Chapter 45: The Dragonseeds Program
OTTO
Rain had been falling on the Red Keep since before dawn, and someone had shuttered the windows against it, so the council met in wet wool and tallow smoke.
The small council chamber felt smaller every day.
Otto counted the men around the table. Survivors of a political earthquake, desperately trying to find footing. Aemond at his own right hand, sapphire catching the lamps whenever he turned his head. Criston Cole, still carrying the yard's marks from Rook's Rest, standing behind his chair with both hands on the back of it as though he meant to lift it and swing. Lord Jasper Wylde, clutching reports that brought only bad news.
And in the corner, the bastard. Ulf. Watching. Always watching. He never took a chair. He stood at the stone with the door two paces from his shoulder, and he had done it in every room since Rook's Rest.
"We're losing the dragon war," Otto said flatly. "Rhaenyra has Syrax, Caraxes, Vermax, Arrax—" He paused. "Well. Had Arrax."
"Lucerys fell to Vhagar," Aemond said. "That counts as victory."
"One dragon. Against half a dozen." Otto spread his hands. "We have Vhagar, the largest. Dreamfyre, bonded to Helaena but never flown in battle. Sunfyre, crippled. And Silverwing."
Alicent turned from the window. "Say the rest of it."
"I said all of it, Your Grace."
"You named my daughter's dragon in a count of weapons."
"I named what the realm has. If it pleases you, I will name it more gently and we will lose more slowly."
Wylde cleared his throat and read from a page he had clearly read four times already. "Duskendale has sent no levies. The Rosby men are two hundred short of their pledge. And there is a rumour in the fish markets that Aegon is dead of his burns."
"Hang the rumour," Aemond said, without looking up.
"You cannot hang a rumour, my prince."
"Hang whoever carries it. The rumour is a man with a mouth."
"Silverwing is mine," Ulf said.
First words he'd spoken in the meeting. Wylde jumped at them.
"Silverwing is a strategic asset. You may ride her, but she serves the realm."
"She serves who she chooses. Right now, that's me."
Otto let the challenge pass. Across the table Aemond smiled, small and pleased, and that was worse than the insolence itself. The prince enjoyed watching a Hand be corrected by a bastard.
They needed the bastard. His performance at Rook's Rest had proven his worth, however much it grated.
"The point stands. We need more dragons. There are unclaimed beasts in the Dragonpit: Vermithor, Seasmoke, others. Beasts that could turn the war if we had riders."
"Targaryen riders," Aemond said. "Dragons don't accept common blood."
"Targaryen bastards." Otto had been building to this since the shutters were closed. "The realm is full of them. Dragonseeds. Men and women with just enough of the blood to have a chance."
Silence.
"You want to legitimize bastards?" Alicent's voice carried from her position near the window. "Grant them access to dragons?"
"I want to win this war. If that requires... flexibility regarding bloodlines, so be it."
"The Faith will object."
"The Faith can burn with everyone else if Daemon reaches King's Landing."
More silence. Wylde set down his reports and folded his hands over them, the way a man does when he intends to say nothing that can later be recited back to him.
Aemond tapped his fingers against the table. Considering.
"And when one of these seeds decides he would rather be a lord than a rider? A smith on Vermithor's back can burn a keep as easily as he can burn a Black."
Nobody answered him. Otto had no answer worth the breath, and he had learned long ago that a question left lying on a table stops being a question.
"Where would we find these dragonseeds?"
"Flea Bottom, primarily. The Velaryons had a program on Driftmark as well, before they declared for Rhaenyra. We can identify candidates, test them, bond those who survive."
"Test them how?" Criston Cole asked.
"Dragon exposure. Those the beasts accept, live. Those they reject..." Otto shrugged.
"Mass sacrifice to win a war." The Lord Commander's voice carried no judgment. He had stood in the ash outside Rook's Rest while men were counted off a field, and he had done some of the counting himself.
"Calculated investment. Ten deaths for one dragonrider is acceptable mathematics."
Alicent left the window then. She stopped behind her son's chair and said nothing at all, which from her was the loudest objection in the room.
Aemond stopped tapping. "Bring me riders. I don't care what wombs they crawled from." He rose, and the council rose with him. "But they answer to Vhagar. Every one of them. Make certain they understand that before they understand anything else."
ULF
The meeting ended. I caught Otto in the corridor, past the second turning, where the rain came through an arrow slit and made a black stripe on the flagstones.
"Lord Hand."
He stopped. Didn't turn at once. Old men who have survived this long don't turn quickly for a voice behind them.
"Ulf." Otto's tone carried carefully measured neutrality. "Something on your mind?"
"The dragonseed program. I want to recommend candidates."
"You know Flea Bottom bastards?"
"I know who's likely to survive dragonfire. Who has the temperament to bond." I stepped closer, lowering my voice under the sound of the rain. "I also know which candidates might harbor Black sympathies. Better to identify them before they're mounted on dragons."
Otto studied me. Those eyes, always measuring, always weighing what a man cost against what a man returned.
"You're offering to vet the candidates."
"I'm offering to keep traitors off our dragons."
A long pause. Water ticked off the sill between us.
"Provide a list. We'll discuss."
He walked away. I watched him go, and I counted his steps until the corridor took him.
He'd give me the list. Not because he trusted me. Because he needed me more than he disliked me, and he had just told a room full of frightened people that he could buy dragonriders with dead beggars. He needed someone else's hands on that.
THAT EVENING
Helaena found me in the godswood.
The heart tree's face watched us with wooden eyes. Ancient. Uncaring. A witness to a thousand confessions it would never share.
"You're planning something."
I sat on the root-twisted ground. "I'm always planning something."
"This is different." She settled beside me, close enough that our shoulders touched. "You've been quieter. More focused. You barely slept this week."
"Found the traitor."
"I know. The servants are whispering about Garrett's disappearance."
"He won't be found."
She didn't ask for details. We'd passed that point long ago.
"There's something else," she said. "Something you haven't told me."
The kitchen girl, Marta. I tracked her today. Confirmed her involvement. She'll disappear tonight.
"Nothing important."
"Liar." But she said it gently. Understanding.
We sat in silence. The evening air carried the scent of pine and distant smoke, fires burning somewhere in the Crownlands, probably. The war spreading.
"The council approved a program to find more dragonriders," I said.
"I heard. Bastards on dragons. My mother is appalled."
"Your mother is often appalled. I'm going to help them select candidates."
"Of course you are." Helaena leaned her head on my shoulder. "Always positioning. Always building. Sometimes I wonder if you ever just... stop."
"I stopped when I came here tonight."
"Did you?"
No. I'm counting the gaps in the wall. Marking where the guard turns his back. Listening past her breathing for a boot on gravel.
"Close enough."
She laughed. Soft. Tired. Then she said, "The moths come to the sept lanterns and not to ours. I've never learned why," and I had nothing to give her for that, so I let it sit.
"My strange protector. My impossible man."
"Yours," I agreed. "Whatever else I am."
The sun set over the godswood. We watched it go.
Tomorrow, the list for Otto. The day after, whichever names of it could stand in front of a dragon without running.
Tonight, Marta.
I waited until Helaena's breathing slowed against my shoulder. Then I woke her, walked her to her door, kissed her knuckles like a guardsman and not like a man, and went down toward the sept while the lanterns were still being lit.
hey — quick one before you close the tab.
if the cliffhanger is killing you, the future already exists. you just need a ticket through.
→ $6 — 10 chapters into the future, plus 5 more every week.
→ $9 — 15 chapters past the public timeline.
→ $15 — 20 chapters ahead. every chapter the second i finish writing it.
patreon.com/Whatif0
see you in the next loop.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
P.S. — in a parallel timeline, the rest of this story runs completely free on unwrittenrealm.com. just saying. that timeline also has more chapters.