Bonus at 150 stones
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Dragonstone, The Chamber of the Painted Table.
Corlys suddenly asked, "So we only get these empty titles?"
Eluna glanced at the famous "Sea Snake."
"After the war, Tyrosh will belong to you. It is a Free City with a population of over four hundred thousand."
Corlys thought for a moment and then nodded.
She turned to Rhaenyra. "Princess, we Valyrians are your kin as well."
"As long as you are willing to join, the future Empire will be co-ruled by the Targaryens and the Valyrian nobility. Even if you are unwilling to join, we can form an alliance to crush the Triarchy and divide its lands together."
She said seriously, "In return, Volantis will also dispatch twenty thousand elite infantry and a hundred warships to fully support your war in Westeros."
Rhaenyra was clearly wavering. Currently, what the Blacks lacked most was an army.
Eluna smiled and clapped her hands.
"We also have a meeting gift."
A secret door opened again, and three people walked out, two men and one woman, all with silver hair and purple eyes, exceptionally handsome.
They wore simple Volantine attire, their expressions timid. The three of them knelt in unison.
"Allow me to introduce them." Eluna's hand brushed over their heads.
"Sara, twenty-five. Valos, thirty. Mirax, twenty-seven."
"They are all the children of Princess Saera..."
Rhaenyra covered her mouth in surprise.
Saera, daughter of the late King Jaehaerys.
A Princess famous for her wildness, who eventually fled to Lys and Volantis, becoming a wealthy courtesan and giving birth to a bunch of children with unknown fathers...
"They... all of them?" Rhaenyra murmured, watching them.
"Yes." Sara looked up, tears streaming down her face.
"Princess... we have always wanted to come home..."
"Mother said before she died that the blood of the Dragonlord also flows through us..."
Valos and Mirax kept their heads down, their shoulders tense.
Daemon crouched down, gripping Sara's chin to examine her.
"Aunt Saera... I saw her once when I was a child."
Then, he let go, his expression somewhat cold.
"But in the end, you are still bastards."
The three prostrated themselves on the ground.
"Though we are bastards, we are willing to fight for House Targaryen..." Sara sobbed.
"We do not seek the Targaryen name; we only hope to become a branch like the Baratheons..."
Daemon remained silent.
Rhaenyra watched the three kneeling figures in silence, then finally nodded. The three kowtowed in joy.
Rhaenyra turned to Eluna.
"My Lady, the Blacks accept Volantis's proposal for an alliance. But there are three conditions."
She held up a finger.
"First, Volantis must mobilize its army. We need to see your actual commitment."
"Second, after taking the Triarchy, you must provide us with continuous army and navy support."
"Third..."
She looked directly into Eluna's eyes.
"As the leader of the Black Wall nobility, I want you to swear by the Valyrian gods that Volantis will never betray the Blacks midway through the war, nor will it have any contact with the Greens."
The stone hall fell into a dead silence.
After a long while, Eluna slowly raised her right hand and chanted in High Valyrian.
"I swear by the Fourteen Flames, by the blood of Valyria, by the shadow of the dragons that once darkened the sky..."
Her voice echoed in the stone hall.
"I swear, Volantis shall stand with House Targaryen until the usurpers are cast down, until the rightful Queen sits on the Iron Throne. Betrayal shall bring the Doom upon us all."
The covenant was established here.
Dragonstone, The Eastern Beach.
Meanwhile, on the black beach of Dragonstone's east coast, five children were walking through the cold waves.
Jacaerys Velaryon walked at the front.
The fourteen-year-old boy was blind in one eye, and the black eyepatch gave his handsome face a gloominess that belied his age.
He stepped barefoot on the volcanic sand, his grey robe fluttering in the sea breeze.
Behind him followed his younger brothers, Lucerys and Joffrey; both were half a head shorter than their elder brother and equally silent.
Further back were Prince Daemon's two daughters, nine-year-old Baela and eight-year-old Rhaena.
The sisters had inherited the beauty of their father and their mother, Laena, but their faces were now filled with confusion.
"Jace, where exactly are we going?" Rhaena couldn't help but ask.
The two sisters had been spending time with Jacaerys lately. The once-sunny Jace had now become gloomy, growing more and more frightening. Even Luke and Joff were starting to become like their brother.
Jacaerys did not look back.
"I'm taking you to see the bastards."
"Bastards?" The two sisters were somewhat confused.
They rounded a stretch of jagged rocks, and the view suddenly opened up.
A fishing village lay in the bay, with over a hundred low treehouses built against the reefs, and drying fishing nets spread over the rocks like giant spiderwebs.
Most striking was the appearance of the villagers; some had silver hair and eyes of purple, blue, or pale grey.
Upon seeing Jacaerys and his group, the villagers stopped their work one after another and knelt down.
"These people..." Baela's eyes widened.
"How can they..."
"They are all of Targaryen blood," Jacaerys's voice was cold, "or rather, they once were."
He walked toward an old fisherman mending a net.
The old man had faint traces of silver at the roots of his white hair, and his eyes were a murky pale purple.
"My Lord." The old man struggled to stand.
"Stay seated." Jacaerys squatted down to look him in the eye.
"Your name?"
"Ma... Matthos, my Lord."
"Who was your father?"
The old man's lips trembled. "My grandfather was Maegor Targaryen..."
This was a bastard descendant of Maegor the Cruel... The children behind him gasped; nominally, Maegor's line had gone extinct.
Jacaerys turned to his siblings.
"As the Targaryen ancestral seat, Dragonstone enjoyed the Right of the First Night for centuries, until King Jaehaerys, persuaded by Queen Alysanne, abolished the custom throughout the continent of Westeros. But before that, how many babies were born in fishing villages like this?"
Rhaena turned pale. "So they are all..."
"Bastards. Or the descendants of bastards. Dragonseeds." Jacaerys stood up.
"Because they carry dragon blood, they are not allowed to leave Dragonstone and are guarded by the Dragonstone Navy."
"Farming, marrying, living, and dying, it has been this way for generations."
He pointed to the settlement.
"There are four more such settlements on the island. There are over a hundred Dragonseeds in total, all with dragon blood, yet abandoned in this corner."
"Why did you bring us here, Jacaerys?" Rhaena asked softly.
Jacaerys turned, his one good purple eye fixed on her, and pointed at the kneeling villagers.
"Loyalty. Their loyalty to the Targaryens has never faded. They are still proud of their silver hair and purple eyes, and they still kneel when they see us."
Lucerys understood. "So, you want to recruit them?"
"I want to give them a choice," Jacaerys said.
"Instead of staying here to fish... It's better to let them take up arms and fight for House Targaryen."
Joffrey said timidly, "Brother, but they are commoners... they haven't been trained..."
"So I will train them," Jacaerys interrupted.
"In my years at Driftmark and Dragonstone, Lord Corlys taught me naval warfare, and Prince Daemon taught me swordsmanship."
"I know how to turn these fishermen into soldiers."
Baela suddenly asked, "They are all bastards... but what about dragons? You said they have dragon blood..."
Jacaerys's gaze suddenly sharpened, and he remained silent without answering.
He sighed inwardly.
Currently, the Blacks have many dragons but no riders.
His, Lucerys's, and Joffrey's dragons are being held in King's Landing.
Only three adult dragons remain: those of his mother, Rhaenyra (Syrax), Prince Daemon (Caraxes), and Princess Rhaenys (Meleys), plus Baela's young dragon, Moondancer.
And Rhaena's dragon egg has not yet hatched.
But on Dragonstone... there are wild dragons. Cannibal, Grey Ghost, Sheepstealer.
And riderless dragons like Vermithor, Silverwing, and Seasmoke.
The Greens: Aemond has Vhagar and Morghul; Aegon has Sunfyre; Helaena has Dreamfyre; Daeron has the Blue Queen.
He heard that even the youngest twins have hatched their companion hatchlings.
A thought suddenly occurred to him: what if one of these Dragonseeds could ride a dragon?
Perhaps... the blood of these bastards...
Jacaerys looked at the kneeling silver-haired bastards, a dark fire igniting in his single eye.
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