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Caspian Darkwood
Volantis, Essos.
57 A.C.
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Volantis was hot—that was the first thing I realized upon dismounting from Endaxia. The climate carried a devastating mugginess that made me want to slap my own forehead for thinking it was a good idea to wear the armor I was currently sporting.
I looked at Valka beside me and felt only pity for her; if I was weighed down by fabric and steel, she was drowning in a sea of garments. However, looking closer, I noticed she wasn't even sweating, which made me swallow my pity and feel envy instead. Apparently, she was actually enjoying our stay here.
But I had to suppress my desperation because a delegation of Red Priests was approaching us. Their robes, red as blood, were their greatest banner, along with their red eyes and pale skin. Honestly, if I didn't already know where I was, I might have thought I was in a place ruled by Twilight vampires.
The group consisted of six women and twelve men, and all of them knelt the moment they were within five meters of me. Their foreheads nearly brushed the ground, their backs arching to allow for the position.
"We welcome Azor Ahai, hero of R'hllor. He who fights against the darkness and protects us from the horrors of the night." In a synchronized chant that seemed well-rehearsed, they all spoke at once, and a strange foreboding began to form in my mind.
With the Dothraki, I had used their religion to my advantage. It was thanks to that that the members of my Khalasar now followed me with a nearly fanatical fervor—it was one of the reasons they hadn't caused trouble with every new thing I made them learn or introduced into their daily lives.
But this was different. These priests were fanatics who would burn children for their god, and now I was supposed to be some kind of messiah to them. It put me in a position of immense power, but also one where I was walking on glass. The last thing I wanted was for anything I did or said to be misinterpreted, ending in a bloody crusade composed of fire-lovers and death-worshipping Dothraki.
"Rise, all of you. Such... formality is not necessary." At my words, they stood up without hesitation, as if my words had been a command rather than a request.
One of the men approached me. His eyes, instead of the red of the others, were an intense yellow, like a fire contained behind his pupils. "Azor Ahai," his voice came out raspy but utterly devout, "my lord, my eyes weep with joy to see the face of our god made flesh. To stand before his envoy on earth fills me with divine grace. Know that anything—whatever you wish or want—I, Cotarro, High Priest of the Red Temple, will make it a reality."
I watched him closely, then scanned the other priests accompanying him. Without exception, they all looked at me with a fierce devotion, as if their very lives depended on it.
I nodded, taking Valka's hand for support to keep myself from throwing this all away and going to live in a cabin at the end of the world. "Let's go somewhere else to talk. I'm not liking this weather."
Cotarro's eyes widened in horror, and he was about to kneel again until I gave him a stern look. "Of course! The Red Temple will suffice." Immediately, the group parted to both sides, clearing a path like Moses parting the seas.
"This is Endaxia," I said, pointing to the massive bronze dragon standing behind us, who had been receiving looks of terror and awe since our arrival. "I would appreciate it if she were fed. She prefers cattle."
"Of course, my lord, it shall be done." Without further ado, I mentally told Endaxia not to attack anyone unless provoked, and then rode with Valka toward two waiting horses, beginning the trek with my bloodriders toward the Red Temple, where I hoped it would be cooler than out here.
...
The Temple of the Lord of Light loomed as a massive structure of red limestone. Multiple towers and domes rose toward the sky as if trying to touch it, with walls painted in warm tones to resemble a forest fire.
The entrance greeted us with a massive staircase and a pillar connected by a bridge to a terrace, with a giant bonfire burning at both ends of the stairs. I dismounted and decided to climb the stairs on foot, much to the horror of the priests who begged me not to "debase" myself by walking.
If the exterior seemed grand, the interior was a masterpiece; corridors decorated with extreme delicacy and torchlight that provided both light and heat. Cotarro led us deep inside, to a place where commoners were forbidden and only a few priests were seen passing by.
It was inside a room densely decorated with precious stones that I brought forth what I hoped to achieve.
"How can the Red Temple help me conquer Essos?"
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Vaes Yeraan
57 A.C.
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Flying over the Narrow Sea had always been an act of freedom for Rhaena, from flying from King's Landing to Driftmark to see her friend Larissa, to flying to Tarth after she married.
But this time, every beat of Dreamfyre's wings felt like a reminder of lost time. The journey east was a test of endurance fueled by longing. Rhaena did not stop in Pentos or Norvos; her mind was fixed on a point on the map that, according to ancient records, should be the ruins of Vaes Khadokh.
Aboard her silver-blue dragon, Rhaena fought against exhaustion and the hot Essosi winds. Her thoughts were a whirlwind of "What if?" What if Captain Velaryon was wrong? What if the black dragon wasn't Balerion? What if, upon arriving, she only found the news that she had been chasing ghosts? However, a mother's longing was an ember that refused to die, a small spark of hope that kept her upright in the saddle as the vast lands stretched beneath her.
"Hold on, darling," Rhaena whispered, stroking Dreamfyre's scales. "We'll be there soon."
As she approached the location—having passed Qohor half an hour prior—the landscape began to defy the logic of her maps. Where there should have been an infinite plain dotted with ruins, majestic peaks began to rise. High mountains with sharp summits and slopes covered in strange vegetation surrounded what appeared to be a protected valley. Rhaena frowned; these mountains were not in any Valyrian record or known map. It was strange that such enormous peaks hadn't been charted—as if the earth itself had been struck from the depths to create them.
When Dreamfyre crested the final mountain ridge, Rhaena caught her breath. Below was no Dothraki city of straw and mud huts. Instead, a city in every sense of the word stretched out—an ensemble of order and calm that even King's Landing could never achieve.
The first thing that caught her attention were three enormous circular structures, resembling the fields built for tournaments in the Seven Kingdoms. However, these were colossal structures roofed with tiles that shimmered under the sun, large enough to house hundreds of thousands of people in conditions that surpassed any similar structure in King's Landing.
But the most shocking part was the people. The Dothraki, known for their savage nomadism, walked along paved streets. Rhaena saw riders dismounting in front of solid stone houses, appearing to converse with women weaving in clean, organized plazas. It all brought an unnatural peace to the air, a sense of permanence that the "Horselords" had never possessed nor been known for.
Then Rhaena saw it, and every doubt she had left was extinguished. Balerion was resting in what looked like a Dragonpit, only it was open-air and, like everything else, massive.
She didn't want to wait any longer, guiding Dreamfyre to land near the site, just outside the pit where a group of people had gathered.
As she dismounted, Rhaena's legs trembled. The pain of three years of searching weighed on her bones. And it all ended today, because only twenty meters away, beside the massive shadow cast by the wall of the pit where the mountain of obsidian known as Balerion rested, there she was.
The first thing she noticed was that her daughter, her Aerea, was no longer the frightened girl who had escaped from Dragonstone. She was taller, her skin bronzed by the Essosi sun, and her eyes... her eyes had the depth of someone who had seen horrors and survived to tell of them. Just like her own. She wore silk and leather clothes in the Essosi style, suitable for the climate, and a sword even hung from her hip with a terrifying naturalness.
"Aerea?" Rhaena's voice broke, barely a whisper.
The young woman stepped forward. Her face was a mask of stoicism, an unsettling calm that reminded her of Jaehaerys. The years trapped in the smoking ruins of the Freehold had hardened her, turning her vulnerability into an armor of steel. But upon seeing her mother, noticing the wrinkles of pain and the emptiness in Rhaena's eyes, the mask faltered, though her voice did not.
"Mother," Aerea said. Her voice was firm, mature, carrying an authority Rhaena did not recognize.
Rhaena ran the final meters and wrapped her in a desperate hug, sobbing against her shoulder. The emptiness she had felt for years filled all at once with a torrent of feelings that left her breathless.
"I thought I'd lost you... I thought the world had swallowed you," Rhaena sobbed, clinging to her daughter as if she feared she might vanish again.
Aerea remained rigid for a second, her mind divided between the determined woman she was now and the girl who still loved her mother. Finally, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around Rhaena. The contact was warm, but there was an emotional distance—a barrier of experiences Rhaena could not yet fathom.
"Valyria tried to swallow me, mother," Aerea whispered into Rhaena's ear with a chilling seriousness. "But Balerion kept me safe, though not completely. I am someone else now."
Rhaena pulled back slightly, taking her daughter's face in her hands. She saw the distance in her eyes and her stoic resolve, which made her sob even harder. "I don't care who you are now, Aerea. I only care that you are alive."
Aerea gave her a small smile—the first real show of affection toward her mother in years. "I am alive, mother. And I am much stronger than I ever could have become by your side."
As if it were a signal, Balerion's roar echoed like thunder, reacting to his rider's emotions. Mother and daughter stood there, in the heart of a city that defied history—united by blood, but separated by the experiences from which Aerea still woke with shivers.