Having pacified their realm, the pair rushed forth to complete their long-delayed expedition to Valyria.
As Baelon cruised over the bruised lands of the Valyrian Peninsula, he found his mind drifting back across the past two years.
Not only had they broken New Ghis and brought the Slaver Cities to heel, but they had seized the long-abandoned Isles of Cedar and turned them into an agricultural powerhouse.
What had once been little more than forgotten jungle and lonely beaches was now a sea of grain and fields.
Baelon would not have been surprised if, in a few years' time, Dragon's Bay became the primary exporter of grain in the known world.
'Still…' A thought made his eye twitch. 'To fathom stationing so many men on that island…'
Not because he feared pirates.
After all, none had the courage to challenge Dragon's Bay anymore.
Unlike his father, Baelon held no patience for raiders and would happily reduce their fleets, and them along with it, to ash.
No, the men stationed on the islands had a far stranger duty.
They were there to fend off the monkeys.
The beasts had infested the island in obscene numbers. Worse still, they possessed a talent for mischief that bordered on malice.
His first inspection of the island had been nothing short of brutal. The constant screaming and chirping was the least of his worries regarding those fiends.
The worst of it was their vile habit of hurling faeces at him and his men like artillery.
Had he ever been hit by these…projectiles?
Well, the answer to that was something Baelon would take to the grave.
Even now, the memory made his jaw tighten beneath his mask.
Personally, he would have preferred to exterminate the little beasts.
Helaena, unfortunately, had been far more reasonable.
According to her, wiping them out would require weeks of hunting across thick jungle, weeks during which farming would halt entirely.
And even then, the creatures could simply vanish into the canopy, only to return months later with renewed enthusiasm.
It was, she had concluded sweetly, a terrible investment.
Nevertheless, as Baelon looked ahead, he nearly forgot to breathe.
A city of grandeur he had never seen rose before him.
Old Valyria, herself.
He was finally here.
Even in death, the city seemed to defy its fate as it remained standing even now.
Black towers leaned at impossible angles, some broken clean in half, others still clawing stubbornly toward the sky.
Here and there, entire districts remained eerily intact, great domes of red and black stone, bridges arcing over empty canals, plazas wide enough to swallow cities elsewhere in the world.
And behind it all loomed one of the Fourteen Flames. Unlike other Valyrian settlements, Old Valyria was built right at the foot of one of the Flames.
The volcano still had veins of molten rock that glided down its scarred slopes. Still living. Still breathing.
With bright eyes, Baelon urged Vermithor downward.
The great bronze dragon folded his wings and began his descent, Dreamfyre and Silverwing gliding after them like pale shadows against the dark sky.
The ground rushed upward—
WHOOOOMPH!
Vermithor struck the cracked ground with a thunderous crash, dust and ash erupting outward in a choking cloud.
Dreamfyre landed moments later with a heavy thud, while Silverwing touched down more gracefully, her wings playfully stirring the grey air.
Before the dead heart of the Valyrian Freehold, at the foot of one of the Fourteen Flames, Baelon and Helaena had arrived.
Baelon slid down from Vermithor's saddle and landed upon the hot stone, the soft hiss of gases lingering in his ears.
For a moment, he simply stood there, staring at the ruins stretching into the distance.
Then he drew in a deep breath and even spread out his arms, as though trying to taste the air of ancient Valyria itself.
Alas, the mask ruined everything.
The stale, filtered air that greeted him tasted no different than it had an hour ago.
Baelon froze.
Slowly, very slowly, he lowered his head.
Behind him came the faintest sound.
A chuckle.
"Aah… Old Valyria at last," Baelon said, squinting into the ruins as though nothing had happened at all.
The laughter behind him only grew worse.
"Yes," Helaena replied cheerfully as she slid down from Dreamfyre, her goggles glinting. "Only a few years passed our expectations."
Her eyes moved eagerly across the horizon, drinking in the broken towers and smouldering mountains.
Baelon turned toward her, and the two exchanged a look bright with the same childish excitement.
At last…they were here.
With a final pat to their dragons' necks, the pair bid them wait and stepped forward together, crossing the threshold into the belly of Essos' once brightest flame.
***
The room was silent.
Deathly silent.
Rhaenyra's eyes stared unblinkingly at the corpse of the man lying upon the bed before her.
"Father…" she mumbled.
The single word carried too much. Regret. Sorrow. Confusion. All of it crashing over her in one cruel, relentless tide.
The man upon the bed stirred, hearing her words.
A dry rasp escaped him as his eyes slowly cracked open.
King Viserys Targaryen was a ruin of a man. To say he was close to death would be a lie; by the Gods did he look like it.
What flesh remained upon his frame had withered into parchment-thin skin stretched over brittle bone.
His once proud silver hair had thinned and dulled, hanging in uneven strands across a skull that seemed too large for the body beneath it.
His right cheek had long since collapsed inward where rot had taken hold, leaving one side of his face gaunt and hollow.
To hide what disease and decay had stolen from him, he wore the mask.
A pale golden visage fashioned in the likeness of the king he had once been. Smooth, serene, and whole.
"R… Rhaenyra…?"
The word scraped from his throat like broken glass.
One skeletal hand lifted from the blankets, trembling as it reached toward her as though trying to trace the contours of her face.
Tears welled in her eyes as she stepped forward and clasped the outstretched hand between both of hers.
Too much had happened.
The Small Council she had known for so many years now gleamed green. Her father had slowly succumbed to illness, leaving the governance of the realm increasingly in Alicent's hands.
And yet…
For all the bitterness that festered in court, Rhaenyra struggled to truly hate her.
Alicent herself was trapped in the same cruel web. Bound by expectation, by fathers and lords and whispered ambitions that neither of them had truly chosen.
Confusion. Bitterness. Anger.
They twisted together in Rhaenyra's chest until she could scarcely tell one from the other.
What ought she to do?
Would King's Landing even have a place for her once her father finally passed?
"How goes the council?" Viserys asked weakly, though his voice had noticeably gained vigour.
He shifted beneath the blankets, grimacing as pillows were pushed behind his back to prop him upright.
"As it always does," Rhaenyra replied quietly. "With little regard for me, the heir incumbent."
Her lips pressed thin for a heartbeat.
"Their talks, their policies, their decisions…not one of them requires my voice."
More and more, she felt like a statue set upon a pedestal.
A figurehead.
Whether her father lived or died hardly seemed to change that.
"They seem determined to support Volantis through arms trading," she continued. "I would not be surprised if Lord Tyland and Lord Beesbury use this opportunity to feed the Volantene coin through the Crown in the form of loans."
Viserys slowly nodded.
"A wise choice."
His voice remained faint, but there was still a trace of the old king's certainty within it.
"Volantis is a more trustworthy ally than the former Triarchy…so long as the Elephant Party rules."
Silence followed.
It crept into the room like a cold wind.
"And…what of Dragon's Bay?" Rhaenyra asked at last.
The words escaped her before she could stop them.
"You have not punished them for their ambitions. Instead, you have allowed the realm to trade with them freely."
"Ambitions?"
Behind the mask, Viserys' glassy eyes sharpened.
They locked onto her with a clarity that belied his form.
"Do you truly feel as such?"
No.
That was the obvious answer.
Rhaenyra was not close to that pair, but she knew them well enough.
Baelon and Helaena had never seemed drawn to rule. If anything, they treated the world like an endless playground, with an innocence and wonder she could only envy.
Yet every time she remembered that they now ruled a prosperous realm of their own…
Something inside her tilted.
It was ugly.
Disgusting, even.
But the jealousy still gnawed at her.
Why?
Why should she be reduced to a puppet? A painted heir for the lords to praise in public and quietly ignore in truth?
She had little power. Little voice.
And yet her siblings, more than a decade her junior, already commanded influence across Essos.
She was no fool.
The burning of the Dothraki Sea might have caught the Free Cities unaware.
But not her.
Not her father.
They both knew that a fire of such ferocity could only be birthed by a dragon.
And still…
Viserys had said nothing in council.
He had done nothing to restrain them.
If anything, he had helped them.
Trade contracts with the Crown ensured Dragon's Bay could never be fully isolated. The Free Cities had tried to cut them off, only to discover the Iron Throne itself quietly keeping their markets open.
Forced, in the end, to swallow their pride and join the trade themselves.
Even when the Septons of the Faith denounced the pair for their rumoured magic, her father had the rumourmongers' tongues cut out, whilst the men of faith were quietly dealt with later.
This protection…
Rhaenyra bit her lip.
'I thought it belonged only to me.'
For the first time, she realised the love and care she had always assumed were hers alone had never truly been so.
"Rest, Rhaenyra."
Viserys exhaled slowly, closing his eyes.
The movement triggered a sudden fit of coughing that wracked his frail body.
When it finally subsided, his voice returned softer but firmer.
"You will always be my heir. You need not worry about that."
His head tilted slightly toward her.
"Nor need you worry about Baelon or Helaena. They will never threaten you."
Rhaenyra's heart tightened.
At the pitiful state of the man before her.
And in the way he had seen straight through her thoughts.
"Leave me be," Viserys murmured again, this time with a little more force.
Rhaenyra pursed her lips.
Yet despite everything, his unwavering support still sparked a fragile warmth in her chest.
With a reluctant nod, she rose from the bedside.
Slowly, she walked toward the door.
But just before leaving, she turned back one last time.
The room had fallen silent once more.
And the king upon the bed looked almost like a corpse again.
Still.
Quiet.
Lifeless.