283 AC — In King's Landing
The stench of wildfire clung to the Red Keep like a curse. Even in the throne room, the reek of it lingered, acrid smoke that seeped into the stones.
Every breath Jon Connington drew stung the back of his throat. His boots echoed against the marble as he approached the Iron Throne, its jagged blades catching the torchlight in cruel, fang-like shadows.
Upon sat King Aerys II Targaryen, skin pale, lips cracked, hair matted with filth.
"Failure," the king hissed. His voice was a rasp, thin as steel drawn over stone. "You swore me the Baratheon's head, yet he slips you at Stoney Sept, at Ashford, at every turn!"
Jon's jaw clenched. He sank to one knee, hearing the murmurs of the court above him, lords and lickspittles; all eyes fixed on the king's Hand brought low.
Aerys had cast his former Hand aside in one of his familiar fits, and in the same breath gave the position to Jon—his young griffin, he called him, the sword that would cut down Robert Baratheon.
Jon took the charge as a sacred oath. Robert's head, he swore, would adorn the steps of the Iron Throne.
But at Ashford the rebels slipped his grasp, and Jon hounded them across the riverlands.
In Stoney Sept he thought he had him at last. He offered gold for his name, death for those who hid him. Cages filled. Doors were broken into. The bells tolled day and night. And still Robert escaped him.
When Stark and Tully came to lift the siege, the fighting swallowed the streets. Jon slew Ser Denys Arryn with his own hand, saw Hoster Tully bleed. Yet none of it mattered. In the sept, Robert nearly killed him, and in that moment he knew the battle lost. He ordered the retreat.
Stoney Sept ruined him. Had he taken Robert there, the rebellion might have ended. Instead he lived to kill Prince Rhaegar while Jon—bore only shame and guilt.
"Your Grace," he began, "I—"
"Silence!" Aerys lurched forward. "Rhaegar dead. Lewyn Martell dead. All dead, all for your failure! You should be rotting beside them!" Spittle flew from his lips. "Yet here you stand… alive. Because I perm—"
Out of the blue, the king's fever-bright eyes snapped past Jon's bowed head toward the darkness at the edge of the hall. There—just for an instant—Aerys thought he saw a figure: tall, dark-robed, and pale. A man with burning red eyes.
Jon tracked the direction of his gaze, but the space it swept was vacant.
He scanned the hall until his eyes found Lord Varys, the Master of Whispers. The eunuch stood pale and powdered, his hands folded carefully over his belly. As their eyes locked across the distance, ambiguity vanished. They were, for that instant, sharing the same thought: 'What is the king looking at?'
Beside the throne, Jaime Lannister stood like a young statue, all gold and white. His face was schooled to stillness, but his green eyes were a battlefield—guilt, contempt, fear, all warring beneath the surface. He had begged Rhaegar to take him to the Trident. Instead, he had been left to guard the Mad King.
Silence stretched in the throne room. Then, from the shadows of Aerys's mind, a whisper crept in. His head twitched, and the moment of strangeness vanished as if it had never been.
"Rise," the king commanded.
Jon rose. He'd awaited exile, even death, half welcoming it.
Instead, Aerys clapped his hands. The sound cracked through the hall.
From a side door, a Kingsguard emerged, carrying a child in his arms. He was placed before the king. A hush fell.
"My heir," Aerys crooned, stretching out a trembling hand. "Come."
Jon stared at Prince Anakin II Targaryen. The babe was small, two name-days, if he recalled. Silver-gold hair clung to his scalp and his eyes were a strange violet, almost pink.
His small legs churning uncertainly, the toddler lumbered toward the throne, unable to lift his gaze higher than the hem of the king's robe.
When Aerys's finger brushed his cheek, Anakin innocently reached out, tiny hand closing around it. For an instant, the storm behind the Mad King's eyes stilled, as though some deeper current passed between them.
Jon blinked. Had he imagined it? For that one heartbeat, the king had almost looked… sane.
"Your Grace?" his voice sounded distant in his own ears.
"You will take him to Dragonstone," suddenly commanded Aerys, wrenching his hand free. The moment was gone. "To Rhaella. See him safe into her keeping." His voice climbed, thin and shrill. "No delays! None! The wolves close, the stag comes pounding, the lion lurks…" His laugh turned hysterical. "Let them burn! Let them all burn… but the son… the son…must…not."
Abruptly, from behind Jon, the great doors burst open with a crash.
Grand Maester Pycelle waddled in, beard quivering, his breath wheezing. "Your Grace—Lord Tywin approaches the city," he gasped. "His host flies the lion banner. He comes with all haste."
"Traitor!" Aerys shrieked, clawing at the arms of the throne. "He means to sack us, I told you, I told you! Varys, alert the City-Watch! Now! Now!"
"As you command, Your Grace," murmured the eunuch, bowing low.
While Pycelle sputtered assurances of Lannister loyalty, the Kingsguard moved.
The son of Rhaegar was placed in Jon's arms. He looked to Varys, who merely inclined his head. The Spider said nothing, but the message was clear in his gaze:
Go. Now.
Elia Martell's screams chased them down the corridor. She burst into the hall as they left it, dark hair unbound, clawing at Jaime's cloak. "Please—no! Not my son!" she cried, voice raw. "Don't take my son! Pleas—"
The doors swung shut behind Jon, cutting her off. It seemed that guilt he felt earlier was only growing as the day wore on.
Once, he had judged the Dornish princess and found her wanting—too slight of limb, too frail of breath, a womb too spent to give Rhaegar the legacy he deserved. He had told himself she was a poor match, a hindrance. But now her worth, or lack thereof, meant nothing at all.
Jon didn't look back.
Elsewhere, in the stables, the smell of hay and horse smothered the air. Lord Varys was waiting in the shadows, wrapped in a cloak of drab brown.
"Dragonstone," Jon said stiffly. The child squirmed against his chest, nuzzling at the leather. "The king's command—"
"Was the ravings of a dead man," Varys interrupted. "You saw the look in his eyes. All know what comes next. The lion will feast, and the dragon's brood will end… save for this one." His gaze fell to the prince. "Dragonstone is no safe harbor," the Spider went on, "The queen's court teems with rats who would sell the boy to the rebels for a pardon. Take him further. East. To Pentos. There is a magister there who owes me favors. He will see you both taken care of."
Jon hesitated. "Why?" he demanded. "Why betray the king now, after so long whispering in his ear?"
Varys's smile was thin and sorrowful. "On the contrary, Lord Connington. For once, I am in full accord with His Grace on this matter." His fingers brushed the child's hair. "This boy… whether by fate or by the Mad King himself… he is the prince that was chosen."
Behind them, bells began to toll somewhere in the city. Not for caged hostages this time. For broken gates.
Jon mounted without another word, the boy tucked against his chest.
As they rode out through a side postern and down the hill toward the black mouth of the river, the Red Keep glowed above them on its crag, a nest of coiled fire waiting for a spark. Elia's cries faded beneath the thunder of hooves and the roar of the sea. The city's doom rose red behind them.
The child slept, hand pressed to his guardian's chest, as if feeling for a heartbeat. In the boy's dreams, there was no city, no burning keep, no screaming mother.
In the prince's dreams, stars burned.
290 AC — In Pentos
(Seven Years Later…)
He had been told, once, that he'd lain as a babe in the Red Keep's nursery, that his mother had sung Dornish songs over his cradle in a voice like warm wine.
Anakin Targaryen tried to remember the sound. All he found was the echo of bells.
Pentos was his first clear memory of a home. Not the city beyond the walls—the cramped alleys and fish-stinking docks—but the manse of Magister Illyrio Mopatis: fat pillars and fat curtains, fat lords in silk robes.
Griff, the closest thing he had to a father, watched over him.
At first he had been Lord Jon Connington, red-haired and stern, armor polished bright. Later, when they would travel the Free Cities, he became simply Griff: his guardian, his swordmaster. A hawk's gaze in a man's face, always measuring him against a ghost called Rhaegar.
He taught him to ride and read, to pray and parse accounts, to dance with a blade and with words. He taught him of the Seven, of dragon kings and their sins, of Robert's Rebellion and all the ways one blow could break a kingdom.
By his ninth nameday, Anakin had many gifts: he spoke High Valyrian as easily as the Common Tongue, played the harp well enough to please even Griff's exacting ear, and danced with a practice sword as if he had been born with it in his hand. Servants whispered that he was his father's image, that the gods had poured all Prince Rhaegar's beauty into him and added a sharper edge.
Yet such gifts bore their own peril. Genius made him restless. Rules wearied him, lectures even more so. Griff could see it plain as day: the prince's bright mind burned hot, and anything that sought to contain its flame only stoked his rebelliousness.
On a night when the wind off the Narrow Sea worried the shutters like a beast at a door, Griff roused Anakin from an uneasy sleep.
"Let's go. We're leaving," the older man had said, shaking him from sleep.
"It's still dark," muttered Anakin, rubbing his eyes.
"Dress. Quietly."
They slipped out through a servants' door, packs already saddled. Illyrio was nowhere to be seen. No farewell feast, no honeyed good-byes.
"Where are we going?" he asked as they rode through sleeping streets.
"The manse has grown… too well known," Griff replied. "There are ears in Pentos that should not hear your name. Tyrosh first. Then Myr. With the Golden Company."
They were on a 'mission,' as Griff had put it. Yet as they passed a watchman slumped against a wall and Anakin felt the guard's momentary flicker of suspicion, the word 'fled' rose in his thoughts.
They never did return.
293 AC — In Tyrosh
(Three Years Later…)
Their course carried them across Essos eventually landing in Tyrosh. Its harbor thronged with ships: fat-bellied cogs, sleek galleys, painted hulks. The streets were a riot of color—merchants with beards dyed teal and violet, sellswords, painted whores with hair striped like tigers snapping in the sea wind.
They went to a chemist's shop off a crooked lane where the sign showed a many-colored hand.
A Tyroshi woman clucked over Anakin's hair. "Such a shame to spoil this silver," she said in her sing-song accent. "But black will suit you. Crow-black, I think."
Anakin sat on a three-legged stool while the dye burned into his roots and ran down his neck. The smell made his eyes water. When she rinsed it away, the boy in the copper mirror was someone else, a disguise that grated on the Targaryen prince inside him.
As they left, walking through the packed harbor, he scratched at his scalp until Griff slapped his hand away.
"Stop that," he said. "It will pass."
"It itches," Anakin growled. "This is stupid."
"'Stupid' might save your life," replied Griff. "In Myr, with the Company, maybe we can set aside such things. But for now, we don't want to draw attention."
His own red hair had been stained the same bad crow-black, his beard darkened to match.
"When we join them," Anakin asked, "these sellswords… will I have to… kill… people?"
"If the moment demands it," answered Griff. Iron lived in his voice when he said such things. Then, more gently, he continued, "Your father was much the same. Rhaegar raised steel only when duty left him no choice."
And there it was again. Duty. Rhaegar. The words always tasted of cold iron, of someone else's hand on the hilt of his life.
Between his ninth and twelfth namedays, since leaving Pentos, the young dragon was tempered by fire.
Griff made him gut fish until his hands stank for days, patch sails and mend harness, stand watch in freezing rain and sleep in flea-ridden straw. To say nothing of his sword training. He scolded over sloppiness, mocked weakness, punished arrogance.
When Anakin reached for praise, he gave him critiques instead. 'You are not here to be adored,' Griff would say. 'You are here to learn what a king's burden is.'
He bit his tongue rather than answer, but resentment simmered. He wore a false name and false hair and learned to move through crowds as though he were no one, all the while being told he was a royal prince of dragon blood with a duty to reclaim his family's throne.
He saw the way slavers' whips cut into children's backs in Tyroshi markets, how nobles spat at beggars and laughed at their cries. He watched sailors hanged for stealing bread while their captains bought a judge with a single gold coin. Each cruelty lit a spark in him, bright and hot.
At night, the sparks turned to stars.
His dreams were never simple.
He walked in skies that throbbed with lights that moved like living things, wheels of fire turning slow and vast. He stood beneath two suns that burned his skin but did not consume him. Sometimes he flew without wings, the world a tiny spinning thing below him. Other times he stood in a cavernous hall where whispers crawled around him like smoke, speaking in tongues he had never heard.
When he woke, only the feeling remained: a pull. As if something far away were calling him.
His 'dragon dreams', he called them.
Maesters would have called it madness. Septs would have named it prophecy. Griff scowled whenever he mentioned any of it and told him to sleep less and train more.
Anakin learned to keep his dreams to himself.
295 AC — In Myr
(Two Years Later, in the Disputed Lands Near Myr…)
Warhorns cried loud, their low, wounded bellow rolled across the fields, mingling with the thunder of hooves and the screams of dying men.
The Disputed Lands had seen a thousand such songs over the centuries—mercenaries; Myrish, Tyroshi and Lyseni trampling the same soil, shedding the same blood in different colors.
Banners of gold and black snapped in the wind. At the heart of the host rode the Golden Company. Anakin Targaryen beneath their banner.
He wore garnet leathers under a cuirass of muted gold. A weathered belt bound the armor close, its skirts brushing sturdy brown trousers tucked into high, well-worn boots. Black gloves wrapped his hands.
He sat his horse, one hand light on the reins, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. Wind tugged at hair that could not decide whether it was silver or black. The dye was fading now, washed away day by day. His eyes missed nothing.
Beside him thundered Ser Myles Toyne, called Blackheart.
"Left flank's soft," Myles grunted, scanning the field with a veteran's eye. "See there? The Tyroshi cavalry thinks us fools. Balaq will break them if we give him breath."
Anakin rose in his stirrups, breath steady, gaze fixed. He felt the enemy before he saw them. A shiver ran through the ground, a rhythm beneath the cacophony. Hooves, armored and fast, pounding hard.
There—the Tyroshi cavalry, lances leveled, plumes streaming behind them, charged downhill in a glittering wave.
"Hold formation!" Myles roared, his voice carrying over steel and screams. "Spears!" His next order was clear as a bell.
The Golden Company moved as one: a hedge of steel bristling up and shields slamming into the earth.
The first line of riders met it with a crash that shook teeth. Men flew, horses screamed, wood and bone alike splintered.
"Now," Myles commanded.
On a low ridge, Black Balaq's bowmen shifted angle without needing to be told; arrows loosed into the confused mass. Below, Franklyn Flowers was already among the enemy, laughing as he split skulls with his longsword. Tristan Rivers held the center, calm as a man at dinner. To the right, Marq Mandrake and Laswell Peake were driving a wedge into the foe's foot. Rolly Duckfield drove his big, homely horse forward, hammer rising and falling.
The Tyroshi sellswords broke, turning from charge to rout in a chaos of flailing limbs.
Three men came for Anakin in the press. He breathed once, deep and slow, and the world seemed to slow and narrow, sounds stretching thin. To him, it was like unraveling a knot with a single pull.
The first was all fury and no form—a sellsword with eyes rolling white, sword held high. Anakin stepped inside his arc, driving steel low. His blade punched through the man's belly and blood splashed his hand. As his first victim sank, he pulled the sword free, already turning.
The second swung down toward his head in an overhand chop. Anakin's blade met it with a ring. He let the larger man's strength slide past, pivoted, and swung his blade across his throat—not cleanly, but enough. The head lolled, half severed, held by a strap of muscle until it tore too, and the body hit the ground with a thump.
The third stopped. For a heartbeat, his eyes danced over the blood, the bodies, the calm in the violet gaze fixed on him. He screamed, more in panic than courage, and rushed in. Anakin didn't bother to parry. He shifted a fraction, letting the blow hiss past his cheek. The man flailed around like an oaf, and before he found his footing a passing horse trotted right over him with a dismissive 'thud' that pretty much summed up his efforts.
When it was done, Anakin exhaled. The field stank of copper and shit and fear. Men shouted, somewhere to his left, in triumph and terror both.
Myles Toyne approached, helm under his arm, face streaked with grime and blood. He stared at the carnage around the prince, then barked a laugh, rough and delighted.
"Seven hells," he said, "Aren't you a little demon." He clapped a bloody hand onto Anakin's shoulder with easy affection. "I should've brought you into the thick months ago."
The praise the Targaryen received seemed to lift a weight from him, a proud smile blooming as if it obliterated any doubt he might have once had about killing.
Above them, the warhorns shifted tone. The Tyroshi sellswords' line buckled and broke. Men threw down spears, fled on foot, horses riderless, the field a churn of retreat.
From the ridge, Jon Connington watched with lips drawn thin.
Harry Strickland rode up beside him, sweat making grey hair cling to his forehead. "Your boy fights like the Warrior himself," he said, half breathless. "Perhaps it runs in the blood."
"His zeal makes him reckless," Griff replied too quickly, his eyes narrowing.
Strickland knew the truth, Jon thought. Few in the Company knew 'Young Griff's' true name, his claim, but if he carried on the way he was going, there would be no more hiding it.
"Toyne thinks he's found himself an heir," Harry said quietly as Anakin and Myles wheeled away, laughing like men who had cheated death. "For the Company. You can see it plain."
"Should he not?" Griff snapped.
Harry only smiled, sly and mild. "Ah, forgive me, he is your ward, naturally. Your squire, your chosen boy. This was the plan all along, I presume? That 'Young Griff' should one day command the Golden Company and sail his brothers west?"
Griff gave no answer. He turned away abruptly, wrestling with uncertainty.
He had guided the Targaryen since he was a babe, watching closely as the boy grew into the image of his father. Despite his measured distance, he knew Anakin saw him as something akin to a father. He recoiled from the notion, refusing to fully embrace it out of loyalty to Prince Rhaegar.
Yet by holding himself apart, he had driven Anakin to seek the leadership of men like Ser Myles.
Blackheart was no common sellsword. A knight forged in fire and loyalty, a soldier to the bone—ruthless, yes, but just, and loved by those who followed him. He gave freely to his men, stood beside them in the mud and the blood, and asked for nothing he would not do himself.
Griff recognized that Anakin's high regard for Toyne was due to the general's father-like devotion to his men. Something he could never replicate.
Toyne, Griff knew, had seen it too—that flicker behind the prince's eyes, the kind that made men swear oaths and raise banners.
Not just skill, not just courage.
Promise.
(Later, in Myr, with Anakin…)
Night draped itself over the city like a velvet robe. Myr's famed lenses caught the lanternlight and scattered it in a thousand fractured gleams, making the streets seem to swim in broken stars. Between tall houses, banners fluttered.
The Golden Company camped outside those fine walls, their tents huddled like squat shadows. Within the command tent, the air smelled of leather, sweat, and cheap wine.
Anakin sat on his cot, fastening the clasps of a plain tunic. Damp hair hung around his face in streaks of muddled color—black, silver, pale gold. No dye could banish what he was forever.
Griff approached, arms folded, frown etched deep. "You can't go," he said as if the matter were already decided. "The city is full of tongues. We don't need them wagging about you."
"The captain himself invited me," Anakin said, not looking up. "And you want me to skulk in here like you? We've been with the Company for two years. You would think if someone was trying to kill us they would've done something already."
"You cannot afford to be seen drunk in a winesink, pawed at by whores and cheats. You can't afford to be seen at all," Griff said.
Anakin smirked. "Do you think so little of me?"
The tent flap suddenly burst inward, letting in a bomb of night air and the noise of laughter and distant music.
"Good," Ser Myles Toyne announced, hands on his hips. "You're dressed. Half the Company's off bloodying themselves on Myrish wine and softer sport, and their little prince sits in here sulking with Griff."
"Captain," Jon said, his tone frost. "We were discussing—"
"Whether you mean to keep him locked up like some maiden, I know." Myles waved a hand. "Enough sulking, you two. We've won. The boy fought like the Warrior's own hand. He deserves to celebrate with his brothers."
"Captain," Griff said again, warning in the word.
Myles's grin cooled. "I know what you fear, Jon," he said, dropping the courtesy name like a stone. "But the more you two hide, the more they'll whisper. Better they see him win battles and outdrink them than hear tales spun by others."
Anakin watched their faces. Griff's jaw was clenched so tight it might shatter. Toyne's eyes glinted beneath lowered brows.
Griff would say no. Griff always said no. No to risk, no to pleasure, no to anything that smelled of being more than sellswords with badly dyed hair. Myles said yes.
Anakin chose the yes. "I'm going," he said.
Griff's lips thinned. He looked as if he would forbid it anyway, but something in the boy's stance—shoulders squared, chin up—gave him pause. After a moment, he inclined his head, stiff as old armor.
"As you wish, Your Grace," he said.
Anakin did not answer, though he didn't like Griff's use of the title. The name Rhaegar came to mind whenever he said it. He found it like a chain around his neck.
Elsewhere, the winesink Myles favored crouched low in the merchant quarter, lanterns of red and gold swayed above its doors. Music bled out into the street: the pluck of strings, a high, sweet pipe. Perfume and sour wine and sweat mingled in the narrow lane.
The harp struck Anakin sharp as a thorn, memory pricking—Griff forcing his small fingers on those strings in Pentos, insisting he master the instrument. He had hated it then, and the sound soured him to this day.
Inside, the air was thick with smoke and laughter. Half-clad women drifted through the haze like bright fishes, veils trailing, coins chiming softly in pouches on their hips. Men shouted, gambled, drank and cursed in a dozen tongues.
Myles moved through them like a man among old friends, barked greetings, took cups pressed into his hand.
Tristan Rivers sat with his boots on a table, a dark-haired woman in his lap and a gold tooth catching the light every time he laughed. Franklyn was already drunk, arguing with Balaq about whether some Free City girl or a Riverlands wench made better sport. Laswell Peake sprawled in the corner with a whore and a skin of wine.
When Anakin stepped in at Toyne's side eyes turned, though not for the Captain-General. Painted girls swayed closer, veils brushing his arm, hands bold and soft on his sleeves. Men straightened, curious. He felt the weight of their gaze like another cloak settling over his shoulders. 'So this is why Griff dyed my hair,' he thought.
"Seven save us," Myles chuckled, dropping into a chair. "All those eyes on you, and not a tit touched. Wasted on you, that princely face."
Anakin slid into the seat beside him, ignoring the whores who pressed a little closer when he didn't reach for them. "Figured you had something to do with that," he insinuated.
"Not I," Myles smiled, draining his wine. "That's all you, son."
Ugly, they called Ser Myles, with his jug ears, crooked jaw, and great misshapen nose. Yet when he smiled, none of it mattered. Not to the men who followed him. Not to Anakin.
"I'm really not here for that," he said dryly. "Truth be told, I've never drank either."
"Drink, then," Myles said, shoving a cup into his hand.
A single sniff of the ale, still lukewarm in the mug pressed into his hand, was enough for the Targaryen, whose nose wrinkled in an immediate, visible refusal. He set the cup aside.
"Griff ever tell you of your uncle Viserys? His visit to these very camps?" Myles asked him after a while.
"No," he answered.
Perched on the edge of his seat, Anakin was eager to learn about his kin.
Aside from his father, he seldom heard mention of his grandfather's other offspring, and even less about his mother's lineage. With bounties placed on their heads by the Usurper, it was likely wise to keep them at arm's length. Nevertheless, that didn't quell his curiosity.
"Ah, well. It's a tale." Toyne leaned back, eyes half-lidded, savoring the memory. "Prince Viserys came to Myr with nothing but his name and a proud tilt to his chin. Called in the commanders, fed us roast fowl and Arbor gold he'd borrowed or stolen. Begged for the Company's swords. Promised us lands and lordships, half of Westeros. All with empty hands. At the far end of the table, little Daenerys sat," Myles went on, "Couldn't have been more than ten. Quiet as a shadow. Watched her brother bluster while the captains laughed and drank his wine and said no, no, and no again." He snorted softly. "A beggar prince wanting to be a king. The world's full of them."
"I'd have liked to meet them," Anakin said, voice low.
"No, you wouldn't," retorted Toyne. "Kingship's not something you howl for at a table. You take it, bit by bloody bit." He turned, studying the Targaryen's sidelong. "You're not him."
"I am only here because of Griff. Because wealthy magisters supported my claim," replied Anakin, bitterness creeping through despite himself. "Without them—"
"Without them, you'd still have silver hair and a dead man's crown hanging over it, and we'd still be selling our swords for other men's quarrels," Myles cut in. "We all come from someone else's choices. What matters is what we do once we can choose for ourselves." He leaned forward, the noise of the winesink dimming around them. "Listen to an old brute, son. Westerosi lords—most of them—are sheep in fine cloaks. They hide behind words like honor and custom. They let the world happen to them." His lip curled. "You are no sheep." He raised his cup, eyes burning hotter now. "You're a dragon. Be a dragon."
The words landed in Anakin's chest like an ember. He was surprised by the light in which Ser Myles saw him—so different from Griff's measured caution, yet somehow echoing the same expectations.
Blackheart spoke with the ease of a man who admired strength, not legacy; he saw a conqueror, not a prince.
296 AC - In Lys
(One Year Later…)
Lys had been a city of silk and song and sin. Lanterns cast golden light over painted villas and pleasure houses where flesh was art and vice a science. Nobles from half the known world would come to drown themselves here.
On the night the Golden Company sacked the city, all that sweetness burned.
Firepots arced through the night like falling stars. Roofs blossomed into flame. Smoke rolled down colonnades, thick and choking. Screams wove through it all, high and raw, the music of harps and flutes long since silenced.
Anakin stood in the midst of it, breathing ash. His gold armor was streaked with soot and blood.
He moved because to stop was to die. His sword was a red thing in his hand. Men came at him in the smoke—shapes more than faces, steel whistling. He saw them before they struck; the world narrowed when he fought, his reflexes quick.
A man in spiked steel swung a glaive. Anakin stepped inside, blade slashing low. His opponent's leg parted just above the knee, spraying blood. He fell screaming.
"Archway!" Ser Myles Toyne bellowed somewhere to his right. "Push them back to the archway!"
Anakin obeyed. He and Blackheart drove forward together, steel to steel. Heat washed over them as the archway collapsed, sending up a gout of sparks and smoke. The enemy fell away before their advance.
For a moment, triumph swelled in the Targaryen. Not pride in killing, but in the way the lines obeyed his voice, in how the chaos bent, just for an instant, to his favor. The control.
Then it was gone.
The blow came unseen. He heard it before he saw it: the wet crunch of metal and bone, the sudden hitch in Myles's shout.
Anakin turned in time to see a blade slide out through the general's chest, the stag of Baratheon etched on the hilt.
The man wielding it was dark-haired, green-eyed, grin cruel and bright in the firelight. "King Robert sends his regards," he spat.
Anakin moved without thinking. He did not lift his sword. He didn't have time. Some other part of him answered instead—the place inside that had always known where blades would fall and sharpened his instincts.
His hand lashed out, fingers curling in empty air.
The assassin flew. There was no other word for it.
One heartbeat he was standing, breath steaming in the heat, blade still slick with Toyne's blood. The next, something invisible struck him like a ram. He slammed into a stone wall with a sound like cracking melons. His skull burst against the rock, leaving a smear of red on white.
The world rushed back, roaring around Anakin. His hand trembled with a buzzing energy that left the hairs on his arms standing.
He dropped to his knees beside Myles. The Captain-General's cloak was soaked dark. Blood bubbled with each breath, struggling to escape the cage of his ribs. His twisted face tried on a grin.
"S–Stupid…" Toyne rasped as Anakin pressed a hand to his wound. "D–Don't…bother. Never was a clean life. Doesn't get a…clean end."
"Hold on," Anakin said. "We can—there might be a maester—"
"Heh…heh, h—" Myles coughed as he tried to laugh. "Not…likely."
His gaze, blurred with pain, found Anakin's. For the first time since Anakin had known him, there was no liveliness in it. No proud confidence or certainty.
"L–Listen," he forced out, each word costing blood. "This…isn't your war. Never was. You're fighting…for coin that isn't yours. But them…" His hand twitched, clenching weakly at Anakin's forearm. "Your brothers. Exiles. Sons of exiles. Take them…home."
Home. The single word pulled Griff's stories of birthright and duty to his House into sharp focus. Suddenly, they held a weight they hadn't before.
"You're a…dragon" Myles swallowed, the effort wracking him. "B–B…"
His eyes dimmed. His chest fell still. And he was dead.
Anakin knelt there, the weight of his captain in his lap, while around them Lys burned. Screams and shouts washed over him, muffled, distant. Flames danced in his peripheral vision. The stag-marked assassin lay crumpled against the wall. Myles's blood seeped into his gloves and he laid the captain's head down gently on the stones.
For a moment, grief threatened to drag him under. He let it wash past, not away; he could not afford to drown in it yet. There were still men fighting. Men who would need to know what they were now.
Under his skin, something answered: not the hot spark of anger, but a cold, clear line of purpose.
All his life, other men had named him, but only the hard, definitive title Ser Myles had just given him truly felt right:
General.
(Later That Night, with Anakin…)
In a conquered magister's palace, its marble halls smelled of smoke and spilled wine. Outside, the city smoldered, the perfumes of Lys trying desperately to replace the sour stench of charred flesh.
In a high hall lit by flickering braziers, commanders of the Golden Company gathered.
Black Balaq, Franklyn Flowers, Tristan Rivers, Marq Mandrake, Laswell Peake, Rolly Duckfield, and Harry Strickland.
Jon Connington stood at the foot of the table, eyes on the man standing apart from them.
Anakin had not taken part in the celebrations. Men were laughing somewhere deeper in the palace, drunk on stolen wine and victory. He had gone to the balcony alone, staring out at the dark line of the sea. He turned when Griff called his name.
Inside, the talk died when he entered. The air seemed to thrum with expectation.
"He was Westerosi," Anakin said first, voice flat. "The man who killed Ser Myles wore a Baratheon stag."
"They were bound to find us sooner or later," Griff answered, "you've not exactly lived in the shadows these past few years."
"So…" Anakin exhaled, a long breath heavy with grief, "what happens now?"
Griff's voice lowered. "We will honor Toyne. But now, we have much to discuss."
"The Company needs a general," Black Balaq said, voice gruff and formal. He was a hard man, his face as lined as old leather.
"Strickland's put his name forward," Franklyn added, with a crooked grin that didn't reach his eyes. "The men laughed themselves sick, but it was a brave effort."
Harry bristled. "I have paid the Company's debts for years—"
"And you'll go on doing it," Tristan said, "0ur coin is yours. Our swords are another matter."
Duck cleared his throat. "The lads have their thoughts," he rumbled, "they've seen who they follow in the press and in the rout. Your Grace." He spoke the title softly, but it settled over the hall all the same. "They trust you. Ser Myles wanted it to be you."
Anakin shifted, suddenly aware of all the eyes fixed on him.
'Your Grace.' In Pentos, it had meant flattery. From Griff, it meant duty. But here, in this hall full of exiled sellswords, it meant something else: trust.
"Ser Myles was the captain-general," he said, "I can't be like Ser Myles." His voice did not crack, but it felt raw.
"Seven spare us if you were," joked Franklyn.
Laswell Peake leaned forward. "You are the blood of the dragon," he said, "Not some Blackfyre pretender, not a beggar prince with empty hands. You have the skill, the honor, the name. It should be you."
Griff stepped to his side then, the way a man might step to a precipice he had avoided his whole life.
"Your brothers-in-arms have faith in you," he said, "As do I."
Anakin almost looked away. Griff's approval, given so sparingly, hit hard. For years, praise had been withheld like some rare spice. To be offered it now—it felt like the closing of a circle he hadn't known he was walking.
Griff moved to the table. With both hands, he set down a long bundle wrapped in black silk. "Ser Myles meant to give you this when he deemed you ready," he said, "He did not have the time. It falls to me. And I say you are ready."
He drew back the cloth. Valyrian steel lay revealed. The sword was long and slender, ripples shimmering along its blade like shadows moving under water. Its hilt was wrought with dragons, their bodies twining, their eyes picked out in rubies dark as dried blood.
"Blackfyre," Griff said.
The name itself seemed to dim the firelight. For a heartbeat, no one spoke.
Once, this sword had been Aegon the Conqueror's, then his son's, then his bastard descendants', passed from Blackfyre rebel to Blackfyre rebel until at last it had vanished from Westerosi tales. Men had wondered where it slept. They had not thought to find it here, in the hands of exiles.
"You are more fit to bear this steel than any man alive," said Griff, eyes on him. "Wield it. Restore its honor."
Anakin looked at each man around the table in turn. He saw Marq's scarred face, Tristan's steady gaze, Flowers's restless hands stilled for once, Duck's absolute loyalty, even Harry, shifting with wounded pride.
"When I was growing up in Pentos," he said slowly, "Men bowed and called me 'Your Grace' because they feared the magister and loved the sound of their own tongues. It meant nothing." He glanced at Griff, saw the flicker of surprise, almost of embarrassment. "These last years, you've called me by false names, laughed with, cursed me, bled beside me. Today, you call me your captain. If you choose me now, I'll not be a prince waiting on other men's schemes. I'll be your brother. Your general. And I will take us home."
"To what home?" Harry questioned.
"To the one we were stolen from," Anakin said,"The Seven Kingdoms. But I won't steal this from under any man's nose. Harry, if you think you can lead them better—say so. I'll hear it now."
The paymaster swallowed. His fingers flexed once on the table's edge. He looked around at the faces of the men. He saw nothing there that answered him. With an indignant jerk, he shoved his chair back and stalked from the room, leaving a tense silence
Balaq's voice rang clear. "You'll have my bowmen," he said.
"And my blade," grinned Franklyn.
Marq Mandrake's nod was sober, Laswell Peake's brief but firm. Duck thumped a fist to his chest. In that smoky hall, among men with more scars than lands, the Golden Company found its cause reborn.
Anakin stepped forward, hand extending as if of its own accord. He closed his grip around Blackfyre's hilt. Lifting the Valyrian steel; the prince became their general.