The wind carried the scent of the city long after he had left its walls behind. Jake flew with purpose, wings stretched wide like sails of shadow. Beneath him, the land blurred—forests, fields, rivers—but his mind was still tethered to the stone towers and spires of King's Landing. The way the people had screamed. The way they had stared. He had heard their fear from the sky, felt it like a pulse beneath his scales.
They remembered Balerion.
They thought he had returned.
A low rumble built in his chest. Not anger—more amusement. He had seen their eyes, the way they looked up at him and saw not a creature, but a legend reborn. It unsettled him. He wasn't Balerion. But he wasn't just another dragon either.
He didn't even have a name. Not one they knew.
Jake. That was what he used to be. A boy from another world. Ten years old. Gone in a flash and then awake here, beneath a sky of fire, crawling from an egg in black sand. His memories were like smoke now. Faces blurred. Voices forgotten. But the knowing remained. The way people talked. The way they feared dragons. The way they used them.
He was no pet.
Not some random mount.
He is a dragon
As Dragonstone rose before him, wreathed in mist and shadow, Jake angled his wings and dipped low toward the cliffs. He felt the shift of muscles along his back, the strength in his shoulders. He was heavier now, bigger than any horse, and growing faster by the moon. Each time he shed his scales, new ones came in harder, darker, edged with a red sheen that caught the sun like blood on iron.
He landed near the back cliffs—where no dragons nested, where no keepers ventured. Jagged stone met foaming sea, the air filled with salt and the shrieks of gulls. His talons sank into the black sand, and he exhaled slowly. Steam rose from his nostrils.
Home.
If such a thing could be called that.
He had made a den of sorts beneath a jut of volcanic rock. It wasn't much—just a hollow space where fire warmed the stone and wind didn't reach. But it was his. And more importantly, it was hidden.
He folded his wings and slunk into the shade, settling down with a grunt. His muscles ached, but in a good way. Like they were preparing for more. His tail flicked once behind him, then curled forward protectively. The bones in his wings twitched.
He wasn't tired.
His mind buzzed.
King's Landing had been a risk. He hadn't meant to go so far—but something had pulled him. Curiosity, maybe. Or instinct. The way birds fly south. The way wolves test a boundary.
But now… they knew.
Not just the Targaryens. Everyone.
The dragonkeepers had already seen glimpses of him. Heard his roars at night. Smelled his burns on the rocks. But now the royal court had seen him too—clearly, fully, for the first time.
He'd watched their faces. That man with the golden pin—he had fear behind his calm. The king had see someone else in his eyes… not fear. Memory, maybe. Recognition.
Jake shifted, uneasy.
He didn't like curiosity.
That's how people get too close.
He remembered their voices from that first encounter, a year ago now. He'd been smaller then, hunched in the rocks, finishing off a deer when the royal party had arrived. They hadn't seen him right away. But he had seen them—white hair like starlight, and violet eyes that glowed like strange jewels. They were beautiful, yes. But dangerous.
He remembered the way they'd flinched when he'd roared. The way they backed off when he scorched the water between them.
He hadn't wanted a fight.
Just space.
Just warning.
Caraxes had been the one to come crashing down in fury—red and long-necked, snarling in a challenge that Jake had no interest in answering. Not yet. He'd flown off then, fast and strong. Even Caraxes had watched him go, not chasing.
They'd let him be.
And now… they were watching again.
Would they come next time?
Would they try to tame him?
Jake stretched his wings slowly, listening to the wind echo through the volcanic rock above him. His senses were sharper now. He could hear the heartbeat of birds in the cliffs. Smell the blood in a hare three valleys away. He could feel the way the island pulsed with fire beneath its bones.
And in that fire, something whispered.
Not words.
Not voices.
Just feeling.
There were others here. Dragons older, stronger—sleeping deep or chained in the pit on the other side of the island. He could sense them sometimes. A presence like heat behind a door. They didn't come to his side of the island. Not yet. But he knew they would, one day.
He wasn't afraid.
He was watching, too.
Learning.
He'd seen how dragons moved around each other. How the keepers spoke to them in soft tones. How they bowed and offered meat. How the riders touched scale with reverence. He'd seen it all—at a distance. He never got close.
Not because he couldn't.
Because he chose not to.
Jake didn't trust people. Not anymore. Not in this world. Not in his last.
But… something deep inside whispered that he would need to understand them.
Because something was coming. He didn't know what, but he felt it in his bones. The dragons on the other side of the island stirred more often now. The sky had been red at dawn three times in the last moon. And the stars had shifted.
Change.
War.
Fire.
Whatever it was, he would be ready.
He was growing.
He was watching.
And one day, when the flames rose high enough, they would see him not just as a shadow in the sky… but as a reckoning.
He lay there for hours, the wind playing over his wings, his breath softening, his mind steady. He wasn't sure what he was yet—not fully. He was no longer Jake, the boy who played video games and watched kings and dragons on a screen.
And he wasn't quite a beast either.
But he was becoming something more, Something terrible and he would never kneel.
——
This will be my last chapter today. Hope your enjoying it so far!!