107 AC
The sea was quiet that morning. A rare calm lay over Dragonstone, the waves lapping like sleeping dogs against the shore. Mist clung to the cliffs, curling around the rocks like breath held too long.
I stood beside Silverwing's den, watching the fog. She was restless, her tail twitching as if sensing some shift in the world beyond our island. I felt it too. Not danger—yet—but movement. The kind that came before storms.
Maelion had returned from King's Landing the night prior. He said little, only handing me a sealed scroll with the wax of the Red Keep.
"From the maesters," he said. But his eyes betrayed something heavier.
I waited until he left, then broke the seal.
A son is born to Queen Alicent and King Viserys. Prince Aegon, first of his name, by all rights heir to the Iron Throne.
The words were clean, clinical. But the intent beneath them was not.
The world would shift around that name. Aegon.
The Queen Who Never Was still drew breath, her niece still named heir, but already I felt it. In the silence between words. In the way Maelion would not meet my gaze. In the tone of the raven's wings.
I folded the scroll and burned it over the brazier.
Silverwing rumbled as I approached. Her eyes watched me not with hunger or curiosity—but with expectation.
"Not yet," I whispered. "But soon."
The keepers spoke in hushed tones these days. About politics. About dragons. Some had begun leaving Dragonstone quietly, bound for Oldtown or the capital. A few lingered, eyes on me longer than before. Whispers, always just out of earshot.
That night, I rode alone.
Silverwing rose like a shadow over the bay, her wings drinking the clouds. I let her lead. We soared west, far beyond the watch of any tower or torch.
When we landed atop a narrow sea stack, I dismounted and unwrapped the cloth bundle I'd brought.
It held three stones. Smooth. Black. Warm.
And a knife.
I cut my palm. Again. Let the blood fall over the stones.
"This is my oath," I said. "Not to kings. Not to councils. To the fire itself. To flight. To the bond forged in silence."
Silverwing roared once, the cliffs trembling.
The old ways were not gone. They slept. And I would wake them.
One oath for blood.
One for fire.
One for freedom.
Let the realm crown princes and promise wars.
I had made my vow.
And I would not break it.