97 AC (After the Conquest), Dragonstone.
A suffocating sensation gripped his throat, as if the gunpowder smoke from Redgrass Field had solidified into a tangible mass.
Daemon Blackfyre's eyes snapped open. The scorching breath of sulfur felt like shards of hot glass stuck in his windpipe; every ragged breath brought tearing pain.
Beneath him lay not the blood-soaked scorched earth of the battlefield, but a cold, hard floor of dragonglass that shimmered with a faint, ghostly green light. The veins in the inky black stone looked like congealed venom flowing silently in the absolute darkness.
"Seven Hells..." he tried to curse, but his voice came out broken, like a rusty saw dragging against rotting wood.
A splitting headache seized him. He instinctively reached for his chest—the three poison arrows that had formed a triangle in his lungs and ended his life were gone.
Instead, his hand felt the rapid, fragile heartbeat of a scrawny boy. The weakness of this body made him nauseous.
"I'm not dead? My hands!?" Daemon stared at his open palms in shock. These were not the calloused, scarred hands of a warrior who had spent years at war, but the smooth, bony hands of a teenager.
He immediately discarded the notion that he had been captured by Brynden Rivers.
Bloodraven would have thrown him into the deepest dungeon of the Red Keep, wearing him down with chains and humiliation, not this dragonglass cell on Dragonstone humming with ancient magic. Unless...
Memories struck him like poisoned arrows, driving the cold despair of Redgrass Field into his mind: the arrow from Bloodraven shattering his knee, the sight of his eldest son Aegon's silver hair falling beneath the Black Dragon banner, and the dying dragon-roar of the sword Blackfyre as it fell from his hand...
Daemon suddenly clenched his right fist. The sting in his palm didn't come from a sword hilt, but from the broken remains of a silver hair chain. On the cold metal edge, there were still a few dried specks of dark red mud—the soil of Redgrass Field, the final mark from the place where his life had ended.
"Prince Baelon was coughing up blood again last night," the muffled voice of a jailer echoed through the volcanic rock tunnel, breaking the deadly silence. "The squire said the basin was full of clots, soaking the dragon crest on his robes. Some say he's heartbroken over Princess Alyssa; others say the Gods are punishing him for the brutal slaughter of the Myrish exiles to avenge Prince Aemon. If you ask me, it's this damned Dragonstone. The dampness burrows into your bones like maggots!"
"Still better than King's Landing," another voice replied, laced with subtle fear. "The greyscale outbreak there last year didn't even spare Princess Maegelle. She went to Oldtown for treatment and just... well, the poor flower withered before she could bloom."
Daemon's pupils contracted sharply, as if bitten by a viper!
Baelon? Alyssa? Aemon? Maegelle?!
The names hit him like a bucket of ice water, instantly freezing him to the bone! These were ghosts who had rotted into the dust of history a hundred years ago! Names he had read on yellowing parchment in the Red Keep's library!
A preposterous chill shot up his spine to the crown of his head. He stumbled toward the cold iron bars, trying to peer through the gaps.
Outside the bars, the dragonglass veins embedded in the dark tunnel walls seemed to flicker with his rapid footsteps. Strange shadows floated in the ghostly green light: the smoke of Redgrass Field overlapped eerily with the shadow of giant dragon wings. In the illusion, Bloodraven's cold, red eye twisted and stretched, transforming into a dragon's eye burning with magical fire! The rain of arrows warped into a sky full of black dragonfire!
"The dragons are not gone..." Daemon murmured unconsciously, his trembling fingers tracing the rough stone wall. Under his fingertips, he felt a deep groove carved into the dragonglass—Ḳrȳbāzma (Blood and Fire).
It was an inscription in High Valyrian, carrying a raw, primitive aura of a curse. Clearly, he had scratched it out with his own fingernails during a coma or a fit of madness.
Just then, the noise of his awakening finally alerted the jailers.
"Oi! The brat from Lys is awake!"
Chains rattled, and the heavy door was pushed open. Two jailers in rough leather armor blocked the doorway, followed by a burly man radiating aggression.
The man's leather armor bore the seahorse sigil of House Velaryon! At his waist hung a curveblade, its sheath inlaid with the iridescent mother-of-pearl unique to Driftmark.
"Pirate scum? Or just a stowaway thief?" The Velaryon guard spat out a wad of sourleaf, his eyes sweeping contemptuously over the frail silver-haired boy in the cell. "Don't waste your breath answering. Lord Corlys, the 'Sea Snake,' will be here tomorrow to interrogate you personally. As for you two," he turned to the jailers, "give him some water and hard bread. Don't let the brat rot before..."
The sentence was cut short!
Just as the Velaryon guard reached in, seemingly to grab his collar, Daemon's body moved faster than his thoughts!
The honed instincts of a killer roared to life within this fragile frame!
He struck like lightning, his hand snapping forward like a viper to catch the wrist reaching through the bars. He clamped onto the thumb and wrenched it back at an impossible angle!
As the guard shrieked in pain and instinctively bent over, Daemon's other hand locked onto his throat like an iron pincer, using every ounce of his strength to slam the man's head against the dragonglass bars!
THUD!
A dull, sickening crack echoed in the tunnel. The guard's massive body went limp instantly. As the pearl-handled curveblade slipped from his hand, Daemon deftly snatched it out of the air.
"Monster! Kill him!" The other two jailers were terrified, drawing their longswords in panic.
Memory took total control of this body. Daemon side-stepped a vicious chop, and the stolen curveblade carved a deadly arc in his hand, moving with the same lethal precision Blackfyre once had.
The blade pierced the gap between leather and mail under the second man's armpit. The familiar sensation of tearing flesh transported him back to Redgrass Field—the cruel thrill of the tip piercing a beating heart cutting through a century of time!
"Demon! He... the brand on his shoulder is glowing!"
The last surviving jailer lost his mind with fear, screaming as he scrambled backward, a trembling finger pointing at Daemon's right shoulder.
Daemon looked down.
The old brand on his right shoulder was emitting a ghostly dark red light!
Even stranger, the shape of the brand was now clearly visible—it was a vivid black three-headed dragon! It seemed to pulse and writhe under his skin like a living thing. Every beat resonated with a low, ancient dragon roar that didn't come from the outside world, but vibrated directly inside his skull!
The commotion and fighting had finally drawn more guards from the upper levels. The chaotic sound of footsteps and clashing metal was approaching fast from the stairs.
Daemon didn't hesitate. Like a trapped beast breaking free, relying on combat instincts carved into his marrow and the bloody curveblade in his hand, he carved a bloody path through the incoming guards and burst out of the dungeon.
Thick, pungent sulfur mist hit his face, shrouding the jagged, formidable black stone fortress of Dragonstone.
He sprinted along the steep edge of the castle and skidded to a halt at the cliff's edge!
In the sulfurous mist, the stone gargoyles on the towers seemed to stir in the sunset—but a real shadow was currently tearing through the clouds before him...
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