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Prince Aerion wakes up in a bed that is not his, and as if that were not enough, in a body that is definitely not his own.
The man who soon gazes back at him from the mirror is young, tall and attractive, but he lacks Aerion's superior bearing and extreme beauty, merely sharing with Aerion an age and the silver colour of his hair that gives away his noble blood.
His suspicions are soon confirmed as he examines the garments of the boy who is apparently lending him this body, beyond his current appearance.
He finds himself on the island of Driftmark, vassal to House Targaryen. In High Tide Castle, to be more precise. His urgent commands to the servants who hasten to his demands finally bear fruit, and Aerion learns who he is, this young man who looks at Aerion in surprise when he contemplates the mirror.
His name is Ser Aethan Velaryon, and this is definitely High Tide, seat of Lord Corlys, your uncle, says the trembling servant, the same one who begs Aerion to let her go and fetch the maester, for Ser must have hit his head.
The Sea Snake? The woman nods. No, that cannot be. The man must have been dead for at least 80 years.
“Who sits the Iron Throne?” A second servant stares at Aerion, his mouth open even longer than the woman's, both of them equally dim-witted. “Tell me. Who is king? The old Daeron, second of his name?”
A slap rouses the serving man from his stupor.
“Second? No... our king is Viserys, of course, ser.”
Viserys the First.
No, such a thing is not possible. Aerion must be dreaming.
But the hours slip by and the nightmare does not release him, quite the contrary.
He learns with dismay that Ser Aethan is indeed Lord Corlys' nephew, hardly a minor Velaryon. No longer a prince with no claim to Dragonstone, he is now, to Aerion’s own contempt, the fourth son of the man who was once the secondborn of the Lord of Driftmark.
And Viserys, there across the sea, has been rotting away in the Red Keep for many years.
The dragons... the dragons live.
For now.
Aerion feels that perhaps, only perhaps, it might be that the gods have brought him here to spare his House from destruction, which is bound to follow the death of the damned Viserys and the bloody clash of his even more damned offspring.
The dragons do live, and Aerion wishes nothing more at this moment than to see one, to witness its power. To prevent their deaths, if possible.
In King's Landing, Ser Aethan Velaryon joins His Grace's court, aided by Aerion's charm and the presence he still commands through this borrowed physique, and perhaps also due to the coins that Aethan's father, Ser Vaemond Velaryon, is unaware that Aerion has taken from the High Tide treasury, coins that end up in the pockets that Aerion finds suitable.
In the capital, Aerion succeeds in seeing them. Dragons truly exist, in the form of the beautiful Sunfyre, the majestic, blue Dreamfyre, the colossal Vhagar.
In the castle, Aerion finds that Viserys is indeed confined to his royal chambers, dying a slow death, just as the greedy servants reveal to him.
Those of his blood whom Aerion comes to know over the following days and weeks are not to his liking.
The boy Aegon is a despicable prince, unfit for the throne, a useless lover of wine and women of low birth, whether maids or whores, disgracing his primogeniture as if he were Aerion's own drunkard brother Daeron.
He finds Aemond, the second son, an arrogant lunatic who does not deserve his powerful mount.
Residing in this old, newer royal palace, Aerion decides that he does not want the company of either of them.
Through the Grandmaester's servants, Aerion ends up learning something else: Rhaenyra, Princess of Dragonstone, is currently pregnant. She will give the King another grandchild in just a few moons, they say. The princess has already borne two sons to her husband, Prince Daemon. This babe would be the third.
Aerion comprehends what that entails.
War is near. Too much so.
In the Red Keep, the lords and ladies whisper. The king no longer leaves his chambers, trapped by his illness, he cannot live forever.
They talk about Rhaenyra, his chosen heir. Aerion hears them, what they say about her in hushed tones.
That she is a spoilt princess, lustful, wasteful. That she has never wielded a sword, that she hides on her island. They talk about her weakness, the people will not want a woman, there has never been a regnant queen and Rhaenyra is just that: a woman, and ill-suited to the throne. Her husband is a cruel and unpredictable madman, her sons…. Everyone knows about her sons.
Aerion feels that he hates them all.
He hates Viserys for not having put an end to the feuds between the two factions, for being so spineless and failing to prevent the all-too-predictable war.
He hates Aegon for letting his dragon kill others and for putting his own mount in mortal danger.
He hates Daeron for abandoning his dragon to her fate.
He hates Aemond for losing Vhagar and causing the death of so many dragons.
He hates the Greens for fighting against Rhaenyra.
Rhaenyra is his own ancestor, his flesh and blood, but he hates her too.
He hates the Blacks for not stepping aside and allowing the male heir to reign, however useless he might have been; such a thing would have forestalled the conflict.
He despises Rhaenyra for making herself odious to the commonfolk, murderer of dragons, and for not having subjected them to fire and blood before they all turned en masse to ruin. He utterly hates her for having given Jaehaerys and Alysanne's dragons to bastards of treacherous blood, and the rest of her beasts to commoners of equally contemptible and dubious origins.
He hates his forefather, Prince Daemon, for forcing his Caraxes to slay and be slain, and also for dying himself without having secured victory for Rhaenyra.
He despises Jacaerys and Lucerys for failing to protect their dragons. He hates Joffrey for his stupidity. He hates his ancestor Viserys for wasting an egg. He absolutely hates Aegon, the Dragonbane, for causing the ultimate weakening of his House.
He hates them all, Greens, and Blacks, and both sides, riders unworthy of their dragons, each and every one of them guilty of the most unforgivable crime: causing the extinction of the most deadly, beautiful, and mighty beasts that ever existed.
Although he resents them all, and deeply, none of that has happened yet.
Aerion feels it within himself with increasing force: it must be him, and him alone, who saves the dragons.
And to do so, with war looming, he must possess a dragon himself.
Dragonstone awaits him.
On the ship taking him to the island and his destiny, Aerion reflects on his plans, stirred by the prospect of what soon awaits him. Vermithor, undoubtedly, only the Old King's dragon is worthy of Aerion, immense and lethal, formidable on the battlefield like no other.
Right, that must be his first aim, to acquire a dragon.
He will join the Blacks, he chooses, presenting himself as Velaryon, even before Viserys departs for the Seven Hells. The Greens will anoint and crown Aegon, without a doubt; Rhaenyra will have Caraxes, Meleys, and this time Vermithor also on her side from the very start, a force against which the Greens' dragons will have no chance of winning.
It will be a small sacrifice if they put up a fight. Aerion is willing to take the associated risk, losing Sunfyre and Vhagar, perhaps even Dreamfyre if there is no other way, if in exchange he can avoid with that the end of all the rest.
Rhaenyra will reign, thanks to Aerion's power and counsel. As much as his blood boils with rage at his current existence, Aerion must first and foremost ensure his own future birth, and fighting on the Black side may be the simplest way to achieve his dual mission.
The salvation of his House, and with it the preservation of its power and dominion over Westeros, intact.
His own salvation.
The hours pass slowly, and Dragonstone is still nowhere to be seen on the horizon. Aerion thinks and thinks, and now the ideas in his mind are marching in a very different formation.
None of them are truly worthy of the Iron Throne.
Not Aegon, the indolent. Not Rhaenyra, so promiscuous. Not Aemond the kinslayer, nor Daeron the brat with his idiotic death. Nor Daemon the fool, hated by all.
The Iron Throne must have a warrior lord, certainly, a charismatic leader who can be loved by the peoples he rules, from north to south, and by the vassals who will gladly kneel before him. The throne deserves someone steadfast in his wisdom and capable of showing mercy to his lords, but also of wielding violence when necessary against his enemies.
He will certainly unite with Vermithor and take the throne for himself, as House Targaryen rightfully deserves.
Indeed, he will fight alongside Rhaenyra, for he must first rid himself of the unworthy Greens; after that, it will be the Blacks who, one after another, must fall.
Determination takes hold of him and Aerion decides it, no longer with any hesitation: he will indeed avert the end of the dragons. He will soar through the skies upon one. He shall be king, he will be Aerion I.
He will be the Dragon.
He does not need Rhaenyra, nor Daemon. When the time comes, he will dispose of them both, he resolves, whether by cunning or force.
After all, Viserys the Younger is already at hand. Aerion decides that he must take him as his ward; after the war, the boy will be his cupbearer and eventually his squire.
Viserys' brothers will not have such honour nor luck: the bastards of Strong will be made useful at the Wall, their mounts confined to the Dragon Pit where they cannot be reached by their half-blood riders. The boy Aegon, meanwhile, will grow up at court until his fate is decided, whether it be to renounce his rights to serve the Faith, the Wall, or the Citadel.
Daemon's daughters must be married to vassals of proven loyalty, dragon and egg respectively left behind under the authority and protection of their king. Aerion feels that he also despises them, one for losing her dragon and causing misfortune to another, and both for having the audacity to marry outside the family.
As king, he will need a queen: the idea of taking one of them, now maidens, as a wife fleetingly crosses his mind, before he dismisses it. Helaena will be his queen, whom he knows from his days at the court of old Viserys as beautiful and submissive, a woman of few words and proven fidelity to her husband as well as fertility, and what is even more important: her blood is Targaryen, and her mount, Dreamfyre, is enormous and ancient. That dragon must live, if possible, at Aerion's disposal and by his side.
Her children must be disposed of, either during or after the war, so that the new queen can be free to devote herself to her sole duty: bearing children for her king.
The boy Viserys, the only of his kin who will retain rights to the throne under his reign, will be his heir for the time being. Only until the future Prince of Dragonstone is born, Aerion's firstborn son and therefore king after him.
Rhaenyra's men seem to be as fond of gold coins as Viserys' ones were back in the Red Keep. It is amusing, how easy is to persuade them to do his bidding.
With their obliging help, Aerion manages to get the servants in charge of tending to the dragons to bring him before Aerion's future mount, the magnificent and fearsome Bronze Fury.
The key to his future throne, the absolute power that should be granted to him by right of conquest and worth.
Vermithor approaches, sniffing Aerion. He recognises him for what he is, beneath the sea-green attire and this flesh that disguises his true self: Aerion is a Targaryen prince, of pure Valyrian blood, descended from countless generations of dragon riders and kings.
Aerion must assert himself; Vermithor's will must be subjugated to his and to him, his new master.
The whip in Aerion's hand strikes the ground with a crack. Dohaerās.
He does not understand, when it happens. It burns.
No, no, this cannot happen, Vermithor must accept him. He is the envoy of the gods, the end of his House's ruin, he is the chosen one, destined only for triumph and glory. Aerion the Great, the first of his name.
Vermithor must accept him.
It burns.