Chapter 58: Fire Draws Blood

The Cannibal's skull stood mounted before Dragonstone's Great Hall, jaw agape, eye sockets cavernous and dark. The green flame-burn marks on its charred bone shimmered oddly in the dawn light. It was an impossible sight. But so was the dragon that had killed it.

And now, both remained.

The Shadow.

Still unnamed by the court, still unclaimed by any rider, and impossibly large, bigger than Vermithor now, his wings casting mountainous shadows across the black stone cliffs.

His presence changed everything.

Within Dragonstone

There was no escaping it the royal court, black and green alike, were still at Dragonstone after their arrival to view the slain Cannibal's skull. Viserys, flanked by his family and his Queen, had stood before the beast's remains, the firelight catching the glint of wonder and alarm in his tired eyes.

No words had followed the moment the Shadow flew overhead. Not that day. Not when the earth had trembled beneath him, or when his victory roar echoed off the sea like rolling thunder.

Now, the conversations began.

In a Side Chamber of the Keep

"Your sons were looking at him again."

Alicent Hightower glanced up from the window where sea fog rolled past. Her handmaidens stood silent near the archway.

"Let them look," she said at last, voice soft but weighted. "They're princes. It's what they do."

Otto Hightower, arms crossed, stepped closer. "Aegon has no interest in anything but wine and women. But Aemond…"

"Yes," she whispered. "Aemond watches him differently."

They both knew it. The way the boy stood at the cliff's edge longer than the others. The way he studied the beast from afar, memorizing every movement. Every rumble.

"He's never had a dragon," Otto said. "And now he sees one no one controls."

Across the Keep, Rhaenyra's Quarters

The fire crackled low. Rhaenyra sat with her sons, the conversation hushed. Harwin stood nearby, ever the shadow in the doorway.

"He let you that close?" Harwin asked Lucerys, brow raised.

"No," Luke said. "He just looked at us. Didn't move. Didn't growl. Just… watched."

Jace nodded slowly. "He knew. He always knows. But he didn't chase us off, either."

"He's not like the other dragons," Rhaenyra said quietly, looking to the window where the sea wind billowed the curtain. "He returned, not for us, but for something else. He doesn't see us as masters. Maybe never did."

There was a long pause.

"Then why stay?" Harwin asked.

None of them had the answer.

Outside at the Training Yard

Aegon lounged on a stone bench, swinging a stick idly at the gravel. Across from him, Aemond stared toward the mountain peak where the black figure sometimes perched, unmoving.

"You really think he'll let someone ride him?" Aegon asked, half-mocking.

"I don't know," Aemond murmured. "But I'd try."

Aegon barked a laugh. "You? You'd be burnt to ash before you got close."

"I wouldn't approach him like a fool." Aemond's voice turned cold. "And I wouldn't ask him to kneel. I'd give him what he wants."

"And what's that?"

"Respect," Aemond said. "And fire."

Later, in the Great Hall

Viserys sat quietly, leaning on his cane. The others murmured around him, Corlys and Rhaenys, Ser Harrold, Rhaenyra, Alicent all present for supper, but only half-heartedly eating.

Talk turned to dragons. It always did now.

"He doesn't belong to any side," Corlys said, sipping wine. "And that makes him more dangerous than all of us."

Rhaenys nodded faintly. "We call him the Shadow, but what happens if someone steps forward to tame him?"

"Tame?" Rhaenyra echoed. "He killed the Cannibal. Ripped its face off. That's not a beast that tames."

"Everything bends," Otto Hightower said evenly, "with the right hand and the right fire."

Viserys let out a breath, voice rasping through cracked lips.

"If you try to cage him… be prepared to lose the hand you reach with."

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