21
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294 AC
Braavos - Streets
Eragon Targaryen
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"I am starting to regret this already." I get lightly slapped on the shoulder and turn to see the amused look of Nata.
"It's fine, it's not like something will happen with all these witnesses... I hope." After agreeing with the red priestess a few days ago I ended up visiting Nata again with the girls. I ended up talking about it, much to my immediate regret.
"Eragon, we will be fine right?" Danny nervously holds my hand and looks toward the giant fire in the middle of the crowd.
"I sure hope so, all of you need to stay close. Hold hands if you have to but don't get lost, I need to find that woman." After we all have formed a chain of linking arms and holding hands I lead us around the crowd and toward a raised podium with a red priest who is bald and is preaching.
Once we are closer and there are fewer people I can see the fire pit that is dug into the road and is shooting up flames as tall as a man standing on another's shoulders.
"Is that her?" I hear Rhaenyra ask and look to where she is looking and spot the red woman I seek. She turns shortly after I spot her, she tilts her head slightly when she notices me holding hands with Danny and Nata. Soon a wide smile spreads across her face and she starts to walk toward us.
"Alright, I think this might have been a bad idea." Nata shrinks back after seeing the enthusiastic look on the woman approaching us. I swallow my nervousness since we already are here and I might as well try to see some magic.
"I am surprised to see you brought friends." My 'friends' remain silent as the blood-red eyes appraise them.
"Shouldn't you have known I was bringing friends?" I ask curiously, my skepticism about her seeing ability brings the smile back to her face that just faded. Her looks tonight are even more refined from a few days ago. She wears a long red dress with the same collar-like necklace that has a big ruby in the middle, her hair is straight but looks alive as the light from the flame dances on it.
"As I said before, don't expect to conveniently see things exactly as they will happen." I nod in acceptance since why would a god of light make things easy for his worshippers, would be too convenient if he did.
"Alright, let's see what you got." She nods slowly and turns to guide us, she walks toward a smaller fire away from other people.
We follow her and I notice Shiera practically shaking in fear, or it might be excitement I can't tell because of her biting her lips. We get to the small brazier and she motions for us to circle around it.
"Now what?" Nata asks and I can hear the effort she is putting into her voice to not turn tail and run from the witchcraft.
"Now the easy part, we gaze into the flames." I am a step ahead as I was already looking into the fire, nothing strikes me as it being special in any way. I expected some magic words or something and am starting to get disappointed.
"It's just fire." I don't take my eyes away in case I miss something but I can hear her make a nose through her nose as if amused.
"And all fire is R'hllor, from a great flame consuming houses or ships to a small candle to see at night. R'hllor is the warmth in your blood, the very life you live is R'hllor and his flames can show you many things if you look." I almost roll my eyes hearing her begin to preach but am stopped when out of the corner of my eye I see Danny looking into the flames in a trance. Looking around at the others they also seem to be zoning out.
I quickly look back into the fire and feel my eyes start to water as I force them to stay open, nothing but the licks of flame are visible. I close my eyes and let them rest, am I doing something wrong?
After my eyes no longer sting I open them and see everyone still looking into the flames and I frown before looking one last time. This time something else is in the flames, it looks like trees.
More trees than I have ever seen in my life, not hard since I have grown up in Braavos but it's still a ton of them. There is a beach with white sand and I see people that are close to where I am seeing from and in the distance, there are even more people. I soon realize I am seeing through someone else eyes as I can see an arm attached to my vision and it is holding a spear with a stone tip.
The people beside me are all holding similar weapons made of stone or wood, I can't see well, but the people across from us look to also be wielding primitive weapons. A man walks over from the side and is wearing some kind of ceremonial robes with a lot of feathers and draped with a skin covered in spots. It was hard to tell because of the color of the fire but these people are summer islanders.
I close my eyes from the stinging returning and quickly open them to continue to watch, but the image is gone. In its place is a new image, clouds and the sun is Infront of me, it seems I am above the clouds.
I soon realize as the image looks around that I am on the back of a massive beast and sitting on some sort of saddle with leather straps around my legs. The clouds start to pass by faster as the beast dives down and tucks its wings into its sides. Straight below up is a fleet of ships, at least fifty of them if I had to guess.
I don't recognize what is on the sails and there isn't enough color to help my speculation but as they get closer I get a sense of excitement. Soon the beast throws out its wings and we level out and I realize what it is, how could I not recognize it right away? A jet of flames spews from its mouth and cuts through the ships like a blade through water.
"Dragon." A hand on my shoulder turns me away from the flames, I start to blink as pain fills my eyes.
"Keep them closed." I feel some kind of cloth rub my eyes and a bit of comfort that eases the pain comes from the touch of a hand on my cheek. "You were able to watch them for longer than I have ever seen someone before. At least for the first time I haven't seen someone gaze into them for that long." I realize who it is that is wiping my eyes now but I still keep them closed as the stinging slowly dies down.
"Are you ok Eragon?" I hear Daenerys ask from beside me and I slowly open my eyes and see red eyes looking into my own.
"I am fine, I would like to sit down though." Danny grabs my hand and pulls me away from the fire and as the fire draws farther and farther away I feel a bone-chilling cold seep through my clothes.
"Was it always this dark out?" I keep blinking and wonder if I messed my eyes up while staring into the fire. I pull my shirt up and wipe my eyes again, when I drop the shirt I spot a smear on it and look at it closer. "Is this blood?" My eyes seem to adjust back to the light as I notice indeed it is blood.
"Your eyes started bleeding when you looked into the fire for too long." Danny comments, looking up at her I notice everyone else is gathered around me and looking at my blood stain.
"How long did I even look at it? It didn't feel like I was looking for that long." I look at everyone else and it seems they are fine.
"A good while, I called your name but you didn't seem to hear me." Nata speaks up with some concern.
That is a little freaky, but what is even more freaky is what I saw. I look back at the woman who I am convinced can do magic now and wonder if she made me see those things. Was it a god of light or was that some kind of spell she cast on me to make me see things?
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294 AC
Narrow sea
Elia Martell
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"So are you going to tell me what it is that is bothering you?" I ask my brother as he leans against the wall of our cabin with a thoughtful look. It's rare for him to get lost in his thoughts like this, he is an action taker and this is out of character.
"I don't want to lie to you, but I also don't want you to worry unnecessarily." And now I am worried.
"Oberyn, out with it if you don't want me to worry." He sighs and pushes off the wall and walks over to where I am sitting.
"I had a meeting with some of my friends while you were socializing with the dragons." I already know this, he told me this when we meet in the morning.
"What happened?" He sits next to me and leans in closer to talk quietly.
"We were talking and one of them told me that the Golden company has been making some weird movements. I was curious about what was so weird so I asked him about it and he told me they have been talking with a lot of magisters." I raise my brow, that doesn't sound that odd since they are the ones who hire sell swords.
"Why is that weird?" I don't get how visiting your normal clientele is weird.
"They haven't been taking any contracts from them, but they have been meeting many of them and my friend found it weird that they also are doing a big recruitment. They are always open to taking in new blood, but this is like mass recruitment and they have no new contract. If they were about to defend a city from the Dothraki you would expect this kind of thing, but they aren't." He leans back and places his hands behind his head. "This isn't the first thing that I have heard about from them, originally I wanted to see if we could recruit them to our cause, the gold wouldn't be impossible to get, and with the promise of lands, they should approve. But I am beginning to think something else is going on with them, the stirrings of something big is happening with the Golden Company.
For a moment I wonder why he is so fixated on this and then I remember who the Golden company happens to support. They support House Blackfyre, if there is odd movement going on it might just be a new Blackfyre rebellion.
"Do you mean that they have a Blackfyre? I thought Ser Barristan killed the last Blackfyre." He purses his lips and looks down at his lap.
"I don't know but I want to find out, once I get you back home safely I am going to head back and try to join up with some of my friends. It may take a while to get to the bottom of it but even if it's nothing I might be able to convince them to join us in retaking the throne for house Targaryen and more importantly killing the ping king and his golden accomplices." I am not sure how to respond, this is not what I was expecting and if it is true then it is very useful info.
"I am not sure how to feel about this, it's just more enemies that will want my kids dead if it turns out to be true." He stands up and walks to my side and pulls me into a hug.
"They will be fine, I will make sure of it. I won't allow them to be in danger ever again, not after how close it was last time. They will have to walk over my corpse to get to them, I promise." I smile and nod, never again will I let it happen either. "Plus this could be an opportunity, if it is true then we can always prepare to kill the victor while they are weakened. We could even be the ones to report the Blackfyre activity to the crown and have the deal with it. Then when they are done killing each other we sweep in and finish off the winner while he licks his wounds." Truly the Red Viper, lying in wait for a kill.