A gold-and-red dragon shadow swept across the sky, beneath the crimson clouds.
The island chain, anchored by volcanic peaks north and south, was unstable, venting smoke and fire sporadically.
Even in Mantarys, the northernmost city of the Sea of Sighs in the Lands of the Long Summer, the curse of the Freehold lingered.
Its people were born twisted and monstrous, as if cursed.
Viserys suspected this was a curse born of smog and blood magic, plunging the land into chaos.
Sunfyre, pleased after his feast, streaked across the sky like lightning.
Viserys looked back reluctantly at the massive skeleton of Aurion's dragon, still brimming with fire essence.
Absorbing it over time would yield incredible benefits.
The dragon was comparable in size to Vhagar or Vermithor. Coupled with pyromancy, its power would have been immense.
Compared to the Targaryen dragonriders, the true high-tier Dragonlords were on another level.
Targaryen dragonriders lacked Valyrian steel armor (save for the black scale suit in Fire and Blood) and fire magic, making their profession extremely dangerous.
Viserys couldn't stay long. Without proper supplies, the ruins were too perilous.
Valyria was no longer suitable for dragons.
Blood mage pets roamed the ruins, alongside out-of-control firewyrms and Face-Worms.
Firewyrms could grow to immense sizes, posing a grave threat to dragons in the shattered landscape.
Viserys guided the dragon, while his men carefully followed the path he indicated.
Sunfyre acted as a scout, leading them along routes he frequented, which were safer.
Generally, firewyrms avoided fighting dragons.
But with humans present, things were different; firewyrms hated humans.
Thus, the retreat was a walk on thin ice.
Despite their caution, an accident occurred. A soldier disturbed a large manticore in a pile of rubble.
Even though Sunfyre burned the manticore to ash, the Unsullied soldier died a gruesome death.
The poison attacked his heart instantly; he turned iron-grey and suffocated within moments.
Viserys had to admit the ruins were deadly. He had gained treasures, but his followers were dwindling.
Sunfyre's lair was in a ruin hill some distance from Aurion's site, still technically on the edge of Valyria.
It was slightly further north, closer to the erupting Fourteen Flames.
From the air, Viserys saw that the black, topless towers deep within the ruins had almost all collapsed.
He vaguely made out broken pillars on the slopes of the Fourteen Flames, similar to those he had seen in tapestries. The base of the volcanoes was riddled with mines.
Viserys guessed those pillars were meant to control the fire.
But after so long, and being so close to the volcanoes, the danger was extreme.
The grander the Dragonlord tower, the closer it was to the Fourteen Flames, and likely connected to the volcanic system—meaning firewyrm nests everywhere.
For safety, Viserys decided to check only Sunfyre's lair.
Valyrian architecture was defined by black stone.
Dry, hard fused black stone formed the Black Walls, towers, temples, council halls, and shrines.
Valyrian sorcerers didn't chisel stone like masons; they shaped it with fire and spells, building the Dragon Roads and the great towers.
Dragonlords were obsessed with towers, symbols of their power and status, like the high lords of Westeros.
They housed their dragons on the tower peaks and feasted in the halls below, enjoying the tribute of their vast empire.
There, they engaged in endless intrigue, vying for seats on the court and council.
Some towers and lands had belonged to the Targaryens before Daenys the Dreamer's prophecy led them to sell their holdings and move to Dragonstone.
Now, the ruins were a jumble of topless towers, stripped of beauty and order, the roads buried, the terrain jagged and uneven.
The collapsed towers lay like broken teeth, mixed with obsidian and sulfur rocks spewed by the volcanoes.
Rivers of steaming red lava or black acid flowed around the ruins; fountains were dry cracks or deep ravines.
The ruins buried magnificent sphinxes, hellhounds, griffins, and dragon ornaments.
Valyrians loved decorating their buildings with thousands of monsters as gargoyles: wyverns, hellhounds, griffins, demons, manticores, minotaurs, basilisks, cockatrices, and stranger things.
Of course, their favorite was the dragon; lifelike dragon motifs were everywhere.
Dragonstone was a surviving masterpiece of this style.
Viserys saw obsidian and yellow sulfur stone covering the lower part of the ruin hill, while steep, jagged remains of towers pointed at the sky above.
Amidst the shattered rock, obsidian, and sulfur stone, Sunfyre had found a cave for his lair.
But Sunfyre didn't fly straight to his lair. instead, he took Viserys to a stream of black, muddy water near the ruins.
The black water wound its way through tunnels beneath the ruins, seemingly originating from closer to the city center, its source far upstream.
Sunfyre signaled Viserys to pay attention; this was what he coated himself with.
Viserys approached the black mud. It didn't smell like rot, but rather a pungent mix of spices, potions, and blood.
As Viserys suspected, this mud was likely a barrier agent from a blood mage's laboratory—a disinfectant like industrial alcohol.
It was used to prevent blood magic experiments from escaping; the scent deterred the monsters.
"Coat yourselves and the perimeter of the camp with this mud," Viserys ordered.
Finding this mysterious stream near the dragon's lair suggested even greater treasures.
Only a Blood Faction lab could produce such a barrier agent.
After some thought, Viserys decided to trace the black stream upstream.
Sunfyre growled low but eventually decided to follow Viserys.
The dragon was curious about the source but wary, being small.
Riding the dragon, Viserys flew toward the source, the sulfur smell growing stronger.
The further he flew, the more alarmed he became. In this hollow world, there was only destruction.
After circling a few times, they saw a terrifying sight.
Beside a towering ruin hill stood a tower that hadn't completely collapsed.
Black, oily stones spilled from the side of the tower. Rain mixed with this material to form a small barrier lake.
The water from this lake flowed downstream. The source of the barrier agent was these oily stones.
The black tower was adorned with sculptures of red dragons—dark blood-red, with a drop of blood on their foreheads.
"This is a Blood Faction palace, and a laboratory," Viserys realized.
Most terrifying was the dragon corpse draped across the ruin hill and the tower.
The skeleton of the majestic dragon was over two hundred meters long—longer than Balerion the Black Dread.
Its horns were especially ornate, like a crown.
Even more surprising, Viserys saw a flickering flower of flame dancing faintly in the dragon's empty left eye socket.
The dragon was long dead, yet the flame flower persisted, dwelling within its eye.