At this moment, Rhaenys's Hill, the Dragonpit.
Aemond's voice rang out once more, cold and beyond dispute. "Choose."
"Will you obey the King's command and leave the dragons behind?"
"Or do you distrust me and return with me to the Red Keep to question His Grace?"
Daemon stared at him, then suddenly let out a short laugh. "Boy, you forget—there is another road."
Aemond looked at him in silence.
After a few seconds, he nodded. The motion was slow and heavy, as though it bore a decision long since made.
"If Uncle chooses that road…"
"Then I shall have no choice but to accompany you."
In his eyes, only resolve remained.
He feared the Dragonpit might collapse, that the greens' Dreamfyre, Sunfyre, and Viserion would be buried with it.
But if the blacks would not yield, then let war begin.
He patted Vhagar.
The old mother dragon moved.
Her massive head lifted, her neck slowly straightening as her whole body shifted from prone to a crouch. Rock-like scales scraped against the ground. When she stood fully upright, her head nearly touched the lofty dome of the Dragonpit, and the shadow she cast swallowed half the cavern. She opened her jaws and unleashed a roar that shook heaven and earth.
The raw power and ancient weight within that roar made Caraxes retreat half a step of his own accord, answering with a guarded snarl.
Syrax let out a shrill cry of fear.
The three young dragons nearly curled in upon themselves in terror.
Some of the soldiers upon the high platform collapsed to the ground.
Daemon, however, burst into loud laughter.
"Good… very good!"
Aemond did not laugh. He merely fixed him with an unyielding stare.
Rhaenyra's face had turned deathly pale.
She glanced back at Sunfyre and Tessarion, drawn there, then at Caraxes beside her, who might spew flame at any moment. At last, her gaze fell upon her three sons.
She saw the fury burning in Jacaerys's lone remaining eye, the unwillingness on Lucerys's face, Joffrey's tightly clenched lips—and beneath them, the young dragons trembling with fear.
Once dragonfire was loosed and stone began to fall, the most likely to die would be them.
"Mother."
Jacaerys suddenly spoke.
He slid down from Vermax's back and walked to Syrax's side, looking up at Rhaenyra.
The boy's face still bore lingering anger, yet his voice had grown strangely calm.
"We cannot fight."
"Here, if we fight, we cannot win."
"You will die." He paused, his voice choking. "I do not want you to die."
He turned around and, facing Aemond upon Vhagar's back, shouted with all his strength, "I! Will obey the King's command!"
"Brother!" Lucerys leapt down from Arrax's back and rushed over, grabbing his elder brother's arm.
"No! Vermax is yours! By what right do they—"
"By the right that Mother may die!" Jacaerys violently shook off his brother's hand, his lone eye bloodshot.
"Look clearly! That is Vhagar! Here, even Caraxes cannot protect everyone!"
"Do you want Mother and yourselves to die here together?!"
Lucerys stood with his mouth open, his chest heaving violently. In the end, he did not speak a single word; only his eyes reddened.
The youngest brother, Joffrey, turned his head away.
Rhaenyra looked at her eldest son—at this child who had lost his left eye, whose betrothal had been broken, and who now was to be forced to give up even his dragon. The feeling pained her so deeply that she could scarcely breathe.
She raised her head and looked toward Aemond. "You must guarantee… if they leave the dragons, you will let them depart in safety. You will swear it in the name of Targaryen."
Aemond nodded. "I am merely carrying out His Grace's command."
"The dragons remain. The people may go."
"I swear in the name of the Seven and of my House that I will never bar them from leaving King's Landing, nor will I touch their dragons."
"The Dragonpit's dragonkeepers will continue to tend them."
He spoke decisively. He knew he could not press them too hard.
If these three dragons were left behind, then when war came, the blacks would have three fewer dragonriders.
As for the people… let them go.
If he truly blocked them here, even if he won afterward, the Dragonpit would surely collapse. The greens' dragons would be finished as well. He did not dare to gamble.
By then, the whole of House Targaryen would be left with only two dragonriders…
Jacaerys closed his eyes, drew a deep breath of the scorching, murky air within, and walked toward Vermax.
The green young dragon let out a mournful cry and lowered his head, rubbing his snout against his master's cheek.
Jacaerys embraced his head, burying his face between the scales. His shoulders trembled violently once.
"Go back," he said hoarsely, patting Vermax's neck. "Go back with them."
Vermax whimpered and refused to move.
Jacaerys stepped back a few paces and shouted sternly at the dragonkeepers huddled nearby, "Take him away! Lock him up!"
Several dragonkeepers came forward trembling, carefully fastening heavy chains around Vermax's neck and claws.
The young dragon struggled once, letting out a wronged, mournful cry. But under his master's gaze and the pull of the chains, he was at last dragged—unwillingly—toward the dark nesting grounds deep within the Dragonpit.
Lucerys and Joffrey did the same.
The cries of Arrax and Tyraxes were likewise filled with confusion and sorrow, until they too vanished into the shadows.
The three young dragons were gone.
Within the Dragonpit, only six dragons remained facing one another: Caraxes, Syrax, Vhagar, Lothorne, Sunfyre, and Tessarion.
Aemond ignored Jacaerys's lone eye, fixed upon him as though it would burn through him.
Aemond spoke calmly.
"Now."
"You may leave."
He tugged at the reins. Vhagar gave a low growl, her immense body turning aside to clear the great archway.
Daemon cast Aemond one last look.
"Boy, what happened today—I will remember it."
"I shall await you at any time, Uncle," Aemond replied evenly.
Rhaenyra's gaze lingered for a moment in the depths of the Dragonpit, where three sons who had lost their dragons stood like fledglings stripped of their wings.
Her heart felt as though it were being cut apart, yet she tightened her grip upon Syrax's reins.
Syrax surged from the Dragonpit first, golden wings cleaving the dusk.
Caraxes followed close behind, his red-and-black form plunging into the deepening blue of the sky.
Aemond patted Vhagar. The old mother dragon let out a heavy rumble, braced her limbs, and with a thunderous beat of her vast wings, bore Aemond upward into the heavens.
Lothorne shrieked in excitement and followed.
Then Sunfyre and Tessarion rose as well, carrying their riders into the air.
The greens—four dragons—formed a loose arc in the sky, trailing the two dragon-shapes ahead as they flew toward Blackwater Bay.
Aemond rode upon Vhagar's back.
He watched the dark shapes growing smaller. Vhagar was too old and too heavy to match Caraxes's speed.
But it was enough.
So long as they were ensured to leave King's Landing—leave the Crownlands.
Below, the streets and alleys of King's Landing lay like a gray-brown web, countless small figures tilting their heads toward the sky.
Six dragons taking flight at once—never seen, never heard of—was a spectacle that would be sung of by minstrels for many years to come.
Cries of panic, shouts of astonishment, and murmurs of prayer rose faintly from the city below.
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