Chapter 10: The Dragon's Fall

Chapter 10: The Dragon's Fall

The gold of the Targaryens filled the Unseen's coffers, but it was the silence from Casterly Rock that Valerius found most valuable. Tywin Lannister did not send thanks or threats; he sent nothing. It was the quiet acknowledgment of a predator recognizing another. Tywin now knew he was not dealing with an upstart mercenary, but with a rival power capable of ghosting the king's fleet and plucking treasure from the sea. This silent respect was worth more than any alliance.

From his basalt throne on Aegis Point, Valerius watched the game in Westeros intensify. Lyra's intelligence network, now with tendrils in every major port from Oldtown to White Harbor, fed him a constant stream of information. The rebels, led by the fury of Robert Baratheon and the quiet resolve of Eddard Stark, were winning. They had consolidated the North, the Vale, the Stormlands, and the Riverlands. The royalists, despite the vast power of the Reach, were fractured, led by a mad king who trusted no one and a council of sycophants.

Valerius knew the turning point was coming. The great armies were massing for a decisive battle that would likely take place along the Trident. It was the moment he had been waiting for—the instant when the world's attention would be fixed on a single, bloody field, leaving the back doors of the kingdom unguarded.

He convened his war council in the map room of Aegis Point, a chamber now dominated by a massive, obsessively detailed map of Westeros.

"The Trident is where it will be decided," Valerius stated, his finger tracing the path of the river. "Robert and Rhaegar will meet, and one of them will fall. While they are engaged in their grand spectacle of honor and slaughter, we will perform a quiet act of theft."

Jax, his scarred face grim, leaned over the map. "You mean to land on the mainland. Take a castle?"

"Not just a castle," Valerius said, his voice dropping, taking on a tone of near reverence. He tapped a large, smoking island just off the coast of the Crownlands. "I mean to take a throne. An ancient one."

Corvin, the ever-practical chancellor, paled. "My lord… that is Dragonstone. The ancestral seat of House Targaryen. The birthplace of their dragons. They say its walls were raised by dragonfire and magic, that they are indestructible."

"Myths are created to frighten children and deter the weak-willed," Valerius countered. He looked at Master Valerius, the old engineer, who had been summoned for this meeting. "Master, you have studied the reports on Valyrian stone. Is it indestructible?"

The old man's eyes gleamed. "Nothing is indestructible, my Lord. It is merely a question of applying the correct frequency and the appropriate force. Valyrian stone is a form of fused basalt, immensely dense. But like any rock, it has a resonant frequency. If one could apply a precise, powerful vibration that matches that frequency… it would shatter like glass." He glanced at Valerius, a deep understanding in his eyes. He knew his Lord was the source of that force.

The plan was audacious to the point of insanity. Valerius intended to lead the bulk of his fleet and his army to Dragonstone and seize it while its main defenders were away with Rhaegar's army.

"It is the heart of their power, their legacy," Valerius explained to his council. "To take it is to symbolically castrate the Targaryen dynasty. It is a fortress of immense strategic value, controlling access to Blackwater Bay. And it is where King Aerys, in his paranoia, has sent the remainder of his family and a portion of his fleet."

"The royal fleet is there," Silas, the fleet captain, pointed out. "Not all of it, but enough to be a threat. And the fortress is still garrisoned."

"The garrison is a skeleton crew of old men and green boys," Lyra countered, reading from a scroll of parchment. "Our sources inside the Crownlands confirm the Lord of Dragonstone and his best knights are with Rhaegar. The fleet is commanded by a Targaryen loyalist, but he is a cautious man, not a warrior. The true defense of Dragonstone is its reputation."

"A reputation we are about to shatter," Valerius concluded. He looked around the room, his gaze locking with each of his commanders. "We have the army, we have the fleet, we have the technology. And we have the will. We did not forge this legion to collect tolls. We forged it to build an empire. The first stone of that empire will be laid on the shores of Dragonstone."

There was no dissent. They had followed him from the slums of Myr to the throne of the Stepstones. They would follow him into the heart of the dragon's lair.

The Unseen fleet sailed under the cover of a moonless night, a black armada moving with unnatural speed. The 'Leviathan' led the way, its paddle wheels churning silently, muffled by a trick of airbending that deadened the sound. Valerius stood on its prow, feeling the sea and the sky, his senses extended for miles. He could feel the weather patterns, the shoals beneath the waves, the distant presence of fishing boats that they expertly avoided.

They arrived off the coast of Dragonstone at dawn. The island rose from the sea like a black, jagged monster, the volcano at its heart smoking sullenly against the grey sky. The fortress itself seemed to be a part of the mountain, a grim, terrifying structure of fused black stone carved with leering gargoyles and dragon motifs.

The royalist ships in the harbor spotted them immediately. Alarms rang out across the water, a frantic, panicked sound. A dozen Targaryen warships, proud vessels with dragon-crested sails, moved to form a defensive line.

Valerius smiled. "Silas, signal the Tempest. It is time for a storm of our own making."

From the decks of the Unseen fleet, his Tempest legion went to work. The airbenders created localized gales, shredding the Targaryen sails and making their ships difficult to control. The waterbenders created massive waves that crashed over their decks, swamping their ballistae and disorienting their crews.

Then came the 'Leviathan'. It did not engage in a broadside battle. It moved with the relentless purpose of a predator. Master Valerius's repeating arbalests fired their armor-piercing bolts into the command decks of the enemy ships, sowing chaos among their leadership. The catapults hurled their airbursting shrapnel shells, clearing the decks of archers.

The royalist commander, seeing his fleet being dismantled without landing a single significant blow, made a fatal error. He ordered his flagship, a massive dromond named the 'Dragon's Breath', to charge forward and attempt to board the 'Leviathan'.

"He's a fool," Jax grunted, watching the enemy ship approach.

"He is a brave fool," Valerius corrected him. "Let us honor his courage with a swift end."

He stepped to the prow of his flagship. As the 'Dragon's Breath' bore down on them, he reached out with his power. The sea in front of the charging dromond suddenly turned solid. A massive pillar of ice, fifty feet wide and a hundred feet high, erupted from the waves directly in its path.

The 'Dragon's Breath', sailing at full speed, did not have time to turn. It struck the pillar of ice with a sound like the world cracking in two. The ship's mighty hull, designed to withstand cannonballs, shattered. Men were thrown into the sea, and the proud flagship, its spine broken, began to sink.

Seeing their commander's ship destroyed in such an impossible, terrifying fashion broke the morale of the remaining fleet. Several ships surrendered on the spot; the others turned to flee, only to be systematically crippled and captured by Silas's faster, more maneuverable vessels. The naval battle was over in less than an hour.

With the sea secured, the landing began. Thousands of Unseen soldiers, the Sentinels and Spectres, poured onto the black sand beaches at the foot of the fortress. They met a hastily assembled defense of garrison soldiers. The fight was bloody, but one-sided. The Unseen, hardened by the conquest of the Stepstones and drilled in a superior doctrine, advanced relentlessly. Jax led the Sentinels, his shield wall an unbreakable barrier, while Roric led the Spectres, who flanked the defenders from the jagged volcanic cliffs, raining arrows down upon them.

Valerius left the beachhead to his commanders. His target was the fortress itself. He walked towards the great gate of Dragonstone, flanked only by his ten elite Tempest benders. The gate was a monstrous thing of fused black stone, thirty feet high. From the walls above, archers fired upon them.

Valerius waved a hand lazily. A shield of compressed air formed above them, and the arrows clattered harmlessly against it. He reached the gate and placed his palm flat against the cold, ancient stone. He closed his eyes.

He didn't try to smash it with brute force. He listened to it, as Master Valerius had instructed. He felt the immense density, the echoes of the dragonfire that had forged it. He extended his earthbending senses deep into the material, searching for its unique molecular rhythm, its resonant frequency. He found it. A deep, low hum, like the heart of the mountain.

He began to push his own energy into the stone, matching that frequency. At first, nothing happened. Then a low vibration began to shake the gate. The guards on the wall above looked down in confusion. The vibration grew, becoming a deep, resonant thrum that shook the very foundations of the wall. The air filled with a high-pitched whine.

"Now," Valerius commanded his earthbenders.

The two Tempest earthbenders slammed their fists onto the ground, adding their own power to the vibration.

With a sound like a giant cracking a continent in half, the great gate of Dragonstone disintegrated. It did not explode. It simply fell apart, crumbling into a billion pieces of black dust and gravel.

A stunned, terrified silence fell upon the defenders on the wall. They stared at the boy—the demon—who had just unmade the unmakeable.

Valerius walked through the space where the gate had been, his Tempest guard behind him. He did not run. He walked with the calm, inexorable purpose of a glacier. The garrison inside, their morale shattered by the impossible feat they had just witnessed, threw down their weapons and surrendered.

The conquest of the outer baileys was swift. Resistance melted away before him. He finally reached the inner sanctum of the fortress, the Sea Dragon Tower. There, on the steps, stood the castle's castellan, Ser Willem Darry, a knight old in years but with a fire still in his eyes. He was flanked by the last twenty loyal knights of the garrison.

"Demon!" Ser Willem cried, his voice hoarse. He pointed his longsword at Valerius. "You will not defile this sacred place! This is the seat of kings!"

"All kings fall, Ser," Valerius replied, his voice calm. "And all seats can be taken."

He had no desire to slaughter these last brave men. He raised his hand, and the paving stones around the knights shot upwards, forming a seamless stone cage that trapped them completely.

"My quarrel is not with you," Valerius told the enraged, helpless castellan. "Yield the castle, and you and your men will be treated with honor. Resist, and I will tear this tower down stone by stone."

Defeated, Ser Willem Darry surrendered Dragonstone. By midday, the banner of the Unseen—the bisected eye—flew from the highest tower of the ancient Targaryen stronghold.

Valerius walked the halls of his new seat of power alone. He felt the history in the stones, the echoes of Aegon the Conqueror and his sisters. He finally entered the Chamber of the Painted Table. The room was dark, circular, with four high windows that looked out upon the sea. In the center was the table itself: a massive, intricately carved and painted map of Westeros, more than fifty feet long. It was Aegon's table. The place where the conquest had been planned.

Valerius ran a hand over the carved surface, over the lands he intended to make his own. He was no longer just the Lord of the Stepstones. He was the Lord of Dragonstone, the master of the Conqueror's seat.

It was in that moment of triumph that Lyra entered, her face pale, her expression urgent.

"My lord," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "We have secured the castle. But we have found something. Someone."

"What is it?" Valerius asked, turning from the table.

"In the royal apartments, guarded by Ser Willem Darry's most trusted men… we found the Queen."

Valerius's blood ran cold. "The Queen? Elia Martell is in King's Landing."

"Not that Queen," Lyra said, her eyes wide. "Queen Rhaella. The Mad King's wife. She is here. And, my lord… she is heavily pregnant. Her son, the young Prince Viserys, is with her."

Valerius stared at her, the enormity of her words crashing down on him. While he was taking the castle, he had been completely unaware of the prizes within it.

As if on cue, another messenger, a scout from the 'Whisper' which had been monitoring communications from the mainland, rushed into the room. "My lord! A message, just intercepted from a fishing boat out of the Riverlands! The Battle of the Trident is over!"

"And?" Valerius demanded, his heart pounding.

"Prince Rhaegar Targaryen is dead. Slain by Robert Baratheon's own hand. The royalist army is broken and in full retreat."

Valerius stood in silence between these two titanic pieces of news. The war was all but won for the rebels. The Targaryen dynasty was effectively over. And he, Valerius, Lord of Dragonstone, now held its last remnants—the pregnant Queen and the heir—in the palm of his hand. He was no longer a third party, a kingmaker, or a strategic player. He was now the center of the entire game. The fate of the dragons, and the future of the Seven Kingdoms, rested in his hands.