A feeling of impossible freedom, of air rushing beneath wings she did not possess. The sensation was so real, so vivid, that she could almost feel the phantom muscles of those wings contracting, feel the power as they beat against the air. Below her, the endless, shimmering dunes of Dorne baked under a sun that felt both real and impossibly hot. She was soaring, the wind a hot, dry caress that tasted of dust and ancient, sun-baked stone. It was a joyful, liberating, powerful feeling.
Then she saw it. A lone dragon, its scales the colour of pale sand, lay motionless on the crest of a dune. It was not a large dragon, but it was beautiful, and a pang of worry shot through her, a sudden, sharp counterpoint to the joy of her flight. She banked, spiraling lower and lower, the ground rushing up to meet her until her bare feet touched the scorching sand. The heat was immediate, a biting pain that shot up her legs.
She approached the sleeping dragon, her small hand outstretched. The scales were warm to the touch, smooth and dry. For a moment, it was just a sleeping creature. Then, the moment her fingers applied the slightest pressure, the flesh and scales gave way with a sound like a dry sand tower crumbling at once. It dissolved into a cascade of fine, white dust that felt gritty and impossibly cold against her skin. The dust of the dragon ran through her fingers, leaving behind nothing but a perfect, bleached-white skeleton, stark against the red-gold sand.
A scream tore from her throat, a single, heartbroken word. "Aegon!"
She stumbled backward, falling to her knees in the hot sand, the phantom grit of the dragon's remains still on her hands. She tried to scoop it up, to hold it, but the dust was just dust, and the wind began to carry it away. She watched it go, and as the last motes dissolved, the desert vanished.
The heat was gone, ripped away in an instant, replaced by the damp chill of a great stone city. Canals of dark water crisscrossed between towering, strange buildings, and the air was filled with the shouts of a thousand foreign voices, their words a meaningless, sharp cackle. She was in a vast plaza, the air thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, stale wine, and something foul, like rotting fish from the canals. A crowd of people, a claustrophobic press of sweaty, rough-spun clothing, was gathered in a circle, their faces upturned in cruel amusement. They were laughing, a harsh, ugly sound that made her skin crawl.
Drawn by a horrible curiosity, she pushed her way through the thicket of legs, wincing as a heavy boot nearly crushed her foot, until she could see what they were watching. It was a shallow, railed-off pit in the center of the plaza, a makeshift stage for a cruel sport. Inside, two small dragons were scrambling in terror, their claws skittering on the stones with a desperate, scratching sound. One was the colour of moonlight, the other a deep, rich purple. They were thin, their ribs showing like the ridges of a starved dog's, and their thin cries were lost in the roar of the crowd.
They were being chased relentlessly by a snarling golden lion, its musky scent rolling off it in waves, and a great, black-antlered stag that struck at them with sharp, cloven hooves. The crowd roared with laughter, some stamping their feet and throwing scraps of food and rotten vegetables, as the beasts cornered the terrified dragons. The crowd didn't just watch; they reveled in the terror, treating the panic of the last
two dragons as a grand entertainment. The sight was so wrong, so horrifying, her heart hammered against her ribs, a painful, frantic bird in a small cage.
The scene dissolved. The people, the pit, the lion, and the stag all melted away like mist. The roar of the crowd faded, leaving a ringing silence, and only the two small dragons remained, huddled together in the empty plaza. They were alone, and they looked so hungry. Then, the bigger, moon-coloured dragon turned on the smaller purple one, hissing, scratching and biting at it in a desperate, starving frenzy. As it clawed at its sibling, its form began to twist and change. She watched in horror as scales flaked away like parchment, receding into pale, clammy skin. Its snout flattened, bones audibly shifting and cracking, its limbs elongating into those of a silver-haired boy. A manic, desperate smile stretched his lips, an expression of madness that terrified her more than the lion or the stag.
Rhaenys took a step forward, her hand outstretched, a desperate need to save the small, wounded purple dragon welling up inside her.
And the world changed again.
The damp chill was replaced by a profound, biting cold. She stood in a vast, circular clearing, surrounded by a forest of strange, pale-barked trees with leaves like drops of blood. The ground was covered in a thick blanket of pristine snow. The frozen ground numbed her bare feet instantly, a pain so sharp it felt like walking on broken glass. In the very centre of the clearing stood the largest of the trees, a giant of bone-white wood. A face was carved into its trunk, a long, sad face with eyes that wept tears of red sap, which trickled down the bark in glistening, half-frozen trails.
Beneath this strange, weeping tree lay another dragon. This one was pure white, the colour of fresh-fallen snow, its scales like polished milk glass. But he was painfully thin, his wings held tight to his body, and there was a look in his ancient, grey eyes that she recognized from the saddest songs. It was the look of a creature that had given up all hope, an abyss of weariness.
A wave of protectiveness, so fierce it stole her breath, washed over her. He felt… familiar. He felt like kin, a pull of blood she hadn't felt since Aegon. Why is he so sad? she thought, taking a slow, careful step toward him, the snow crunching softly under her numb feet.
The snow-white dragon looked at her, and its gaze was one of infinite, soul-crushing weariness. It drew a thin, shuddering breath, the only sound in the frozen, watchful silence. Then, without any warning, it lifted a clawed hand. The talons, sharp as draglass, plunged into its own chest with a sickening, wet-leather tear. With a final, shuddering gasp that plumed in the frigid air, it pulled out its own beating heart—a dark red, steaming thing in the frozen world—and collapsed onto the white snow, a small, peaceful smile on its face.
"No!" she screamed, though she didn't know why the sound was torn from her, a raw sound of pure, uncomprehending denial. She ran, an instinct she couldn't name pulling her forward. She ran as fast as her legs could carry her, but no matter how hard she pumped her arms, the dragon seemed to get no closer. She was trapped in place, forced to watch as the thick, white roots of the great tree snaked out from the ground, wrapping around the dead dragon's limbs, pulling it down into the frozen earth.
She fell to her knees in the snow, sobbing, though she did not know why the sight of this strange dragon's end brought her such pain. It felt like a part of her was being buried. The roots consumed him completely, pulling the last tip of his white tail under the ground, leaving no trace but a patch of disturbed, blood-stained snow.
She was still crying when the ground before the tree began to tremble. A low, subterranean rumble vibrated through her knees, a feeling of stone grinding on stone deep beneath the frost. From the very spot where the white dragon had vanished, a single, pitch-black dragon's claw erupted from the soil. It was like polished obsidian, slick with dark earth, and it dug into the snow, gripping the frozen ground. Another claw followed. A new dragon, this one the colour of a starless night, was crawling its way out of the earth, its shadow seeming to drink the light from the air, making the snow around it look grey and dead. It lifted its head and let out a roar, but it was a soundless roar, a blast of pure, absolute cold that washed over her, chilling her to her very soul.
She pushed herself to her feet, a strange mix of terror and awe gripping her as she prepared to step towards the creature born of shadow and sorrow. But as she did, the world turned completely black. She felt a great, irresistible force pushing her out, away, and up.
Rhaenys's eyes snapped open.
She was in her bed, tangled in silk sheets slick with sweat. She gasped, her lungs burning, the air thick and hot. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a frantic, painful echo of the terror from the pit.
For a long, disorienting moment, the world was wrong. The phantom chill of the northern snows still clung to her skin, a ghostly, impossible feeling that made her shiver violently, even as sweat ran down her temples. Her bones ached with a cold that the sweltering Dornish night could not touch.
Then the sounds of the real world rushed back in: the gentle, insistent, rhythmic splash of the fountains in the courtyard below, the distant murmur of the sea. Warmth. She was in Sunspear. She was safe.
She sat up, pushing her dark, sweat-damp hair from her face. Her hands were trembling. A single word, ancient and unfamiliar, lingered on her tongue, an aftertaste of the vision, a physical shape in her mouth. It's escaped her lips in a choked, confused whisper.
"Valonqar."
She stared into the darkness of her room, at the moonlight streaming through the arched window, painting a silver square on the floor. She didn't know what the word meant, or why the image of a white dragon dying in the snow made her chest ache with a fresh, sharp grief, like a wound she had just received.