An hour before sunset. The council chambers of High Tide.
Kaerion Velaryon listened to Maester Mathos's report. For a long while, he said nothing.
A dozen men sat in the chamber with him—captains, knights, stewards. All watched him. All waited for his word.
«He said this?» A young Velaryon knight could not hold his tongue. «Our property?»
«We are to yield the castle? The seat of our house?»
«He means to tear out our roots by the blade!»
«He demands unconditional surrender,» another knight said. His voice was heavy as lead. «Not only our city. Our dignity.»
«Kneel. Disarm. Greet them like thralls…»
«If we surrender with no honor left, is that not death itself?»
«If we fight, we die worse,» a quartermaster said. His face was white. «It is Vhagar!»
«That beast can melt stone! What walls can hold against her?»
The council erupted.
Men argued. Shouted. One drew his sword in anger and cut the table; another wept openly, bitter tears for a city that had stood for a hundred years and now faced annihilation.
Dragonfire. They had all heard the stories. Harrenhal. Field of Fire. They had never truly believedthem—until now.
Kaerion said nothing.
He walked to the window. Below him lay High Tide, the castle of his childhood. He remembered the day Lord Corlys had placed Driftmark in his charge.
Guard it. I will return.
Could he hold?
The sun sank lower. The shouting in the chamber faded.
All eyes were upon him. Only he could decide.
At last, Kaerion turned.
«Raise the parley flag.»
«Send Mathos again.»
«Tell him: Driftmark will open its gates. But our men will march out with their swords. Their armor. That is our final offer.»
«Velaryon soldiers will not be driven from their homes like unarmed captives.»
His squire looked at him. «My lord… if he refuses again?»
«Then we hold,» Kaerion said. His voice was quiet. Iron. «We hold until the walls melt. We hold until our last breath.»
«For the honor of the Seahorse. For the glory of the Lord of the Tides.»
At sunset, the parley tent was raised a third time.
Mathos entered. His legs trembled beneath his robes.
He repeated Kaerion's terms. His head was bowed so low he could not see the prince's face.
Silence. Only the crackle of coals in the brazier.
Then Aemond spoke.
«March out with their swords.»
«Yes, Your Highness. Lord Kaerion said it is the last dignity of a Velaryon warrior…»
«Dignity.»
Aemond shook his head. Smiled.
He rose. Walked to the tent's entrance and lifted the flap.
The sunset was the color of blood. It painted all Driftmark red.
«We Targaryens conquered the Seven Kingdoms with dragonfire,» Aemond said. His back was to Mathos. His voice drifted, dreamlike.
«But to hold power, fire is not enough. One must have rules.»
He turned. Smiled again.
«The rule is this: obey, or die.»
«There is no middle path. No bargaining. No last dignities.»
«Go back. Tell Kaerion Velaryon.»
«The sun is setting.»
When Mathos crawled from the tent, the last sliver of light had sunk beneath the waves.
From without the tent, a horn sounded.
War.
The first assault came before the last light died.
Not Vhagar. Lothron.
The young black dragon dropped from the clouds like a thunderbolt and fell upon the western wall of High Tide.
He was faster than his elder. More nimble. His flight was strange, unpredictable—a zigzag weave that baffled the eye.
Before the defenders could react, Lothron was over the wall. His neck bent. His jaws opened.
Dragonfire raked the battlements.
A dozen archers burned. Their screams were brief. They fell from the wall like burning leaves.
«Dragon! Dragon incoming!»
«Scorpions—aim—»
«Too fast—can't track him—»
Lothron wheeled. Came again.
Fire washed over merlons and machicolations. Men caught the spray of flame; their clothes ignited, their hair, their skin. The dragonfire clung to them, ate through flesh, gnawed at bone.
«FALL BACK!»
Too late.
Men writhed and shrieked. Some threw themselves from the wall.
It was only the beginning.
While the western wall burned, a deeper sound rolled across the city.
Not Lothron's hunting cry.
This was a sound from the deep earth. A rumble that seized the heart and squeezed. Blood seemed to thicken in the veins.
Vhagar.
Her shape eclipsed the rising moon.
She flew slowly. Not swift like Lothron. She had no need of speed. She came as a mountain comes—steady, inevitable, crushing all in its path.
The men upon the eastern wall looked up.
It was the last thing they ever saw.
Vhagar opened her mouth.
The light in her throat was not a stream. It was a sun, born in the dragon's gullet and unleashed upon the world.
Not a column of fire. A sea of it.
The wall turned white—white as noon—white as the hearts of stars. Seventy feet of granite and timber, two towers, and all the men upon them.
For a moment, there was no sound.
Sound cannot live in such heat.
Granite blushed. Turned red. Ran like water.
Iron beams did not melt. They sublimed—became vapor, then nothing. The stone itself wept molten tears.
The men upon that wall left not even ash.
Vhagar's fire lasted ten heartbeats.
When she closed her jaws, the barracks beyond the wall were burning. The storehouses. The granaries. A great fire kindled in the heart of High Tide.
Heat rolled across the city in a wave. Men a hundred yards away felt their faces scorch.
«Withdraw! Withdraw to the inner bailey!» An officer screamed.
But there was no one left to hold the wall.
Upon the terrace of the main keep, Kaerion Velaryon watched.
He watched his wall melt. Watched his men burn. Watched the two dragons wheel slowly, patiently, above his city.
«My lord—the inner keep can still hold!» His squire's voice was raw.
Kaerion did not answer at once.
«No,» he said at last. «We cannot hold.»
«Vhagar will come again. And again. This castle will become an oven.»
He turned to the herald.
«Raise the white flag.»
«The whole city—white flags from every tower. All men are to march out…»
«My lord?!»
«It is over,» Kaerion said. A sad smile touched his lips.
«Honor cannot stand before dragonfire. Honor is paper. Stone is paper. Men are paper.»
«If we do not yield, the entire city will burn. Everyone will die—soldiers, women, children. The old, the young. All of them.»
«I will not spend the lives of my house on a gesture.»
He unbuckled his sword. Removed his helm. Donned a cloak of purest white.
«Open the gates.»
Vhagar had landed in the field before the city.The she-dragon lowered her great head, but her amber eyes—vertical slits, ancient and cold—never left the castle.
Lothron still wheeled above.
The main gate of High Tide groaned open.
A man in white led the garrison out on foot. Every soldier had removed his armor. Cast down his weapons. All wore white.
The royal army parted to let them pass.
Kaerion Velaryon walked to the field. Stopped before Aemond, who stood in Vhagar's shadow.
«Lord Kaerion Velaryon,» he said. His voice carried clear on the night wind.
«Warden of Driftmark. I come to surrender to Prince Aemond Targaryen.»
«The castle. The harbor. The fleet. The soldiers and civilians of this island. All are yours. I ask only…»
He raised his head. His grey eyes met the prince's single violet one.
«I ask only that Your Highness keep his word. That you harm no man who yields. That you spare the noncombatants.»
Aemond regarded him. A long, slow look.
Then he spoke.
«Do you recall what I said before sunset?»
Kaerion's shoulders tightened.
«I said: if the gates remained shut at sunset, I would deem that you had chosen war.»
«The gates are open now. But sunset has passed.»
Aemond gestured at the flames that yet licked the broken walls.
«You chose war. And you lost.»
Kaerion's lips parted. «Your Highness—we—»
«Too late,» Aemond cut him off. «I gave you chances. Not one. Many.»
«First: unconditional surrender. You haggled.»
«Second: disarm and march out. You demanded to keep your swords.»
«Now the battle is done. Your dead are dead. Your walls are melted. And now you come to yield?»
He shook his head. Disappointment. Contempt.
«This is not surrender, Lord Kaerion.»
«This is giving up.»
«Those who give up have no right to terms.»
Aemond's eye swept over the unarmed men kneeling in the field.
«I give you one final choice.»
«Kneel. Swear fealty to me.»
He looked up at the burning city.
«Your home burns. It need not burn further.»
Kaerion's body began to shake.
He looked at Aemond. Forced words through a throat gone dry.
«We surrendered. We should be granted the courtesies due to prisoners of war. By the laws of chivalry—»
«My laws!» Aemond's voice cracked like a whip. «My courtesies!»
Behind him, guardsmen's hands found sword hilts.
The surrounding army nocked arrows.
Lothron descended from the night sky. He came to his master's side, and the glow kindling in his throat matched the rage in Aemond's eye.
Aemond stroked his neck.
Behind him, Vhagar had risen to her full height. Her gullet glowed.
One word, and a thousand kneeling men would become ash.
Kaerion looked at his people. Knights of his own blood. Velaryons of the cadet branches. Men who had trusted him.
He sighed.
And knelt.
One by one, the others knelt with him.
Aemond watched.
Dragonstone, he thought. Its walls are black stone, born of dragonfire. They will not melt so easily. We cannot take it by flame alone.
We must take it by blood.
And these prisoners—they will make excellent fodder.
But some did not kneel.
Dozens of men—Velaryons, all—remained standing.
Aemond raised a hand.
The guards pulled them from the ranks.
«I am Velaryon! I am sworn to Princess Rhaenyra!»
«I will not kneel to a kinslayer!»
«For the honor of the Seahorse!»
«For the Lord of the Tides!»
«Velaryon above all!»
Vhagar breathed.
Orange-red fire washed over them. Their shouts lasted half a heartbeat. Then nothing.
Only a scorched black scar upon the grass, and a wisp of smoke rising into the night.
The kneeling prisoners trembled. Not a man dared raise his head.
Aemond's gaze swept over them.
«Does any other wish to speak of honor?»
Silence.