The incense was too thick.
Jaehaerys tried not to cough as the High Septon's hands hovered above his head. The old man's fingers trembled slightly; whether from age or anticipation, Jaehaerys could not tell.
"Stand straight," Lord Rogar murmured at his side, low enough that only he could hear. "You are king now."
"I am trying," Jaehaerys whispered back.
"You are not trying. You are doing."
That was easy for Rogar Baratheon to say. He stood broad as a gatehouse in black and gold, one hand resting lightly on the pommel of his sword, as if the Sept were a battlefield that might require clearing.
The Starry Sept was full to bursting. Lords from the Reach stood shoulder to shoulder with riverlords and crownlords. Silk brushed mail. Spurs scraped stone. The smell of sweat mingled with incense and old wax.
Somewhere behind him, a baby began crying and was swiftly hushed.
The High Septon cleared his throat. "Jaehaerys of House Targaryen, son of Aenys, born of the blood of Old Valyria—"
A murmur ran through the Faithful at that.
Jaehaerys kept his eyes forward.
He could feel his mother's gaze between his shoulders. Dowager Queen Alyssa had said little all morning. She had dressed him herself, fastening the clasps at his throat, smoothing his hair once before stepping back.
"You will not be your father," she had told him.
"I know."
"You will not be your uncle."
"I know that too."
Now she stood behind him, still as a spear planted in earth.
The iron crown was heavier than it looked.
The High Septon lifted it high for all to see before lowering it slowly toward Jaehaerys' brow. Rubies caught the candlelight and burned red as coals.
"For the realm," the High Septon intoned, voice rising to fill the vaulted dome. "For the peace of the Seven Kingdoms."
The crown settled onto his head.
It was cold.
For a heartbeat the Sept was silent.
Then the bells of Oldtown began to ring.
They rang from the Hightower and from lesser towers, from chapels and from ships in harbor. The sound rolled through the Sept like a tide breaking.
A cheer followed, swelling until it filled the hall.
"SAVE THE KING!"
"SAVE HIS GRACE!"
Jaehaerys felt Rogar's hand clap his shoulder, hard enough to jolt him forward half a step.
"Well done," the Lord of Storm's End said. "You did not stumble."
"I was not aware that was the standard," Jaehaerys said.
Rogar's mouth twitched. "For fourteen, it is."
The High Septon stepped back. "Kneel," he commanded the lords assembled.
They did.
Not all at once. Not gracefully. Some hesitated, measuring the boy upon the dais.
But they knelt.
Jaehaerys saw Lord Stokeworth lower himself stiffly. Lord Massey a moment later. Lord Darklyn bowed his head deeply, though his eyes did not leave Jaehaerys' face.
It is done, Jaehaerys thought. I am king.
The bells rang louder.
Outside, the crowd roared like surf against stone.
Jaehaerys drew in a breath heavy with incense and heat.
Perhaps, he thought, this would be the beginning of something gentler.
The bells stopped.
Not gradually.
Not as if the ringers had grown tired.
They stopped as if a hand had closed around them.
The silence fell so suddenly that Jaehaerys heard the faint hiss of candles along the walls.
Rogar's hand slid from his shoulder to the hilt of his sword.
"That is not right," he muttered.
A low sound followed.
It began beneath their feet, a distant tremor, subtle as a cart rolling over cobbles.
Then it deepened.
The floor seemed to hum.
Dust sifted from the rafters.
Somewhere in the Sept, someone laughed nervously. "Thunder," a man said. "Only thunder."
Jaehaerys glanced toward the stained-glass windows.
The colored light had dimmed.
Not faded.
Dimmed.
A shadow passed across the Mother's face in blue and green glass, swallowing her in darkness.
The rumble grew louder.
Outside, a scream cut through the silence.
Not cheering.
Not joy.
A scream of fear.
The High Septon turned slowly toward the open doors of the Sept.
"What—"
The roar drowned him.
It was not Vermithor's thunderous challenge, nor Dreamfyre's sharp cry.
This sound was deeper.
Older.
It did not rise and fall.
It rolled outward like something vast announcing its presence to the world.
Several lords scrambled to their feet. One tripped over his own swordbelt and fell hard against the stone.
"Dragon!" someone shouted.
Rogar did not shout.
He was already moving.
"Outside," he barked. "Form ranks! Shields up!"
The great doors of the Starry Sept stood open to the city beyond.
No sunlight streamed through them now.
Only shadow.
And the beating of enormous wings.
The sound was not like Vermithor's.
Vermithor's wings cut the air cleanly, like a banner snapping in a strong wind. This—this was heavier. Each stroke seemed to press the sky downward.
The High Septon staggered back from the doors. "Close them!" he cried. "Close the—"
A gust of wind tore through the Sept before any man could obey. Candles guttered. Two were snuffed entirely. The incense smoke twisted sideways in a black spiral.
Jaehaerys felt the wind tug at his hair.
Outside, people were running.
He saw them through the doorway—townsfolk scattering across the square, cloaks flying behind them, baskets overturned, a child dragged bodily by his mother.
"What dragon flies without summons?" one of the archmaesters muttered near the front pews.
Rogar drew his sword.
The scrape of steel leaving leather was loud in the stunned quiet. "Your Grace," he said without looking at Jaehaerys, "you will stand behind me."
"I will not," Jaehaerys answered before he could think better of it.
Rogar's head turned slightly. "This is no tourney display."
"I know that."
The roar came again.
Closer now.
It rolled through the Sept doors and struck the walls like a thrown boulder. The colored glass in the windows trembled in their frames. A crack splintered across the Warrior's shield in red and gold.
Somewhere behind Jaehaerys, a lord began praying aloud. "Mother have mercy, Father protect us—"
"Silence," Rogar snapped.
The floor trembled again.
Jaehaerys felt it in his boots.
A knight in the second row bolted for the doors. Another followed. Panic spreads faster than fire, Jaehaerys thought distantly. He had read that once in a book of histories.
He had not expected to see it.
"Hold your ground!" Rogar thundered. "You shame yourselves!"
A few did stop. Others did not.
The Kingsguard nearest the dais drew together, white cloaks swirling, forming a barrier without being told.
Ser Gyles Morrigen stepped closer to Jaehaerys. "Your Grace," he said quietly, "if we must withdraw—"
"We will not withdraw," Jaehaerys said.
His voice sounded steadier than he felt.
He stepped down from the dais.
The crown shifted slightly on his brow. He resisted the urge to reach up and steady it.
The High Septon stared at him as though he had grown a second head. "Your Grace, this is ill-omened. We must seek the Mother's mercy."
"If it is a dragon," Jaehaerys said, "the Mother will not bar the door."
Another shadow crossed the threshold.
This time it did not pass quickly.
It lingered.
The square beyond the Sept darkened as if evening had come in the space of a breath.
The air itself seemed to thin.
Jaehaerys walked toward the doors.
Rogar caught his arm. "You will not be foolish."
"I must see."
"You must live."
Jaehaerys met his gaze. "If I cannot look upon a dragon on the day of my coronation, I am not fit to wear this."
For a moment Rogar said nothing.
Then, grudgingly, he released him.
They stepped through the doors together.
The square outside the Starry Sept was chaos.
Market stalls overturned. A horse had broken loose from its reins and was galloping madly in circles, eyes rolling white. Men shouted orders that no one obeyed.
And above it all—
Black.
Wings.
Vast beyond reason.
The creature circled once over Oldtown, and its shadow swallowed rooftops whole.
Jaehaerys had seen Balerion once, as a child, from the safety of a balcony in King's Landing.
He had thought nothing could eclipse that memory.
He had been wrong.
This dragon was not as broad in the chest as the Black Dread had been, but longer, leaner, and terrible in a different way. Its scales were not merely dark—they seemed to drink the light around them.
When it exhaled, smoke poured from its nostrils.
Not pale grey.
Dark.
Almost black.
"Gods preserve us," someone whispered.
The dragon began to descend.
Each beat of its wings drove men to their knees. Tiles cracked loose from nearby roofs and shattered against the stones.
Rogar stepped forward, sword raised, as if steel might matter.
"Where are our dragons?" he demanded.
As if summoned by the question, a bronze shape burst from beyond the city towers.
Vermithor.
He came fast and furious, roaring challenge, sunlight flashing along his scales.
Silverwing followed moments later, pale against the darkened sky. Dreamfyre behind her.
Three dragons against one.
Jaehaerys' heart hammered in his chest.
The black dragon did not flinch.
It descended toward the grassy fields beyond the walls, slow and deliberate, as though it had all the time in the world.
Vermithor circled once, uncertain.
Jaehaerys saw it then.
Not the dragon.
The shape upon its back.
A figure seated between the ridges of the creature's spine.
Upright.
Unbound.
Watching the city below.
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