Chapter 39: The Four Warnings of the Dragonlords
The ancient Valyrian works were divided with rigid clarity.
The Encyclopedia of Dragons detailed the nature, habits, growth, and bonding of dragons.
The Encyclopedia of Fire recorded the mysteries of Valyrian sorcery—blood magic, fire rites, and binding spells.
The Encyclopedia of War explained martial disciplines practiced by dragonlords: swordsmanship, spear fighting, archery, polearms, and battlefield command.
The Encyclopedia of Craft preserved the secrets of Valyrian construction and metallurgy—the forging of Valyrian steel, the raising of fused-stone roads, towers, and the Black Walls of Valyria.
Valyria had always favored grand works. Nothing small endured there.
Rhaegar turned the pages of Jaenara Belaerys's journal, his mind already carried into her world.
She had been a legend even among dragonlords—her life spanning Essos, Sothoryos, and the edges of Westeros itself. Where others sought dominion, Jaenara sought horizons.
Each generation of House Belaerys produced dragonlords of differing strengths. Some mastered sorcery, others war, others politics within the Valyrian Freehold. Jaenara excelled in flight and exploration. She loved freedom more than glory, adventure more than comfort.
"My legend lies not merely in reaching the southernmost reaches of Sothoryos," she wrote,
"but in returning alive."
Rhaegar paused.
The ink felt alive.
"As one who walked the path before you, I write not only of wonder, but of warning.
I leave four warnings for those who come after me."
Her next line struck him unexpectedly hard.
"We dragonlords are not gods."
Rhaegar felt a quiet heaviness settle in his chest.
Even House Belaerys, greatest of Valyria, had vanished into ash and memory.
The First Warning: Mortality
"Though we ride dragons, we remain mortal."
Jaenara wrote of a shadow that followed the dragonlords—the price of mastery.
Dragonlords seldom fell ill, yet their lives were not unending. Worse still were the horrors whispered among the Forty Families: stillborn children, malformed infants born with scales, vestigial wings, or no eyes at all.
Rhaegar's thoughts turned immediately to known history.
King Maegor I Targaryen's monstrous stillborn heirs.
The tragic births suffered during the Dance of the Dragons, including those of Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen.
The curse was ancient.
Older than Westeros.
Older than the Doom.
"Are we cursed for bending dragons to our will?"
"Or were dragons born from a sin that cannot be undone?"
Jaenara admitted she never found an answer.
Rhaegar exhaled slowly.
This knowledge had existed long before the Targaryens ever set foot on Dragonstone.
The Second Warning: Dragons Are Not Beasts
Jaenara described the true nature of dragons.
They loved heat and despised cold.
They favored solitude and resented confinement.
They desired freedom above all else.
"A dragon chained is a dragon diminished."
Rhaegar's expression darkened.
The Dragonpit of King's Landing immediately came to mind.
Dragons raised there were smaller, more irritable, less fearsome than the wild dragons of Dragonstone. Even Balerion the Black Dread, in his later years, had grown sluggish beneath stone and iron.
"Dragons must never be housed together in great numbers," Jaenara warned.
"Competition breeds hunger, hunger breeds violence."
She spoke of mental bonding—true communion between rider and dragon. The use of whips, chains, pits, and barbs was described with open contempt.
"Those who rule dragons by cruelty are unworthy of the name dragonlord."
Rhaegar clenched his jaw.
House Targaryen's methods had always been crude.
Effective—but shallow.
The Third Warning: The Depths Below
Jaenara's tone darkened.
"The skies are not our only domain."
She wrote of ancient horrors beneath the seas.
Kraken-like beasts capable of shattering fleets.
Vast sea serpents larger than castles.
Creatures intelligent enough to hate.
One passage chilled Rhaegar deeply.
"Once, flying above the open sea, I felt eyes upon me.
Not the gaze of a beast… but of a thinking thing."
Rhaegar swallowed.
Legends of krakens and sea dragons predated the Valyrians themselves. If such creatures existed, then dragons were not alone at the top of the world's food chain.
The Fourth Warning: The Cold of Westeros
The final warning was the most unexpected.
"I flew north once."
Jaenara wrote of Westeros, dismissive at first—until her dragon recoiled.
The cold weakened it.
The air felt wrong.
Something ancient slept beneath the ice.
"There are powers there that dragons fear."
Rhaegar's blood ran cold.
He thought of the Wall.
Of ancient tales.
Of things that walked in winter.
The dragonlords of Valyria had dismissed Westeros as insignificant.
That, Jaenara implied, had been a grave mistake.
When Rhaegar finally closed the book, dawn was beginning to stain the sky.
The Four Warnings burned in his mind:
1.
The curse of dragonblood
2.
The danger of dragons themselves
3.
The hatred lurking beneath the seas
4.
The cold threat rising from the North
They were not myths.
They were lessons written in fire and blood.
Rhaegar rested a hand over the dragonlord ring.
If I am to restore the glory of my House, he thought,
I must learn from their failures as much as their triumphs.
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