A/N: I know what ya'll have been waiting for. Enjoy! :D
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Year 300 AC
Sunspear, Dorne
Aemon hovered on wings that spanned the width of the harbor, and below him, the Silence sat motionless in the center of the bay. It was a red hull on a black sea, a wound in the water. On the prow stood Euron Greyjoy.
He looked insignificant, like a speck of driftwood in the path of a hurricane. Yet the air around him hummed with a sickness that made Aemon's scales itch. The man stood with arms spread wide, embracing the apocalypse he had summoned. Upon his brow, the Bloodstone Crown pulsed with a wet, rhythmic light, like a beating heart exposed to the air.
The voice of the ironborn captain did not come from his throat. It seemed to bleed from the air itself, projected by the artifact he wore, slithering into Aemon's mind.
"A beast that speaks!" Euron's amplified voice boomed, rattling the tiles on the roofs of the Shadow City. "Have the Old Gods come to bow before the New? Have you come to witness the ascension?"
Aemon looked down at the ant who thought himself a god. The arrogance was suffocating. It reminded him of Janos Slynt, of every small man who had ever stood in the way of survival because they were too in love with their own voice.
He did not bandy words. He did not posture. He simply opened his jaws.
The fire did not build slowly. It erupted.
A column of violet flame, streaked with veins of white-hot intensity and roiling black smoke, poured from his maw. It was a breath meant to erase the ship, the man, and the very water they floated upon.
The column of death slammed down toward the Silence.
It should have reduced the vessel to ash and driftwood in a heartbeat. It should have boiled the harbor dry.
But it stopped.
Ten feet above the deck, the fire hit nothing. It splashed against an invisible sphere, a dome of emptiness that surrounded the ship.
Aemon narrowed his eyes, watching as his flames did not burn its prey.
The invisible barrier drank the flame. The violet torrent swirled like water down a drain, sucked greedily into the crown upon Euron's head. The artifact glowed brighter, shifting from a dull red to a blinding, necrotic purple. The veins in Euron's face lit up, glowing beneath his skin as the power surged through him.
Euron threw his head back and laughed, sounding like a cleaver hitting bone.
"Delicious," the ironborn whispered, his voice thundering in Aemon's ears. "Is that all, Dragon? I expected a meal, not an appetizer."
Aemon snapped his jaws shut, cutting off the stream of fire. Smoke curled from his nostrils. He felt no fear, only a cold, reptilian disappointment.
"That is a terrifying magic you wield, Greyjoy." Aemon's voice rumbled, shaking the water below. "A waste of potential. You might have been a shield for the realms of men instead of a petty pirate."
Euron stepped up onto the gunwale, fearless. He pointed a finger at the leviathan hovering above him.
"I am no petty pirate, little dragon," Euron taunted. "I am the storm itself! I am the feast that never ends. I am the thing that eats the gods. Your fire is my fuel. Your rage is my meat. So come down, little dragon. And let me taste your soul."
Aemon shifted his weight in the air. The man was truly mad. A rabid dog with a crown of glass.
He did not speak again. Words were wind, and he saw little use for them now.
If the leech drank fire, then let him try to drink my fist.
Aemon folded his wings and fell.
The behemoth of scale, muscle, and bone dropped from the sky like a hammer of the Old God dropping from the heavens. The air screamed as he cut through it. He aimed his massive bulk directly at the center of the Silence.
Aemon needs to end this before Euron could make any counters. He needed to drive the Silence to the bottom of the sea through sheer force.
The ship rushed up to meet him. He saw the details of the deck, the intricate carvings on the rail, a man tied to the mast and the terrified crewmen diving into the sea.
The madness in the pirate's eyes flickered, replaced by the sudden, sharp calculation of a survivor. The barrier could stop magic, but it could not stop a falling mountain.
Euron did not wait. He vaulted over the rail, diving into the black water, abandoning his ship to the crushing weight descending from the stars.
Aemon adjusted his angle to crush the stern—and then he saw him.
Tied to the mainmast. A naked figure, slumped and bloody. A captive.
No.
The thought was a reflex, older than his scales. A man of the Night's Watch did not kill men in chains. A Stark did not slaughter the helpless to reach the guilty.
Aemon roared and threw his wings open. The membrane caught the air with a sound like a cracking whip. The sudden drag nearly tore his shoulders from their sockets. He pulled up, his claws skimming the top of the mast, missing the prisoner by inches.
The wind of his passage snapped the mainmast like a dry twig, sending the rigging crashing down, but the hull remained floating.
Aemon banked hard, his momentum carrying him out over the open water of the harbor. He had missed and spared the prisoner.
But suddenly, the ocean below him began to boil.
Not from fire but as if was something rising.
A massive shape erupted from the depths where Euron had vanished. It was a mountain of wet, pale muscle. A mantle the size of a castle keep broke the surface, shedding waterfalls of brine.
A kraken many times larger and older than the one Aemon slew arose.
It looked as if it was a monstrosity from the dawn of time, a thing that had hunted leviathans in the black dark before the First Men walked the earth. Its beak was a jagged gate of bone large enough to crush a longship. Its eye was a dinner plate of malevolent, milky intelligence.
And standing atop its mantle, dry and glowing with purple light, was Euron Greyjoy.
"Mercy is the death of kings!" Euron screamed.
The water around Aemon exploded.
Three more krakens, smaller than the Elder but still massive beasts of war, surged from the surf. And they attacked without preamble.
Thick, rubbery tentacles lashed out with blinding speed. One wrapped around Aemon's right ankle. Another coiled around his tail.
Aemon roared, a sound of fury that shattered windows in the Shadow City. He beat his wings, trying to ascend, trying to lift the dead weight of the monsters.
Then the Elder Kraken struck.
A limb as thick as a weirwood trunk shot up from the water. It slammed into Aemon's chest, winding around his neck, constricting his windpipe. Another wrapped around his left wing, pinning it to his side.
The weight was impossible.
Aemon was slowly dragged down.
The sky tilted. The stars spun. He clawed at the air, but the sea had him. The krakens pulled in unison, a coordinated swarm dragging a predator out of his element.
He hit the water with a colossal splash.
The cold was a shock. Saltwater rushed into his nose and mouth. He thrashed, his massive tail smashing the harbor wall, turning stone to dust, but the grip of the beasts was iron. They were dragging him deeper, into the dark, into the crushing silence where fire could not breathe.
I am drowning.
The thought was distant, panic rising in the lizard brain.
Then came the scream.
A mental spike driven directly into his skull.
Euron Greyjoy, standing on the surface of the Elder Kraken, channeled the energy he had absorbed from the dragonfire. He did not release it back as fire. He released it as madness.
The mental attack burrowed into his mind like a grave worm.
Red haze flooded his vision. The complex, layered mind of Jon Snow—the Lord Commander, the King, the brother, the son—shattered. The memories of Winterfell, of Val, of his sibling, of the Wall, they dissolved into white noise.
The man vanished.
Only the Dragon remained.
The Dragon did not know strategy. The Dragon did not know allies. The Dragon knew only rage and claustrophobia.
He thrashed wildly, abandoning the calculated struggle for a frantic, animalistic frenzy. He bit at the water. He clawed at the stone of the breakwater, tearing huge gouges in the masonry, collapsing a watchtower into the sea. He forgot the ship. He forgot the mission. He forgot that he was dying.
He was a beast trapped in a net, and he would destroy the world to get free.
Kill. Kill. Kill.
The urge consumed him. He opened his mouth to breathe fire underwater, a suicide move that would boil him alive in his own steam.
"You are the Sword in the Darkness."
The voice was not his own. It was soft, like wind through leaves, like the rustle of a weirwood tree.
It cut through the red haze. It cut through the screaming madness of Euron's attack.
"You are the Watcher on the Walls."
Bran.
The boy's voice was an anchor in the storm. It was the roots of the North holding fast against the gale.
"You are the Shield that guards the realms of men."
The words were not just sounds. They were an oath. They were a vow taken before a heart tree, a promise that bound his soul to duty, to discipline, to the man he had chosen to be.
The red haze receded. The animal panic broke.
Jon Snow opened his eyes.
He was underwater. He was pinned. He was drowning.
But he was not a beast. He was a King. And he had a job to do.
He stopped thrashing. He assessed.
His left wing was pinned by a smaller kraken. His neck was held by the Elder. His legs were entangled. He needed leverage. He needed air.
A shadow swept over the water above him.
Through the distorting lens of the surface, he saw shapes blotting out the moon. Smaller than him, faster, screaming a challenge that vibrated in his bones.
Not one dragon but two.
Daenerys Targaryen dove. She did not pull up. She flew her black mount dangerously low, skimming the wavetops, her silver hair streaming behind her like a banner of war.
And flanking her, tattered but unbowed, was the green dragon. The dragon was bleeding, his scales torn from the earlier struggle, but he dove with the reckless hate of a beast wronged.
"Dracarys!"
Both dragons opened their jaws.
Two streams of fire—one black-red, the other a lance of orange-yellow ruin—poured onto the surface of the water.
The black dragon struck the tentacles of the smaller kraken wrapped around Aemon's left wing. The green one bathed the limbs binding Aemon's tail in liquid fire.
The water flashed to steam instantly. The krakens shrieked a bubbling, horrifying sound as their flesh blistered and boiled. The grip loosened and the tentacles recoiled, thrashing in pain.
Aemon felt the pressure on his wing and tail vanish.
He did not waste the moment. He roared his thanks that shook the seabed.
He planted his feet on the harbor floor, crushing the silt and rock. He gathered every ounce of strength in his massive frame.
He surged upward.
He broke the surface like a leviathan breaching. Water cascaded off his obsidian scales.
He did not fly away. He lunged forward.
Aemon reached out with his hands to grab the tentacles wrapped around his neck.
He pulled.
Sinew snapped. Cartilage popped. With a savage twist, he ripped the limbs free, throwing the severed meat into the sea.
He was free.
Euron Greyjoy stood on the Elder Kraken's mantle, his face twisted in shock. He raised his hands, the crown glowing, preparing another blast.
Aemon did not give him the time.
He launched himself out of the surf, a black avalanche of vengeance. He tackled the Elder Kraken.
Fifty tons of dragon slammed into the wet mountain of the beast. The impact sent a tsunami rolling across the harbor that swamped the Silence and smashed into the lower walls of Sunspear.
Aemon landed on top of the Kraken. He pinned the writhing monster beneath his bulk.
Euron screamed, raising the invisible barrier again.
Aemon reared back. He clenched his right hand into a fist the size of a boulder.
He punched the barrier.
BOOM.
The sound was like a thunderclap trapped in a canyon. The air rippled. The invisible sphere shuddered.
Euron fell to his knees, blood streaming from his nose. The crown flickered.
Aemon punched again.
BOOM.
The barrier cracked. A web of white fractures appeared in the air.
"I am the storm!" Euron shrieked, his voice breaking, blood spraying from his lips.
"You are nothing!" Aemon roared.
He brought both fists down together.
he Bloodstone Crown could not hold any longer.
The barrier shattered and the Crown with it.
The shattering of the crown left a shockwave of necrotic purple light, a blast of pure, raw magic released all at once.
The force of it flung the Elder Kraken backward, flipping the massive beast over in the water.
It blasted Aemon off his feet. He was thrown through the air, tumbling end over end. He crashed into the stone walls of Sunspear's outer defenses, shattering the masonry, burying himself in a landslide of dust and rubble.
The blast caught one of the smaller krakens too as the beast was lifted like a ragdoll and hurled over the battlements. It sailed in a wet, flailing arc before crashing into the winding streets of the Shadow City. The impact flattened a row of shops and clay houses under tons of meat, sending a plume of dust and debris rising into the night.
Euron Greyjoy vanished in the chaos, swallowed by the purple light and the churning sea.
Silence fell over the harbor for a heartbeat, broken only by the falling debris and the groans of the wounded krakens.
Then the pile of rubble shifted.
A black wing shoved a ton of stone aside. A horned head rose from the dust, shaking itself. Aemon snorted, blowing brick dust from his nostrils. He was bruised, his scales scratched, but he was whole.
He looked toward the water.
The Elder Kraken was hurt. The explosion had scorched its mantle, leaving a crater of burnt flesh where Euron had stood. It was thrashing, trying to turn, trying to retreat into the deep water where it could heal.
Not today.
Aemon scrambled out of the ruins of the wall.
You do not leave this harbor.
He leaped into the shallows, splashing through the water. He was not a creature of the air now. He was a wolf in dragon's skin, hunting his prey.
The Kraken saw him coming. It lashed out with its beak, a snapping guillotine of bone aimed at Aemon's throat.
Aemon caught the beak.
His hands clamped shut around the upper and lower mandibles. The sound of bone grinding on scale was sickening. He held the mouth shut, overpowering the beast's jaw strength with brute force.
The Kraken flailed, wrapping its remaining tentacles around Aemon's torso, trying to crush him.
Aemon spun.
He used the momentum of the spin, swinging his massive tail like a club. He whipped the tail low, under the water, smashing into the Kraken's softer underbelly and propulsion siphon.
With a roar of effort, Aemon heaved. He lifted the wet mountain of meat and slammed it sideways.
The Kraken crashed into the breakwater, causing a small tidal wave. The beast shrieked in agony as its soft body met the unforgiving granite.
Aemon did not stop. He grabbed the mantle with his claws. He dug his back feet into the sandbar. He beat his wings for thrust, not to fly, but to push.
He drove the Kraken backward. He bulldozed it out of the deep water, dragging it screaming and thrashing onto the shallow sandbar near the harbor mouth.
The beast was grounded. It flopped uselessly in the mud, its weight now its enemy, suffocating under its own bulk without the water to support it.
Aemon stepped onto the creature's chest. He pinned the mantle to the sand with his talons.
The Kraken writhed, its eye rolling wildly, staring up at the doom looming over it.
Aemon looked down. There was no pity in his red eyes. There was only the cold, hard necessity of duty.
He planted his hands on the creature's chest, forcing the tentacles apart, exposing the soft, pulsing flesh beneath the beak.
Aemon released his flames.
There was no crown to drink it this time. There was no barrier to stop it.
Aemon poured the full heat of his being into the creature. The violet flame washed over the wet flesh. The water in the sandbar flashed to steam, creating a blinding fog, but the fire burned through it.
The Kraken screamed, a high, thin sound that was abruptly cut off as its body disintegrated.
Aemon did not stop. He burned until the screaming stopped. He burned until the thrashing ceased. He burned until the smell of cooked meat turned to the smell of ash and charcoal.
When he finally closed his jaws, the only sound was the hissing of the blackened, charred lump that remained in the surf.
Aemon stepped back, his chest heaving. Smoke rose from his scales. He looked out at the dark water, searching for the other krakens, searching for Euron.
But the sea was empty. The smaller beasts had fled. The Silence was a wreck drifting toward the rocks.
He looked up. Drogon circled high above, a silhouette against the stars.
Aemon let out a long breath, a plume of steam venting into the night air.
He was tired. He was heavy.
But the harbor was quiet.
He turned his massive head toward the castle walls, where tiny figures stood watching in silence.
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The whirlpool spun below them like the drain of a dying sea.
Daenerys circled on Drogon, her hands locked around the spines of his neck, her eyes fixed on the chaos beneath. The battle had carved a wound in the harbor. Wreckage floated in the churning foam. Bodies of Ironborn raiders bobbed face-down in the churning foam. The water itself seemed to have changed color, stained black with kraken ichor and the silt of a shattered breakwater.
To her left, Rhaegal flew in a ragged way. Her child was hurt as ichor seeped from a dozen wounds where the tentacles had torn at his scales, and his wingbeats were uneven, favoring his left side. But he refused to land. He screamed his fury at the water below, daring anything to rise from the deep.
My brave boy, she thought. You should rest. But you are too proud and angry.
She understood the feeling.
Below, at the mouth of the harbor, she saw the Black Beast. The speaking dragon. The impossible creature that had torn a kraken in half with its bare hands.
It was dragging the Elder Kraken toward the sandbar. The monster was still alive, still thrashing, but its movements were weak and sluggish. The dragon had it by the mantle, hauling it through the shallows like a wolf dragging a kill to its den. The sound was deafening even from this height. Wet thuds. Roaring water. The groan of meat being forced across stone.
But her attention snapped away from the sandbar.
The Silence.
The red hull was dying.
The shockwave from the Crown's destruction had done what dragonfire could not. The ship's keel had snapped. The timbers groaned, a sound like bones breaking. The deck was listing badly, the stern already dipping beneath the black water.
Euron's hostage.
She searched the wreckage, her eyes scanning the tilting deck. Corpses. Debris. The shattered stump of the mainmast, rigging tangled around it like entrails.
There.
Pale skin against the dark wood.
Loras Tyrell was stripped bare, humiliated and exposed to the elements. He was still chained to the mast, his body slumped, his head lolling forward. The water had risen to his waist. In minutes, it would be at his chest. Then his throat.
He will drown before the ship goes down."Drogon." She did not need to speak the command in Valyrian. Her child felt her intent through the bond they shared, through the fire that connected their blood. "Down. Now."
Drogon tucked his wings and dove.
The wind screamed past her face. The ship rushed up to meet them, growing larger with every heartbeat. She could see the details now. The bodies of Ironborn crewmen, crushed or drowned or simply broken by the chaos. The chains around Loras's wrists, rusted iron biting into raw flesh.
The ship screamed as Drogon landed on the listing deck.
The wood buckled under his weight, planks snapping like dry twigs. The entire vessel lurched, tilting more toward the stern.
Rhaegal did not land. He hovered overhead, his wings beating a thunderous rhythm, his golden eyes scanning the churning water for any sign of tentacles. He was her guardian.
Daenerys did not wait. She slid from Drogon's back, her boots splashing into the ankle-deep water. The deck was a chaos of debris. She scrambled over the wreckage, her hands finding purchase on the slick wood, her eyes fixed on the golden figure slumped against the mast.
"Ser Loras!"
No response. His head hung forward, his golden curls matted with blood and seawater. His skin was a map of bruises, purple and black against the pale flesh.
She reached him. The water was at his chest now, lapping against his bruised ribs. She grabbed his chin, tilting his face up.
His eyes were open. But they were not seeing her.
They rolled back in his skull, showing only whites. His lips moved, forming words that made no sense.
"The sun," he whispered. His voice was a croak, raw from screaming or from salt or from both. "The sun is bleeding..."
Delirious. The torture, the exposure, the chaos of the battle. His mind had retreated somewhere far from this dying ship.
"Hold on," she said. "I am getting you out."
She drew the dagger from her belt. A simple blade, unadorned, the kind she had carried since Meereen. She wedged it into the lock of the manacles around his wrists and twisted.
The iron groaned but did not give.
The ship lurched again. The stern dipped lower. The water rose to Loras's chin.
"Not yet!" The word came out as a snarl. She was not losing him. Not after everything.
She wedged the dagger deeper, throwing her weight against it. The lock mechanism was old, corroded by salt. It should have broken easily. But the iron held, mocking her.
The water touched Loras's lips. He coughed, sputtering, his eyes flickering with a moment of lucidity.
"Margaery," he gasped. "Tell Margaery..."
"You will tell her yourself." Daenerys drove the dagger down with all her strength.
The lock shattered.
The manacles fell away, splashing into the rising water. Loras sagged forward, his weight collapsing against her. She caught him, her arms straining under the burden of his armor and his dead weight.
"Drogon!"
Her child was already moving. The black dragon lunged across the tilting deck, his claws gouging furrows in the wood. He lowered his wing, creating a ramp of scale and membrane.
Daenerys hauled Loras toward her mount. The knight was barely conscious, his feet dragging through the water, his head lolling against her shoulder. He was heavier than she expected.
The ship groaned. A deep, mournful sound, like a beast accepting its death.
She reached Drogon's side. She shoved Loras up onto the dragon's back, pushing him between the spines, wedging him into the space behind the saddle. There was no time to strap him in properly. There was no time for anything.
She climbed up after him, her hands finding the familiar grip of the saddle chains. She locked her legs around Drogon's neck.
"Sōvēs!"
Drogon did not need to be told twice.
He launched himself from the railing, his powerful legs kicking off the splintering wood. They rose, the ship falling away beneath them.
Daenerys looked back.
The Silence capsized. The red hull rolled, the keel rising from the water like the belly of a dying whale. For a moment, it hung there, suspended between worlds. Then it slid beneath the surface, dragged down by its own weight, swallowed by the black water of the harbor.
It was gone. The ship that had terrorized the Stepstones, that had carried Euron Greyjoy to his mad conquest, that had held Loras Tyrell in chains. Gone, as if it had never existed.
Daenerys turned her face forward.
And then the heat hit her.
It came from the sandbar. A wave of furnaced wind that washed over her like the breath of a god. She squinted against the glare, raising one hand to shield her eyes.
The Black Beast had pinned the Elder Kraken to the sand. The creature was helpless, its massive bulk suffocating under its own weight, its tentacles flopping uselessly against the shallow water.
And the dragon was burning it with violet fire.
It was the color of the sky at twilight, streaked with veins of white so bright they hurt to look upon. It was the color of the amethysts in her brother's crown, the crown that Drogo had melted over his head. It was the color of her own eyes, reflected back at her in a mirror of destruction.
The flames poured from the dragon's jaws in a continuous torrent, washing over the kraken's flesh. The water around the sandbar flashed to steam, creating a fog that rose hundreds of feet into the air. But the fire burned through it. The fire burned through everything.
The kraken screamed. A high, thin sound, like nothing she had ever heard. It was the death cry of a god of the deep, a creature that had lived for centuries in the black silence beneath the waves.
Then the screaming stopped.
Daenerys watched as the fire consumed the last of the monster. The tentacles curled inward, blackening and crumbling. The mantle collapsed, reduced to ash and char.
When the flames finally died, there was nothing left.
The Black Beast stepped back. Steam rose from its scales in thick plumes. It stood there for a long moment, chest heaving, head bowed.
It is tired, Daenerys realized. Even a creature like that has limits.
She guided Drogon toward the shore.
The debris field was all that remained of Sunspear's outer wall.
The Black Beast had crashed through the masonry during the battle, and the stones lay scattered across the beach like the bones of a giant. Dust hung in the air, thick as fog, turning the dawn light into something grey and ghostly. The smell was overwhelming. Storm-scent and burnt meat and wet stone, mixed with the salt of the sea and the sulfur of dragonfire.
Daenerys brought Drogon down in the only clear space she could find, a stretch of sand between two collapsed watchtowers. Drogon landed heavily, his claws sinking into the soft ground. He was tired too. The battle had drained them all.
Rhaegal followed, but he did not land beside his brother. He settled on a piece of broken tower, his claws gripping the shattered stone. He tucked his wings against his sides and began to lick at the wounds on his flank, his golden eyes half-closed.
Daenerys slid from Drogon's back. Her legs nearly buckled when they hit the ground. The exhaustion was catching up with her, the accumulated weight of days without sleep and hours of terror.
But she could not rest. Not yet.
She reached up and pulled Loras Tyrell from the saddle. The knight was still unconscious, his breathing shallow but steady. She dragged him across the sand, her arms aching, and propped him against a fallen stone. His head lolled to one side, but the color was returning to his cheeks. He would live. The maesters could tend to him when this was over.
She turned.
And she saw the Black Beast.
It had walked out of the surf. The creature that had torn krakens apart with its bare hands, that had punched through a magical barrier, that had burned a god of the deep to ash...let himself fall.
The impact shook the ground. Now it lay on the rubble, an island of heaving black scales. Steam rose from its body in thick plumes, curling into the grey dawn. Its wings were folded against its sides, the membranes torn in places, the edges singed. Its chest rose and fell with each labored breath.
Drogon hissed.
Daenerys looked at her child. The black dragon had positioned himself between her and the Beast, his neck arched, his teeth bared. But he did not dare to attack. He simply stood there, hissing, his red eyes fixed on the creature that dwarfed him.
He is afraid, she realized. And he is not. He recognizes something. Something he does not understand.
She stepped around Drogon, ignoring his warning rumble.
The Black Beast was still. Its eyes were closed. For a moment, she thought it might be dead, that the battle had finally claimed it. But then she saw the rise and fall of its ribs, the slow pulse of breath through its nostrils.
She studied the giant before her.
Now that it was motionless, she could see details she had missed before. The scales were not uniform black. They shifted in the light, revealing hints of deep purple, like the sky before a storm. The spines along its back were longer than Drogon's, sharper, more like swords than horns. The claws were curved and wicked, stained with kraken ichor.
And the face.
She looked at the face.
Three jagged furrows raked down the left side, cutting through the scales over the eye. They were pale against the dark scales, old scars that had healed badly. They looked like sword cuts. Or claw marks.
What could have clawed at such a titan? she thought.
Movement in the shadows of the broken wall caught her eye.
Daenerys's hand went to her dagger, her eyes searching the rubble.
A figure emerged.
He was fat and covered in dust, his black robes torn and stained.
Samwell.
His round face was pale with terror, his eyes wide and wet but what terrified her was when Samwell took a step towards the Black Beast.
"No!" The word tore from her throat before she could stop it. "Stay back!"
The Beast's eyes were still closed. But she could feel the bloodlust rolling off it in waves. The battle rage had not faded. The creature was a predator, wounded and cornered. If Tarly approached, if he startled it...
But Samwell Tarly did not stop.
He was trembling so violently that his teeth chattered. His legs shook with every step. Tears cut tracks through the dust on his face. But he kept walking.
Toward the snout of the monster.
"Tarly!" Daenerys started forward, her hand on her dagger. "I command you to stop!"
He ignored her.
The Black Beast opened one eye.
The pupil dilated, a slit of darkness expanding in a sea of red. It focused on the fat man in grey, tracking his approach with the cold precision of a predator assessing prey.
Daenerys's heart stopped. She was certain, absolutely certain, that she was about to watch Samwell Tarly die.
Sam stopped ten feet away. He looked into the abyss of that red eye. He did not flinch. He did not run.
His voice cracked when he spoke. The words came out broken, choked with tears and disbelief.
"It... it can't be." His hands tightened on the satchel. "Jon?"
Daenerys froze.
Jon. A common name that meant nothing to her.
But the way Tarly said it. The recognition in his voice. The tears streaming down his face.
The dragon did not roar.
It snorted.
A puff of sulfurous smoke hit Samwell Tarly in the face, making him cough and wave his hand. The massive head shifted, lowering until it was level with the fat man. The eye blinked once, slowly.
And then the voice came.
"I told you to go to Oldtown, Sam."
Samwell Tarly burst into tears.
He fell to his knees in the sand, his satchel tumbling from his hands, his shoulders shaking with great, heaving sobs. He wept like a child, like a man who had lost everything and found it again in the last place he expected.
Daenerys stood frozen.
The wind whipped her silver-gold hair across her face. The dawn light was breaking over the ruined walls of Sunspear, casting long shadows across the debris field. Behind her, Drogon had gone silent, his hissing replaced by a low, confused rumble. Rhaegal had stopped licking his wounds and was staring at the Black Beast with something that looked almost like recognition.
She looked at the weeping man.
She looked at the sarcastic monster.
Jon, she thought. Who is Jon?!
The name echoed in her mind, colliding with fragments of memory. Samwell Tarly had spoken of a Lord Commander. A bastard of Winterfell. A man who had let the wildlings through the Wall, who had charged Samwell to find a way to stop the Long Night.
Jon Snow.
The bastard son of Eddard Stark.
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