The next morning, a Volantis caravan rolled out of town. Wagon wheels creaked over the muddy road, carving deep ruts behind them.
Crack!
A skinny slave stumbled half a step and took a whip across the back. The coarse cloth covering him split open, and blood welled up immediately.
"Move it! Slow us down again and I'll send the whole lot of you under the Long Bridge to clean the drains."
The slave trader's face twisted with ugly pleasure as he snapped the whip for effect. Everyone in Volantis knew what that meant. The Long Bridge was a marvel—wide enough to hold shops and markets on both sides—but the water underneath was dark and fast. Anyone sent down there to clear the muck rarely came back up.
The slaves kept their heads down and kept walking. No one dared show fear or anger.
Inside the lead wagon, two men sat facing each other.
On the right was a young noble with the classic Valyrian look—pale skin, white hair, blue eyes. His fine clothes and refined posture marked him clearly as one of the Black Wall elite. Palachiro Valeros.
On the left sat a red priest. Tall, thin, sharp-featured, with skin white as milk and flame tattoos crawling up his shaved head and around his lipless mouth. Bennero. The look was unsettling as hell.
"You sure this plan of yours is going to work?" Palachiro kept glancing out the window, nerves frayed.
Bennero grinned, showing too many white teeth. "Have faith. Turn toward the light and the great R'hllor will protect you."
"If this goes wrong, I'm a dead man," Palachiro hissed. "Either the dragon burns me or the other archons have me executed. I'm finished either way."
"The night is dark and full of terrors," Bennero intoned, slipping into full preacher mode. "Daeron Targaryen walks into danger even now. The servants of the Long Night have marked him. They worship false gods in temples of lies and seek to birth fire with blood. They will burn for it."
Someone wants the Dragon King dead. They're going to regret it.
Palachiro felt a chill. The rumors inside the Black Wall had been bad enough. Hearing it from a red priest made it feel real.
"So what do I do? Just sit here and wait?"
Bennero's smile returned. "The dragon will follow the flame."
Before Palachiro could ask what that meant, the priest's expression changed. He yanked the curtain aside and stared at the sky.
"They're here."
High above, a massive shape tore through the clouds. Crimson scales flashed in the sunlight as Caraxes dropped like a red spear, wings spread wide. The long dragon's shadow raced across the river below.
"Dragonfire, Caraxes!"
Daeron didn't waste time. The red dragon's golden eyes narrowed, fire building in his throat. A roaring blast of flame slammed into the rear of the caravan, right where the slave traders and their horses were clustered. The explosion sent men and animals flying. When the black smoke cleared, the ground was cratered and burning.
"Dragonfire's about thirty percent stronger with the binding spell," Daeron noted, wind whipping past his face.
Below, Bennero and Palachiro staggered out of their wagon, coughing and half-deaf from the blast. They raised the white flag they'd prepared in advance. The hired swords and slaves had already scattered the second the red dragon appeared.
Caraxes landed hard, one hind claw crushing a dead horse into a red smear. Daeron slid off the saddle.
"R'hllor be praised," Bennero muttered, excitement barely hidden behind the prayer.
Palachiro looked like he might pass out, but he stayed on his feet.
A second dragon roar split the air. Jaehaerys on his bronze dragon Valar swept in low.
"Brother, I'll handle the runners," Jaehaerys called, then banked after the fleeing men.
Daeron nodded and turned his attention to the two men with the white flag.
"You're Palachiro Valeros?"
The noble nodded quickly, eyes fixed on the massive red dragon. "Y-yes. Are you… King Daeron?"
"You know who I am. Hand over the dragon egg."
Palachiro blinked. "What dragon egg?"
Daeron's eyes narrowed. "Don't play stupid. Dragon—"
"No, no, no!" Palachiro waved his hands frantically. "I don't have it! Nesos was supposed to send one with the caravan to Qohor, but he changed his mind at the last minute and gave it to someone else!"
Under the looming threat of Caraxes's jaws, the man spilled everything.
Before the underwater volcano erupted in the Smoking Sea, Volantis ships had raided the area and grabbed several dragon eggs. How many exactly, Palachiro didn't know. Who had them now was also unclear—they were being held by multiple Black Wall families to avoid any single house getting too powerful or having them stolen.
One thing was certain: the Elephant Party in Volantis was working with Qohor.
Nesos's original job had been to deliver one egg along with other goods to Qohor in exchange for favors. But something changed. The egg never left Volantis.
"Qohor doesn't have the egg?" Daeron asked.
"I don't know for sure. Qohor helped with the Smoking Sea raid—they're good at finding things in the haze. They were the main strike force. But the egg… I think one stayed in Volantis. Arios said an ironborn sank one of his ships. They might have taken one too."
Daeron did the math quickly. Six eggs total. Rhaegar brought two back. Qohor and Euron's side probably had one. That left Volantis with maybe two at most.
"What were you supposed to get in return for delivering the egg to Qohor?"
Palachiro shook his head. "I was just the delivery man. Nesos handled the real negotiations. He never told me the details."
"You don't know anything useful, do you?"
Palachiro gave a weak, miserable smile.
Daeron's patience ran out. These two had no real value left. He was about to order Caraxes to finish them when the red priest dropped to his knees.
"Your Grace, I have something to say!"
Daeron paused. He didn't like red priests, but he still owed Melisandre a little courtesy. "Speak."
Caraxes lowered his head and growled, molten eyes locked on the priest. Bennero broke into a sweat but kept going.
"Palachiro is not one of the rotten Black Wall nobles. He has chosen to walk away from the darkness and follow the light of R'hllor."
Daeron looked between them. "So you're the surrender faction?"
He'd already suspected something was off. Varys had noticed the deliberate leak of information. The caravan lingering in Volon Therys for days had felt like they were waiting for him to catch up. But whether they were actually friendly remained to be seen.
"We speak only truth, Your Grace," Bennero said, hand over his heart. "If I lie, may the flames consume us both and return us to R'hllor's embrace."
That would be doing you a favor, Daeron thought.
Still, the priest had bought Palachiro time to prove his loyalty.
"Great Dragon King Daeron," Palachiro said, forcing himself to stay upright and speak with what little dignity he had left. "Certain people in Volantis are plotting. They're searching for anyone with dragonlord blood and planning to raise their own dragonriders."
The world had changed. After the Doom, the Free Cities had hated and feared the surviving dragonlords. They'd spent centuries hunting them down. Even during the Bleeding Years, Volantis's wars of conquest had been stopped by the last Storm King and Aegon the Conqueror. After the Dance, House Targaryen had been written off as finished.
Then Daeron hatched three dragons and brought fire and blood back into the world.
At first the Free Cities hadn't cared.
After getting hammered in the Stepstones and the Triarchy cities, they suddenly remembered how terrifying dragons actually were.
Now they wanted their own.
If old Valyria could have forty dragonlord families, why should only one—Targaryen—exist now? With enough effort, they believed they could create four. Or forty.
Daeron's voice was cold. "Who exactly is behind this?"