maybe five." He shrugged. "My body doesn't need more. It... adapts."
Adapts. The word carried weight. Hidden meaning I didn't quite understand.
"Come inside," I said. "Rest. Even weapons need maintenance."
He smiled. The first genuine expression I'd seen on his face in days.
"One more hour. Then I'll rest."
I knew he was lying. So did he.
But I kissed his cheek anyway, tasted salt and copper, and left him to his self-destruction.
What else could I do?
ULF
Day 148. The crossing to Dragonstone's outskirts.
The fisherman who ferried me didn't ask questions. Probably thought I was mad—a lone man sailing toward dragon territory in the middle of a succession war.
He wasn't wrong.
Silverwing waited on the same cliff where she'd first tested me. Massive. Silver-scaled. Ancient.
She watched me climb the path, her golden eyes tracking every movement.
She knows something's different.
I stopped ten paces away. Close enough to speak. Far enough to dodge—maybe—if she decided to roast me.
"I need to ride you."
The words hung in the salt air.
Silverwing's head tilted. A rumble in her chest—not quite a growl, not quite approval.
"War is coming. Real war. Dragons killing dragons." I stepped forward. Five paces now. "I can't protect what I love from the ground. I need to be in the sky. With you."
Another rumble. Louder.
"You tested me before. Fire and patience. I passed." Three paces. "Test me again if you need to. But decide. Are you mine, or aren't you?"
Silverwing's jaw opened.
Oh shit.
Fire erupted.
Not a test blast. Not a warning. A sustained column of dragonflame, white-hot at the core, washing over me like a physical wave.
I dropped my weight to 10kg—stable against the force—and triggered Tekkai across my entire body. Skin hardened to iron. Muscles locked. Eyes squeezed shut against the light.
Thirty seconds.
My clothes burned away. The leather straps holding my knife melted.
Sixty seconds.
Skin blackened. Split. Regenerated. Split again.
Ninety seconds.
Pain became abstract. Something happening to a body that might or might not be mine.
Hundred and twenty seconds.
The fire stopped.
I stood there. Naked. Smoking. Skin raw and pink where it had just finished healing.
Silverwing watched me with something that might have been respect.
Then she lowered her wing.
An invitation.
I climbed.
No saddle. No harness. Just scales under my hands and wind tearing at my face.
Silverwing launched without warning.
The cliff dropped away. The sea appeared below—impossibly far, impossibly fast.
Hold on. Just hold on.
I gripped scales, wrapped my legs around whatever ridges I could find, increased my weight to 2000kg to anchor myself.
Wind screamed past. The world tilted. We banked left, right, spiraled upward.
My stomach lurched. Vertigo clawed at my brain. Every instinct screamed to let go, to find solid ground, to escape this insanity.
I held on.
Silverwing leveled out. Flew straight.
Below, Blackwater Bay spread like hammered silver. King's Landing appeared in the distance—a smudge of smoke and stone.
I'm flying. I'm actually flying.
A laugh escaped my throat. Wild. Uncontrolled.
Silverwing rumbled beneath me—her version of amusement.
We flew for fifteen minutes. Maybe twenty. I lost track. Lost everything except the wind and the scales and the impossible joy of defying gravity.
Then she descended. Found the same cliff. Landed with a thud that nearly threw me off.
I slid down her flank, hit the ground, and collapsed.
Laughing.
Crying.
Smoking slightly where my raw skin met cool stone.
Silverwing's head descended. Her snout pressed against my chest—gentle, almost tender.
Bonded. Not mastered. But bonded.
I was a dragonrider now.
The Dance had just become survivable.
ULF
Day 155. The training yard.
Five Soru bursts. Thirty meters each. No stopping.
The world blurred. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
I slammed into the far wall, caught myself, turned.
Again.
One. Two. Three. Four. Five.
Back at the starting point. Breathing hard. But standing.
Tekkai. Full body. Three minutes.
I hardened. Everything. Skin, muscle, bone. A statue of iron-wrapped flesh.
A training guard struck me with a mace. The impact jarred my teeth but didn't break skin.
Another strike. Another. Another.
Two minutes.
My muscles burned. Tekkai demanded constant energy, constant focus.
Three minutes.
I released. Gasped. Almost fell.
The guard lowered his mace. "Seven hells. How are you doing that?"
"Practice."
"That's not practice. That's witchcraft."
I smiled. "Maybe."
He stepped back. Made a sign against evil.
Let them think what they want. Fear is useful.
I picked up my knife—a new one, to replace the one Silverwing melted—and moved to the striking posts.
Shigan. Finger thrust. Penetrating power.
My index finger drove forward. Struck wood.
The post cracked.
Again.
Deeper crack.
Again.
My finger punched through the wood entirely.
Good. Getting better.
The guard was still watching. Eyes wide.
"You'll want to step back," I told him. "I'm about to try something new."
He retreated to the colonnade. Smart man.
I centered myself. Dropped my weight to 1kg. Lighter than air.
Geppo. Sky-stepping.
I jumped. At the apex, I kicked down—not at ground, at air itself.
The air compressed. Pushed back. I rose another two meters.
Again.
Kicked. Rose.
Again.
Kicked. Rose.
I was ten meters off the ground now. Floating. Stepping on nothing.
Four steps. Five. Six—
My concentration broke. The technique collapsed.
I fell.
Weight to 10,000kg. Impact like a hammer.
The training yard stones cracked beneath me.
I laughed. Pulled myself from the crater. Dusted off broken stone.
Progress. Real progress.
The guard had fled. Probably to tell others about the demon-bastard who walked on air.
Let him talk.
I had work to do.
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