ASOIAF: The True House of Dragons

On the sloping hillside of Ross Island, soldiers of the Stormlands clashed violently with the Dornish forces charging down toward them.

Ser Selder Tarth—naval commander of the Storm Kingdom and current head of House Tarth—had already been struck by several arrows. His face, twisted in pain, turned skyward. There, above him, the dragon that had earlier flown south was now circling back.

Balerion's massive silhouette swept across the sky, blotting out the last light of the setting sun and casting a vast, ominous shadow like a dragon-shaped eclipse.

Every head of House Tarth bore the title "Evenstar." Now, the Evenstar squinted up at the looming beast, lifting his left hand toward Balerion.

Surrounded and with most of his men already fallen, Ser Selder pinned his final hope on this last, mighty savior.

Above, Balerion dove swiftly from the fading sun, streaking down toward the hillside like a descending god, a fallen demon, a mountain crashing from the heavens. In his throat, the deadly black Dragonfire had already begun to gather.

As he neared the slope, the black flame erupted with terrifying force.

In an instant, countless Dornish and Valentine soldiers were turned to ash. The Dragonfire carved a deep trench into the earth—five meters wide and dozens long—scorching a blackened path across the hillside.

Even after the initial blast, the flames continued to burn stubbornly within the trench, hissing as they devoured everything, sending up waves of blistering heat and thick, choking smoke.

Balerion's breath bore the trait of [C-Class – Indestructible Black Flame], a power that ensured the fire would never extinguish so long as even the slightest fuel remained. Clinging like a curse, the flame was as relentless as rot on bone.

From atop the fortress, over a dozen siege ballistae were suddenly wheeled forward.

Each was already loaded. Behind the massive crossbows stood squads of Dornish marksmen, quickly adjusting their angles to take aim at Balerion.

Aegon had noticed their movement—this was precisely why he hadn't ordered a direct assault on the fortress.

From the dragon-hunting ballistae mounted on the Dornish flagship, he had already guessed there would be more of these siege weapons in place. Charging the stronghold head-on would only invite a volley of devastating fire at close range.

The moment the ballistae appeared, Aegon immediately commanded Balerion to ascend, steering the dragon away from the island to avoid the threat.

While the chance of Balerion being shot down was slim, Aegon wasn't about to gamble on it. He had a safer plan to crush the Dornish.

High above, Balerion roared. Massive bolts—each over two meters long—launched from below, but they were too far to do any real harm.

On the hillside below, Ser Selder seized the opening that Balerion's flames had torn through the enemy ranks and led the last few hundred Storm warriors in a desperate breakout.

Under relentless pursuit, only about three hundred Stormlanders made it back to the ships on the beach.

Aegon spotted their retreating ships skimming across the sea and gave a faint shake of his head, then turned Balerion and soared toward a desolate isle within the Stepstones.

...

Evening had already set in.

Aegon landed Balerion on the island to rest and recover his strength.

He ate some rations he had brought with him and rested briefly. By the time he opened his eyes again, night had fallen. He looked up at the starless, moonless sky and smiled to himself—what a perfect opportunity.

Chewing slowly on a piece of cured meat, he mumbled in the direction of Ross Island:

"Tonight, we hunt."

Rather than launching an immediate assault on the forces of Dorne and Valentine stationed on Ross Island, Aegon chose to bide his time. He waited for the darkest hour before dawn—when the sky was at its blackest and men were at their most weary. After a day of battle, the Dornish would hardly still be standing guard.

By the time Aegon rose again, it was deep into the night.

Dragons possessed night vision, and with the added help of his chip's infrared imaging, the darkness offered him every advantage.

Mounting Balerion, Aegon surged forward toward Ross Island, his blood racing.

It would be his first time commanding a dragon in battle against human armies, and the urge to unleash fire and destruction coursed through him.

Shrouded in night, Balerion—the great black dragon—was nearly invisible, rivaling even Dreamshadow's mimicry scales in stealth. As they glided high above Ross Island, the defenders below remained oblivious.

Aegon dove.

From a thousand meters above, Balerion plummeted like a meteor, a streak of death racing toward the fortress. That dizzying free-fall—the rush of weightlessness—was a sensation he hadn't felt since the Champion Dragonbattle against Tiamat.

He aimed directly for the spot where the ballistae had been stationed during the day. The siege weapons were too massive to be moved with ease.

As Balerion's black fire poured down in a torrent, it struck precisely where the ballistae had been hidden beneath tarps.

Flames erupted across the fortress in a sudden, violent blaze of inky black. Against the darkness, the inferno was even more terrifying—a monstrous flame devouring everything it touched.

With the black fire's indestructible nature, anything flammable would be reduced to nothing.

"Boom!"

Explosions shook the air, mingled with the roar of fire and the screams of dying soldiers.

Aegon rode Balerion in a sweeping assault on the stronghold's camps and structures, unleashing torrents of dragonfire. The searing flames raged as if they would reduce the entire world to cinders. Rock on the island blistered and melted under the intense heat, turning translucent like molten glass.

The forests were consumed in a wildfire so fierce it lit the island ablaze from end to end. After this devastation, it was almost certain that Ross Island would become a barren wasteland, stripped of all greenery.

Aegon's eyes reflected the ruin he had wrought, yet his expression remained calm, as if deep in thought...

"Power beyond mortals… From this day on, I will stand at the summit," he murmured to himself.

He turned Balerion southward toward the bay, where dozens of Dornish warships lay anchored. Without hesitation, he dove down.

One by one, the twenty-meter-long warships were set alight by Balerion's black flames, going up like wax candles.

For the first time, the Narrow Sea burned—a raging sea of black fire.

The burning ships crackled and split apart. Even as wreckage splashed into the water, the flames did not die. Balerion's dragonfire continued to burn stubbornly atop the waves, undiminished by sea or spray.

It was fire upon the sea.

It was the wrath of a dragon.

The battle for Ross Island was already over. The Dornish had nowhere left to run. With their ships in ruins and the island surrounded by unquenchable flame, there would be no escape. Even fleeing inland led only to death.

It was a massacre—and a triumph.

...

Days later.

When King Argilac's reinforcements and the fleet of House Targaryen finally arrived at Ross Island, they found it scorched beyond recognition.

Not a single green plant remained.

At the site where the fortress once stood, Balerion reclined lazily atop the island's highest point, like a sovereign surveying his realm.

Aegon, sword in hand, sat calmly astride Balerion's head, watching the arrivals from above.

When Argilac and over a hundred emissaries of Westerosi lords stepped ashore, they were struck dumb by what they saw—ash and bone covered the land like snowfall. Balerion did not rest on blackened earth, but on the ashes of tens of thousands of dead.

Then someone, no one knew who, muttered a single word:

"Black Dread."

A moment later, the chant erupted in waves.

"Black Dread!"

"Black Dread!"

Balerion stirred at the sound. His blood-red eyes opened, glaring down at the crowd below—tiny as insects beneath his gaze.

A great many soldiers trembled in fear and dropped to their knees before the dragon resting atop the field of ash.

Argilac raised his eyes and met Aegon's from afar. His mouth opened slightly, but no words came.

Aegon gave him a faint smile and said,

"Lord of the Stormlands. The Stepstones are mine now."

Argilac said nothing. He simply nodded.

Torrhen, heir of the Winter Kingdom, stared up at Aegon atop the dragon, stunned. The power he witnessed no longer seemed of mortal kind.

What army, he wondered, could stand against a dragonlord hailed as the Black Death?

He had no answer—only quiet relief that the Kingdom of Winter was not counted among House Targaryen's enemies.

…

The Windwyrm Tower on Dragonstone pierced the clouds, and from the Shrieking Chamber at its peak, one could overlook the entirety of the island.

Old Nan Illya slipped inside alone. She locked the great doors behind her, then slowly walked out onto the terrace.

She spread her arms wide, as if embracing the roaring sea below.

Her lips parted, and a dreamlike, haunting melody flowed from her mouth, activating her ability [Skinchanger - Sea Dragon].

As the song echoed through the air, her once gray-green hair began to shift in color, turning emerald from the roots until it became a full mane of green, billowing in the wind.

Her eyes, too, changed—her pupils vanished, and her entire gaze turned a vivid green.

As the song lingered in the wind, a long, serpentine black shadow—dozens of meters in length—slowly rose from the depths of the sea, casting a dark silhouette over the surface.

Old friend, it's been a long time, she thought to herself.

The shadow slithered forward beneath the waves, its massive body gliding like a silent warship through the deep. With every flick of its tail, it stirred up unseen currents as it headed toward the Gullet.

...

Blackwater Bay.

At this moment, Harren "Blackheart" Harren's fleet of longships was sailing into the Gullet.

He hadn't wasted troops attacking Driftmark. Instead, he chose to bypass House Velaryon's island entirely, heading straight for Dragonstone. To Harren, the true target was the fortress House Targaryen had spent decades constructing—especially Dragonmont.

Dragonmont was his ultimate goal.

He couldn't afford to wait any longer.

There were those in the Iron Islands who had seen the glory of the Valyrian Freehold with their own eyes. If they waited another few decades, House Targaryen might grow strong enough to bring back the age of a hundred dragons soaring through the skies.

Only by destroying Dragonmont—cutting off the very roots of the Dragonlords—could Harren finally rest easy.

After all, magic dragons had specific environmental needs, and finding another place as suited for raising them as Dragonmont would be no simple task for House Targaryen.

When the fleet of House Hoare fully entered the Gullet—a strait that grew deeper the farther it stretched into the sea—Harren finally began to feel a bit more at ease.

Though they hailed from the Iron Islands, House Hoare was more accustomed to life on the water.

The rivers of the Riverlands, while many, were neither wide nor deep enough to support proper warships. Even small- and medium-sized longships struggled. As for the Krakens bred by House Hoare, they had managed to tame a kind of octopus-like sea monster in significant numbers. But these creatures lived in the deep sea and were of little use in inland warfare.

Suddenly, one of the longships let out a deafening bang and began to slowly sink.

Every captain in the fleet turned to stare at Harren Blackheart in shock.

"Your Grace, did you bring the sea monsters with you? Why are they attacking our own ships?!" one captain shouted.

"You idiot! The Blackwater Rush is fresh water! How the fuck would I get sea monsters across the continent to the strait? It's an enemy! We're under attack!" Harren roared, nearly driven to stab the brainless fool on the spot.

More crashes followed. Two more longships began sinking, water pouring through the hulls below.

"Fuck! Get in the water and kill that damn sea monster!" Harren shouted, waving his warblade in frustration.

The soldiers aboard the sinking ships had no choice but to send divers down. After all, whether they went willingly or not, they'd end up in the water soon enough. Many ships had already stopped moving, drifting powerless in the Gullet.

Then, blood bloomed on the waves.

The divers had clearly met with disaster—limbs and pieces of flesh began rising to the surface.

One Ironborn warrior, his body torn in half, still had a breath left in him. Struggling to raise his voice, he shouted to Harren, "Dragon! It's a dragon!"

Harren's eyes flared with rage as he glared at the dying man. "Why would there be a dragon in the sea?! Answer me, you worthless dog!"

"Sea Dragon!!!" the man gasped, then slipped under with a gurgling cry as a black shadow dragged him into the depths below.