If the two dragons struck the mountain in this tangle, they would not die immediately—but they would be trapped in the narrow crater, burned alive or suffocated in the volcanic throat.
Vhagar felt the danger.
Aemond, on Vermithor's back, looked down at the crater rushing up to meet him.
Is this how it ends?
His claws still gripped Vermithor's shoulders and neck. The two dragons were locked together, a knot of scale and fury and blood, trailing fire and smoke as they plunged toward the mountain's black maw.
Four hundred feet.
Three hundred.
Two hundred.
Then—movement.
A black shadow erupted from the clouds above the dragonhold.
Lothron.
The young black dragon had felt Vhagar's peril. He came down like a thunderbolt, wings folded, body angled in a steep, screaming dive.
He struck the falling giants at full speed.
The impact was not enough to move them—not really. They were too massive, too committed to their death-spiral. But Lothron's momentum was just enough to tilt them.
Vhagar's body shifted. Vermithor's followed.
Their trajectory changed.
And Lothron—his foreleg twisted and bloody from the collision, his scales cracked and weeping—seized the saddle on Vermithor's back.
Seized his rider.
Aemond.
*CRASH. *
The sound of impact shook Dragonstone to its foundations.
Not the crater. The cliff-face.
Vhagar and Vermithor struck the stone wall at the edge of the volcanic throat. The black rock shattered. A fifty-foot crater bloomed beneath them; debris rained down the mountainside like hail. Volcanic ash rose in a grey column, climbing toward the sky.
The two dragons were embedded in the stone.
Dragon blood ran down the cliff in rivulets, hissing and steaming on the hot rock.
And Aemond—
Aemond jumped.
He launched himself from Vermithor's back, one hand catching Lothron's outstretched foreclaw, the other gripping Blackfyre's hilt. His weight dragged the young dragon downward; Lothron's wings beat wildly, desperately, not flying but gliding, slowing their fall.
They slid across the edge of the dragonhold. Past the shattered battlements. Over the collapsed walls.
Down to the ash-choked plain below.
Lothron's belly scraped across the black earth for fifty feet before he finally came to rest against a mound of volcanic stone.
Aemond released his grip. Rolled with the impact. Came up on one knee, gasping.
He pressed his palm to Lothron's neck. His voice was hoarse.
«Thank you,» he said.
The young black dragon rumbled—a sound of pain, of pride, of devotion.
Then both of them looked up.
Vermithor's riderless dragon was emerging from the dragonhold's main entrance.
The bronze dragon's head swung left, right, searching. He roared—a sound of confusion, of loss, of fury. His wings spread; he launched himself into the sky and flew east, following the trail of his silver mate.
Aemond watched him go.
He is lost to us, he thought. For now.
But not forever.
Lothron roared and turned toward Vhagar.
The battlefield had shifted to the ground.
Three hundred feet to Aemond's left, Vhagar and Vermithor were still embedded in the cliff-face.
Vermithor was beneath Vhagar now, pinned, his strength spent. His claws still gripped her belly, but his struggles had become feeble. His chest heaved; his breath came in ragged, smoking gasps.
Vhagar had him pinned.
Her weight bore down on him. Her jaws hovered inches from his throat. The fire kindling in her gully could end him in an instant.
But she did not bite. Did not burn.
He was her firstborn. Her heir. Her child.
Even now, even in her fury, she hesitated.
Vermithor's mate screamed from above. Silverwing circled the battlefield, her wails cutting through the smoke and ash.
Come, she cried. Come away. Flee with me.
Vermithor's eyes found hers.
He did not move.
Nearby, another battle had ended.
Sunfyre and Grey Ghost lay on the volcanic plain, locked together like exhausted lovers.
Sunfyre was atop Grey Ghost. The golden dragon's left wing was shattered; the wound on his belly had torn open further in the fall. His blood pooled beneath him, blackening the ash.
Grey Ghost was no better. His chest was stove in; his right wing hung at a broken angle. His rider's weight was gone.
Both dragons still lived. Both still tried, feebly, to attack. Sunfyre's jaws opened, but only black smoke emerged. Grey Ghost's claws twitched, but his foreleg would not answer his command.
After a long moment, Sunfyre released his grip.
Grey Ghost's head fell to the ground. His shriek was a thin, pitiful sound.
Aegon.
In the last instant of the fall, Sunfyre had twisted his body to shield his rider. Aegon had been thrown clear—into a drift of soft volcanic ash.
Now he crawled back to his dragon, dragging his broken leg behind him. His face was a mask of blood and tears.
«Sunfyre…» His voice was a whisper. «Sunfyre…»
The golden dragon's molten-gold eyes found his rider. He made a sound—a low, keening cry, almost a sob.
He tried to lift his head. His wounded neck would not obey. Instead, his tail curled weakly, brushing against Aegon's side.
A comfort. An apology. A farewell.
Mirax.
The bastard on Grey Ghost's back had not been so fortunate.
His body lay twenty feet from his dragon, sprawled across a shard of black volcanic glass. His silver hair was dark with blood. His limbs were bent at wrong angles.
He was not moving.
Aemond looked at him for a long moment. Then he looked away.
Another bastard dead. Another dragon riderless.
The blacks are bleeding.
Then the dragonhold spoke.
Vhagar felt it first. Her ancient head turned; her amber eyes fixed on the main entrance.
Vermithor felt it too. His struggles ceased. His gaze followed hers.
A head emerged from the cave.
Coal-black. Not the smooth, elegant scales of Vhagar or Vermithor, but rough, jagged—serrated. Each scale was a blade, sharp-edged and cruel. The head itself was misshapen: snout longer than it should be, jaw wider, teeth not neatly arrayed but tangled, a thicket of daggers.
Then the neck.
Tower-thick, scarred beyond measure. Old wounds, healed badly; gouges from claws and teeth; twisted ridges where dragonfire had seared the flesh and the scales had grown back wrong.
Proof of survival. Proof of slaughter. Proof of a hundred battles won.
The dragon emerged slowly, deliberately. His foreclaws gripped the stone, each impact crackingthe rock.
He did not attack.
He only raised his head—and looked.
His eyes were not amber. Not molten gold. Not even the red of blood.
They were mud-yellow. Filthy. Ancient. Hungry.
Cannibal.
The oldest wild dragon on Dragonstone. Never tamed. Never ridden. Never even approached, by any but the mad and the suicidal.
Most of the time, he slept in the deepest caverns of the dragonhold. Sometimes he woke to hunt—mountain goats, large fish, and on rare occasions…
Other dragons.
Or their eggs.
The scars on his body were not all old. Some were fresh. Some had been given to him by Vermithor, years ago, when Cannibal had raided Silverwing's nest and eaten her clutch.
Vermithor had lost that fight.
Cannibal had simply… retreated. Waited. Grown stronger.
In the century since, three young wild dragons had tried to nest in the dragonhold.
Cannibal had killed them all. And eaten them.
This was the true dragon-eater. The legend made flesh.
Cannibal turned his mud-yellow gaze across the battlefield.
He saw Vhagar and Vermithor, locked together in the cliff-face. Both wounded. Both exhausted.
He did not attack.
He is not stupid, Aemond thought. He will not challenge two giants, even wounded. Not when easier prey exists.
Cannibal's gaze shifted.
To Sunfyre and Grey Ghost. Two young dragons, crippled, helpless, dying on the ash plain.
To Aegon, kneeling beside his golden dragon.
To the two corpses of the bastard riders.
And finally—to Aemond.
The silver-haired prince, covered in blood, Blackfyre in his hand, standing alone on the black earth.
Cannibal looked at him for a long, considering moment.
Then he moved.
Toward the young dragons.
Grey Ghost saw him coming. The pale dragon's shriek was thin, desperate—the cry of prey. His broken body tried to rise, to flee, to anything.
He could not move.
Sunfyre felt the threat. His golden eyes tracked the coal-black dragon's approach. He tried to lift his head, to roar, to protect his rider.
He could not lift his head.
Aegon pressed himself against Sunfyre's foreleg, his arms wrapped around the golden scales. He looked up at the horror approaching them—at the mud-yellow eyes, the gaping jaws, the forest of saber-teeth.
Death, he thought. Death is coming.
He found his voice.
«AEMOND! » he screamed.
«SAVE SUNFYRE! SAVE US—PLEASE! »
Aemond heard him.
For a heartbeat, he hesitated.
Save Aegon. Save Sunfyre. Fight Cannibal face-to-face.
Vhagar is wounded. Vermithor is spent. Lothron is young and tired.
Can we win?
Then he remembered.
Aegon, who had spent the entire battle fleeing, cowering, terrified—turning his wounded dragon into a battering ram to save his brother.
Aegon, screaming Grey Ghost's fire onto Vermithor's back, not caring that he might die, not caring that his dragon might fall.
The coward. The weakling. The brother he had always despised.
Who had just shown more courage than Aemond had ever expected.
Maybe… maybe brotherhood is not so worthless after all.
Aemond made his choice.
«VHAGAR! »
«RELEASE VERMITHOR! COME TO ME! NOW! »
Vhagar heard.
The old dragon's claws unclenched. She released Vermithor's body and pushed herself from the cliff-face, her wounded wings beating in great, painful strokes.
Vermithor was free. But he did not attack. Did not flee.
He heard Silverwing's call.
The silver she-dragon circled above, her wails growing more desperate. Sara, on her back, was weeping—not for herself, but for the child in her womb, for the mate she could not abandon, for the battle she could no longer fight.
Vermithor looked up at her.
And he chose.
His wings beat—once, twice, a labor. He tore himself from the crater in the cliff-face, debris raining down around him. He did not attack Vhagar. Did not pursue Aemond.
He flew to Silverwing.
Together, the two dragons turned east. Toward Pentos. Toward the horizon.
Away from the battle.
Away from the death.
Cannibal stopped.
Vhagar was descending toward Aemond. Vermithor and Silverwing were fleeing. Lothron was circling above.
Two giants. One wounded, one exhausted. One young black dragon, untested.
And himself.
He measured the odds. His mud-yellow eyes flicked from dragon to dragon, calculating, weighing.
Then he began to retreat.
Slowly. Deliberately. With the patience of something that had lived a hundred years and intended to live a hundred more.
He backed toward the dragonhold's entrance. His gaze never left them.
Then he was gone.
Aemond exhaled.
Vermithor, flying east with Silverwing, suddenly turned.
The bronze dragon wheeled in the sky, his vast body arcing back toward Dragonstone. His roar echoed across the island—not a battle cry, but a summons.
He flew not to attack, but to approach.
Aemond watched him come. Watched Vermithor descend, his movements slow, careful. The bronze dragon landed fifty feet away, his head lowered, his eyes fixed on the silver-haired prince.
Aemond walked toward him.
Vermithor did not attack. Did not flee. He only watched—and waited.
«I killed your rider,» Aemond said.
Vermithor's rumble was not hostile. It was… indifferent.
Varros was a means to an end. A bastard who gave me a rider. Nothing more.
Aemond understood.
«I cannot ride you,» he said. «Not yet. Perhaps not ever.»
Vermithor lowered his head. His snout brushed against Aemond's chest—a gesture of acceptance. Of respect.
Then he turned and launched himself into the sky.
Toward Silverwing.
Toward the east.
Aemond watched him go.
Two dragons lost, he thought. Two giants, in their prime, flown from the battlefield.
But not to the enemy.
Not forever.
Grey Ghost lay on the ash plain, keening.
His rider was dead. His body was broken. He had no one and nothing.
Aemond walked toward him.
The pale dragon watched him approach. He did not attack. He did not flee. He only lay there, keening, waiting for the end.
Aemond drew Blackfyre.
He cut his palm.
Three drops of blood fell into Grey Ghost's open jaws.
Targaryen blood. Dragon's blood. The blood that binds.
If it can make dragons grow, can it not heal their wounds?
Grey Ghost's keening stopped.
His eyes—pale, opalescent, beautiful—fixed on Aemond's face.
Then they closed.
He slept.
Sunfyre slept too.
His head rested on the ash. His golden scales rose and fell with each labored breath.
Aegon knelt beside him, his broken leg forgotten, his hands pressed against his dragon's neck.
«Stay with me,» he whispered. «Stay with me, Sunfyre. Please.»
Sunfyre's tail twitched. A sound—soft, reassuring—rumbled in his chest.
I am here. I am with you. I will not leave you.
Vhagar landed nearby. Lothron descended to join her.
Aemond looked at his dragons. At his brother. At the smoking ruin of Dragonstone.
We lost Vermithor. We lost Silverwing. Gannibal is fled, Grey Ghost wounded, Sunfyre crippled.
But we are alive. Aegon is alive. Vhagar lives.
The blacks have lost four riders today. Four dragons are riderless—or soon will be.
And Dragonstone is ours.
The morning sun broke over the horizon.
Aemond Targaryen stood in its light, Blackfyre in his hand, and surveyed his victory.