HOTD: Bronze and Fire

Westeros.

Since Aegon the Conqueror rode out upon his dragon and, with his sister-wives Queen Visenya and Queen Rhaenys, subdued six of the Seven Kingdoms, most of Westeros had lived under one crown.

The year Aegon took the throne became the first year After Conquest: 1 AC.

Everything before it was Before Conquest. Everything after it was After Conquest.

109 AC.

The Vale. Runestone.

"House Royce is one of the oldest and proudest houses in the Vale. Its arms are black iron studs on bronze, bordered by ancient runes, and its words are We Remember."

In an attic chamber of the castle, an old maester lectured with a book held open in both hands.

The room was far from shabby. Bearskins and swords hung along the walls, giving the place a quiet air of wealth and hard edges.

Two students sat side by side before him.

Vaelor hid behind a book propped upright and bowed his head to smother a vicious yawn.

He was tired. Miserably tired.

He had slept badly again. Every time he closed his eyes, strange dreams tangled through his head.

Beside him, Willem noticed the yawn and shot him a look of naked disdain before straightening his back and returning to the lecture with exaggerated focus.

Vaelor saw it and did not care in the slightest.

Poor thing. He was only eight, a full five years younger than the boy beside him. He had no interest in measuring dignity with a companion dragged into lessons for his sake.

There was an old saying that a motherless child grew like a weed, while a fatherless child went hungry.

Vaelor's situation was different.

He had a mother who was Lady of Runestone and loved the hunt, and a father who made a habit of never coming home.

Between the two of them, they had become masters of neglect, leaving their only son mostly forgotten.

How tragic for the child.

Vaelor had long since grown used to it. The soul inside him, after all, had come from another world, and it was perfectly happy with the arrangement.

In his previous life, he had been an ordinary bright-eyed teenager, eating a popsicle and humming to himself while crossing a street at exactly the wrong time.

One blink later, he had been reborn.

Now he was Vaelor Targaryen, a trueborn scion of the dragon.

His father was Daemon Targaryen, a man of dangerous skill and an even more dangerous temper, inconveniently blessed with an elder brother who happened to be king.

In other words, Daemon had power.

His mother was Rhea Royce of the Vale, the ruling Lady of Runestone.

Unfortunately, husband and wife loathed each other, and their marriage had been broken in all but name for years.

The blame, in a roundabout way, went back to the Great Council of 101 AC. Yorbert Royce, then regent at the Eyrie and Lord Protector of the Vale, had gone to great lengths to plan for the next generation.

He was Lady Rhea's uncle, and he had passed Runestone to his niece.

Daemon and his elder brother Viserys both had important ties to the Vale through marriage. Anyone hoping to compete for the Iron Throne needed the Vale's strength.

Yorbert's terms had been simple: Daemon only needed to consummate the marriage.

Daemon despised his wife. He called her his "bronze bitch" and mocked that the sheep in the Vale were more appealing than its women.

So after the wedding, he had refused to share her bed.

Then came the pressure to support his brother's claim to the Iron Throne, followed by Yorbert Royce's mixture of threats and incentives.

Daemon agreed.

One time. That was all.

And that single night created Vaelor, a child who should never have existed.

"Mother is beautiful," Vaelor muttered, eyelids drooping as his body sagged toward the desk. "Father has terrible taste."

A second life had made him remarkably steady.

If the gods had made him a child, then he would do what a child was meant to do.

Live happily. Enjoy the childhood adults spent their whole lives wishing they could have again.

Then, when he was grown, he would stop the tragedy known as the Dance of the Dragons.

Tap. Tap.

The old maester's gaze found the student who had no love for lessons. He closed his book and rapped it against the wall, bringing the lecture to an end.

"Vaelor," he said, "tell me the words of House Royce."

"We Remember," Vaelor answered at once.

"Correct. We Remember."

The old maester nodded in satisfaction, though the knowing look he gave the boy made him squirm.

Vaelor stole another yawn and mumbled, "Maester Hughes, why don't you ever ask me the words of House Targaryen?"

"Because your mother does not like Targaryens," the old maester answered without missing a beat.

Vaelor frowned, pointing at himself. "I am a Targaryen."

'Look at this sleek silver-gold hair. Look at these violet eyes.'

'Could I possibly look any more Targaryen?'

Maester Hughes gave him a look full of pity, gathered his book, and shuffled away to end the lesson.

"Hm?"

Vaelor tilted his head.

Then he understood.

His mother did not like him very much either.

That was what happened when one's father was Daemon Targaryen.

The lesson was over.

He roused himself, slipped away from Willem's attempts to follow him, and padded lightly through the corridors back to his room.

Runestone was enormous, but not especially suited to a child wandering around in search of fun.

The moment he entered, the old septa in charge of his upbringing came forward.

"My prince, would you like luncheon first, or shall we recite from The Seven-Pointed Star?"

Vaelor's face fell. He waved a hand. "My soul is tired. I'll sleep first. Half an hour, then we'll discuss the Seven."

He truly was tired. This had absolutely nothing to do with avoiding religious recitation.

After sending the septa away, Vaelor sprawled facedown on his bed, listless in a way that could not have been more different from the lively, sharp-tongued persona he showed the world.

He lay there for a while, but the unease in his chest refused to settle.

At last, he lifted his head and looked around.

No one was there.

He rolled out of bed, went to the corner beside it, and dragged out a round brazier of black steel.

Click.

He lifted the lid, and a plume of heat rushed up at once.

The heat flushed Vaelor's cheeks. He reached into the bed of glowing coals and pulled out a black egg.

It was oval, dark, and more than a foot long.

Vaelor did not seem to feel the heat at all. He held the black egg in both hands, turning it back and forth as he muttered, "Why haven't you hatched yet?"

In Targaryen hands, an egg was, naturally, a dragon egg.

His small fingers brushed the shell. Diamond-shaped scales covered its surface, hard as stone.

Every newborn Targaryen child was given a dragon egg in the cradle. If it hatched, the young dragon would grow alongside the child.

As a boy loved neither by father nor mother, Vaelor had not even been fed at his mother's breast.

The black dragon egg in his hands had been taken from the Dragonpit by his great-grandfather, the Old King Jaehaerys I, who had personally placed it in his great-grandson's cradle.

The old king had died in 103 AC.

"Your mother laid eggs so reliably," Vaelor complained, pointing at the shell. "You could stand to show a little ambition."

The longer he looked, the more troubled he became.

He had heard the egg came from Dreamfyre.

She was an old, pale-blue she-dragon, large, mature, and famously prolific.

His worry was not unreasonable. The future he remembered was far too grim to ignore.

The Targaryen dynasty now stood at the height of its power.

Yet in the years to come, the number of dragonriders in the family would swell beyond precedent. Then they would drown themselves over the Iron Throne in a brutal civil war: the Dance of the Dragons.

By the end of it, the dragons would be nearly extinct. The blood of the dragon would wither and scatter.

The awe commanded by the Targaryen name would decay, and the Seven Kingdoms would slowly forget how terrifying that name had once been.

Vaelor was here now.

Of course he wanted to prevent that tragedy.

But if he meant to change anything, he first needed the strength to protect himself.

He knew a dragon was the fastest path to power.

A Targaryen without a dragon was barely a Targaryen at all.

Ever since moving to Runestone at three years old, he had secretly hoped this egg would hatch and give him a dragon raised at his side from birth.

Such a hatchling might not be as powerful as the wild dragons or the ancient beasts left behind by the kings of old.

Even so, it would be a path forward. A bright one. A path worth every bit of effort he could pour into it.

"Ugh."

Little Vaelor flopped back in helpless frustration.

'Where am I supposed to get a dragon?'

The egg had failed him for eight years. Runestone had no dragons.

'Am I supposed to run all the way to Dragonstone?'

He was about to set the hot egg down when a voice rang in his mind.

[Essence Panel]

Magic essence detected.

Magic Essence +3.

Vaelor froze.

Then he jolted upright.

✦

✦

✦

Ready for more?

The next chapters are already waiting on my Patreon, along with early access, previews, and extra story updates 🗝️

www.patreon.com/c/EmberHollowFanfiction