TGW: Chapter Fifty: Coda(Pt. 3)

Chapter Fifty: Coda(Pt. 3)

Garren could hear the rumble long before he saw Vermithor. It was a sound deeper than distant thunder, reverberating off the cavern walls beneath Dragonstone. The passages were chiseled from ancient, volcanic stone, and their shadows seemed endless, devouring what little light the torches offered. In front of him, Prince Aemond’s tall figure led the way, his step sure-footed upon the uneven ground, while Rowenna walked to his left. The prince had said little since they descended, giving only clipped commands—no wasted words.

Garren’s breath felt tight, as if the press of stone above weighed upon his lungs. Memories flitted through his mind, unbidden: the day the good Prince took him from the service of his former masters, the taste of ash in the air as the Iron Islands burned under dragonflame so long ago, and every story he’d heard about the might of Vermithor, once the trusted mount of the Old King Jaehaerys. Garren had never much believed in fate, but he could not deny the weight of it pressing down on him now.

“Here,” Aemond said abruptly. His voice carried in the darkness like a knife’s whisper.

They entered a chamber wide enough to fit three houses side by side. Hot, sulfurous air fanned Garren’s face, and he squinted through the gloom to see a massive, sinuous form curled in the far reaches of the cavern. Two great amber eyes reflected the torchlight, the pupils shrinking to slivers.

Vermithor.

An uneasy thrill shot through Garren. He tasted salt on his lips—whether from sweat or sea spray carried in on the wind, he couldn’t tell. The ancient dragon lifted his great head, ridges of obsidian and dull bronze catching the flicker of the torches. A flick of Vermithor’s tail sent a cloud of ash spiraling into the air. The dragon let out a slow breath, heat rippling through the air. The glow of his maw deepened, illuminating his scars, the places where time had weathered him.

Even from yards away, Garren could sense the heat rippling from the beast’s monstrous silhouette.

Aemond stopped, turning to Rowenna. “Remember what I told you. Move calmly. Speak confidently if you must. The old beast has no patience for the timid.”

Rowenna drew in a slow breath. Garren watched her fingers curl at her sides. She had always been as fearless as she was disciplined—so much so that she frightened even some of their fellow Dragonseeds. But again, fearlessness was little armor against a dragon’s wrath.

She looked back at Garren, and he nodded. The words he wanted to say clogged in his throat: Be careful. Don’t die. But he said nothing.

When she stepped toward Vermithor, Garren’s pulse hammered. Each footfall echoed in the hush. An acrid tang filled the chamber as the dragon exhaled, nostrils flaring in a haze of steam. Rowenna paused just beyond Vermithor’s coiled tail, close enough for her to feel the scent of death upon her face.

Silence stretched, taut as a drawn bowstring. Vermithor’s eyes smouldered. Then, Rowenna lifted a hand, palm open. She said something in a low voice—too soft for Garren to hear. The dragon’s lips parted over teeth as long as a man’s arm. A low rumble reverberated in the chamber, a half-growl, half-grunt.

Garren’s heart pounded. For a dreadful instant, he was certain the beast would unleash dragonfire. The warmth in the cavern intensified, and the Bronze Fury’s massive chest seemed to swell. Seven save her, he prayed silently. He felt the press of sweat on his brow and forced himself not to move.

Then, like a boulder shifting, Vermithor lowered his head. He snuffled at Rowenna’s outstretched hand, letting out another rolling breath. Rowenna didn’t flinch—only slowly placed her palm against the dragon’s brow scale.

She did it.

A strangled laugh escaped Garren’s throat before he even knew it was there. Relief flooded him, so strong he laughed again.

Prince Aemond—tall, severe, scarred—watched in silence, no flicker of emotion upon his pale features. After a moment, however, he inclined his head, an acknowledgment both regal and sincere. “Well done,” he commented, his voice echoing in the hollow space.

Rowenna slid her hand across the dragon’s massive snout, and Vermithor did not recoil. She turned back toward them, her breathing just very slightly uneven. In that moment, Garren saw the tightness in her posture—a stiffness that told of how close she had come to the cusp of death.

Aemond allowed them a brief moment before he spoke again, placing a firm hand on Garren’s shoulder as he drew him away.

“We’ll give them their time.”

Garren nodded mutely, casting one final glance at Rowenna, who was still leaning close to her newly bonded dragon, as if reluctant to part for even a moment. He offered her a quick, tight smile, and then followed the prince deeper into Dragonstone’s winding tunnels.

...

They moved through the twisting corridors in silence, the occasional trickle of water echoing through the gloom. The air grew warmer still, and flecks of volcanic rock crunched beneath Garren’s boots. Some path led upward, to the old walkways near the fortress courtyard; others burrowed downward, to unknown depths.

Aemond finally broke the hush. “You’re anxious,” he said, not quite a question.

Garren grimaced. “Forgive me, my prince. I suppose I am.”

Aemond’s single violet eye cut sideways, that sapphire shining cold in his other socket. “You have served me for years, Garren. Longer than most. Wyl, I could understand, but not you. Why this fear? Do you not trust in your prince any longer?”

Garren met Aemond’s gaze only briefly before looking away. “It’s not a matter of trust, my prince. Dragons are… not horses. It is only natural to fear them.”

Aemond huffed. “A fair answer, I suppose.”

Before Garren could ruminate on the response, a low rumble shuddered through the rock beneath them. Then he heard it—a dragon’s growl, higher pitched than the Bronze Fury’s thunder. It reminded him of a great cat’s warning.

Silverwing.

She was smaller than Vermithor—sleeker, too, her argent scales gleaming in the dim firelight as they stepped into a high-roofed cavern. Even so, she was a formidable beast: once the mount of Good Queen Alysanne, beloved by smallfolk and rumored to be as gentle as any dragon might be. Yet in that moment, Garren saw only primal suspicion in those slitted eyes. The she-dragon’s long neck arched, and her wings rustled, stirring ash motes in a swirl around her.

Aemond lifted a hand, speaking in High Valyrian. The words sounded like silk and steel interwoven—Garren made out the phrases, translating them in his mind as they were spoken: Please, calm yourself.

Silverwing shifted restlessly, her breath escaping in a slow, growling exhalation. She pinned Aemond with her gaze, as though deciding whether to incinerate him where he stood.

“Forgive me, Silverwing,” he murmured, gentler now. “It had to be done. For your sake.”

Garren watched, transfixed, as Aemond moved closer. He placed a gloved hand upon the curve of her neck, speaking in hushed Valyrian. Whatever it was the prince said worked. Silverwing’s tense posture eased. The hiss died in her throat, replaced by a soft, wary trill. After a long moment, Aemond stepped back and motioned Garren forward.

“Garren, come,” he said, again reverting to the Common Tongue. “You need not fear her. She will not harm you now.”

Garren took an uncertain step, then another. He half-expected Silverwing to lash out at any moment. Yet the dragon only blinked, her nostrils flaring at his scent. He was close enough now to see the fine edges of each silver scale, the shadows dancing between them. His heart beat so loudly he feared she might sense it.

Aemond’s words in High Valyrian were directed to Silverwing this time, quiet but clear: “A rider for you, dear queen. I have found one who is worthy. Look upon him.”

Silverwing turned her head, studying Garren. He could feel her breath, warm and vaguely sulfuric, wash over him. This was the moment.

The She-dragon lowered her horned head so her muzzle was near Garren’s chest. The heat of her exhalation ruffled his cloak, and she sniffed, as though reading every secret that clung to his skin. Time seemed to stretch into an eternity of pounding blood and shallow breath.

Then, suddenly, Silverwing let out a brief, almost gentle rumble. She nudged him with her snout, and the force of it nearly knocked him off-balance. A sudden trill followed—an approving sound, if Garren had ever heard one.

Garren let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. He dared lift a hand to stroke the dragon’s neck, and her silver scales felt warm under his fingertips.

A quiet laugh sounded behind him. The prince, watching them both, offered a rare smile that reached his good eye. “She finds you amusing. I concur.”

Confusion and relief warred within Garren’s chest. He caught the glimmer of genuine warmth in Aemond’s face. For one impossible heartbeat, he almost imagined that the enigma of a man had been replaced by something… more human. More relatable.

Then Aemond’s gaze shuttered again, inscrutable. “I would advise you to remember to hold tight,” he said, gesturing and drawing attention to the fact that Silverwing had lowered her neck so Garren could mount her. “The first flight is always... memorable.”

Garren nodded wordlessly as he climbed onto her back, gripping tightly as Silverwing spread her wings wide. The cavern walls echoed her trill as she stalked out of the cave system.

Outside, the sea crashed against the basalt cliffs, and in the air, Garren could see Vermithor circling high above the island. On the beach below, he could see the tiny figures of the dragonkeepers watching, possibly in awe. Without warning, Silverwing took off into the wind. The world fell away, replaced by the intoxicating promise of freedom from mortal trappings, and for the first time in as long as he could remember, Garren allowed himself the luxury of a laugh—a fierce, exultant sound swallowed whole by the wind.

✥✥✥

(An Account of the Great Reckoning, as recorded in The Annals of the Green Triumph, penned by Archmaester Vaelor in the reign of King Aegon II Targaryen)

In the waning days of the Dance, as the tide of war turned inexorably against the Black pretender, the false Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen fled Westeros, abandoning her seat, her subjects, and what remained of her legitimacy to the mercy of her enemies. Hounded by misfortune and misrule, she took to the sea, her remaining loyalists and the great Essosi fleet that had once promised her dominion now reduced to instruments of exile. With her fled, her husband, Prince Daemon Targaryen, the rogue prince, the black traitor, whose name had once been spoken with reverence and dread in equal measure, is left to his fate: The end he had long evaded found him at last at Rook’s Rest, where Prince Aemond the Golden, bested him in the sky and slew his mount, Caraxes, breaking the last great strength of the Blacks. Captured and bound in chains of black iron, the traitor-prince was sent to kneel before his king, Aegon II.

It was then, with the usurper’s army shattered and their might undone, that Prince Aemond One-Eye, yet High Castellan of the Realm and Master of War, set his sights upon Dragonstone. The island had been the ancestral seat of House Targaryen since the first Valyrians had come westward, yet it stood hollow now, its keepers abandoned by their queen, its gates left open to whatever fate the gods might decree. With Vhagar beneath him and his loyal dragonlords at his side—Prince Daeron upon the sapphire-hued Tessarion, Addam Velaryon upon Seasmoke, and the Lady Nettles upon the fearsome brute Sheepstealer—Prince Aemond descended upon the Dragonmont.

There was no battle, for there were none left to fight. The queen’s loyalists, those who had not fled or perished, found themselves leaderless and forsaken, with neither queen nor court to give them succor. Only two dragons remained within the depths of the Dragonmont, unclaimed—Vermithor, the Bronze Fury, and Silverwing, mount of Good Queen Alysanne, beasts of ancient might whom Rhaenyra had sought to bind to her cause, yet failed.

Thus, in what many named a sign of divine favor, Prince Aemond did what the false queen could not: he found riders for them. From among his dragonseeds, those whose loyalty he held from their youth, he chose two. Rowenna, a woman of unknown origins and rumored to be the prince’s own woman, strode forth to claim Vermithor, the second-largest dragon in Westeros, and the great beast bent its head to her touch. Garren, stalwart and stoic, approached Silverwing, and she too accepted him. Thus, with two mighty beasts brought to his cause, the dominion of the Greens over dragonkind was at last made whole.

Having seized Dragonstone without bloodshed, Prince Aemond made his triumphant return to King’s Landing. There, in honor of his great victories, he fulfilled a promise made to his royal brother: a grand tourney was proclaimed, to be held in the capital, where lords and knights from all the Seven Kingdoms might bear witness to the glory of the Greens and the downfall of the Black pretender.

Yet, it was not merely a celebration of war’s end. It was a herald of new beginnings. Alongside the tourney, two momentous unions were declared: Prince Aemond himself was to take to wife Lady Jeyne Arryn, the Maiden of the Vale, thus binding the Eyrie to the Iron Throne. And his younger brother, Prince Daeron, The Blue Dragon of the Reach, would wed Princess Baela Targaryen, last of the rogue prince’s daughters, who had long dwelled as an honored guest in the Green court.

Thus did the Greens secure their rule over Westeros. The usurper Rhaenyra was gone, her Essosi patrons sent scurrying back across the Narrow Sea, her loyalists crushed or cowed. And in the halls of the Red Keep, amidst the banners of black and green, a new dawn had come at last for the realm of men.