Chapter 26: The Dragon's Ire, The Reaper's Glee
The Dance of the Dragons, once a smoldering ember of dynastic resentment, had erupted into a conflagration that threatened to consume Westeros whole. Spurred by the initial tragedies – the death of Lucerys Velaryon, the retaliatory horror of "Blood and Cheese," and the carefully orchestrated atrocity at Driftmark – both the Blacks supporting Queen Rhaenyra and the Greens loyal to King Aegon II had cast aside any pretense of reconciliation. The call to arms echoed from the icy North to the sun-scorched sands of Dorne (though Dorne itself remained aloof, watching, a lesson Aizen had subtly reinforced through his agents). This was precisely the inferno Sōsuke Aizen had meticulously fanned, and he moved through its heart like a divine, invisible artisan, shaping its flames to his will.
One of the first major crucibles of this escalating war was the ill-fated Battle of Rook's Rest. Lord Staunton, a Black loyalist, found his castle besieged by the forces of Ser Criston Cole, Aegon II's Hand. Rhaenyra, urged by her more hawkish counselors (some subtly influenced by "Maester Valerion's" pronouncements on the necessity of bold, decisive action to rally support), dispatched Princess Rhaenys Targaryen – the "Queen Who Never Was" – atop her fierce red dragon, Meleys, the Red Queen, to break the siege.
Aizen, in his guise as the sagacious Maester Valerion, had been present in Rhaenyra's war council on Dragonstone. He had listened with feigned solemnity as Rhaenys, brave and proud, argued for swift intervention. He had then offered "ancient Valyrian tactical precedents" suggesting that a lone, powerful dragon, striking with surprise and overwhelming force, could often shatter a numerically superior but less mobile ground army. "The dragon is the ultimate expression of Valyrian will, Your Grace, Princess," he'd said, his eyes holding a look of profound, almost sorrowful wisdom. "Its fire is not merely destructive; it is a statement of divine right. A decisive blow at Rook's Rest will send a clear message to all wavering lords." His counsel, laced with the subtle compulsions of Kyōka Suigetsu that made his words seem impeccably logical and inspiring, helped tip the scales. Rhaenys, already inclined to valor, flew to her doom.
Aizen himself was not physically present at Rook's Rest, not in any of his overt personas. But his senses, vast and divinely acute, were. His Kido-construct soul-siphons, deployed by Argent's stealthy Sentinel units in the countryside surrounding the castle days before, hummed silently, ready for the harvest. He observed the unfolding battle through a sophisticated scrying Kido, his perspective that of an unseen god watching a play of his own scripting.
He saw Rhaenys and Meleys arrive like a crimson meteor, their initial assault devastating Criston Cole's besieging lines. But it was a trap. Aegon II himself, atop his golden dragon Sunfyre, and his brother Aemond "One-Eye" Targaryen, astride the colossal, ancient Vhagar (the Targaryen beast), emerged from the clouds. The ensuing dragon duel was a brutal, chaotic spectacle. Meleys, despite her ferocity and Rhaenys's skill, was hopelessly outmatched against two younger, albeit powerful, dragons and one of the largest and most battle-hardened dragons in existence.
Aizen watched with clinical detachment as Sunfyre and Vhagar tore at Meleys. He noted the tactics, the raw power, the desperation. When Meleys fell, a broken, burning ruin, taking the brave Princess Rhaenys with her, Aizen felt the incandescent release of their commingled souls – the proud, fiery spirit of the Targaryen princess and the ancient, primal essence of her dragon. It was a potent, exquisite draught, channeled instantly through his siphons to the Hōgyoku that was his core. He analyzed it, cataloged it: the unique resonance of Valyrian blood bonded to dragonfire, the echoes of royal pride, the agony of a queen's death. More data. More power.
Aegon II, though victorious, was grievously wounded in the encounter, his Sunfyre also badly burned. This, too, pleased Aizen. A crippled king on one side, a grieving, enraged queen on the other – the perfect ingredients for prolonged, irrational warfare.
While the major lords and their dragons clashed, Aizen's other assets were hard at work. His Sentinel mercenary companies, under their various rugged banners, found employment on both sides of the rapidly expanding conflict. "The Stormcrows Reborn," led by a silent, masked captain (a high-ranking Sentinel construct), fought with chilling discipline for a Reach lord loyal to Rhaenyra, their Valyrian steel scything through Green levies in a battle near the Honeywine. Simultaneously, "The Obsidian Guard," another of his elite units, served under a Lannister commander allied with Aegon II, their unbreakable shield-wall turning the tide in a skirmish in the Westerlands. These companies never sought decisive, war-ending victories for their employers. Their orders were to inflict maximum casualties, to ensure battles were bloody and prolonged, and to subtly eliminate any commanders on either side who showed too much competence, too much charisma, or, worst of all, a penchant for seeking negotiated peace. Their reputation grew – fearsome, reliable, utterly ruthless, and mysteriously well-equipped. No one questioned their true origins too closely when victory, or survival, was on the line.
The Faceless Men, coordinated by Argent from his mobile command center, continued their silent, insidious work.
* In Oldtown, a Faceless Man, disguised as a revered elderly Septon, began preaching fiery sermons that subtly twisted the Faith's doctrines, declaring both Targaryen factions accursed for their incestuous lineage and their reliance on "demonic" dragons, thereby fueling peasant unrest and creating a third, chaotic element of popular religious fanaticism that would further destabilize the realm.
* In the Riverlands, where loyalties were deeply divided, Faceless Men posing as envoys from rival lords delivered forged messages, inciting feuds between houses that might otherwise have united, ensuring the region would bleed from a thousand internal cuts.
* One particularly audacious operation involved replacing a key maester in the Citadel, one responsible for historical records and communication between great houses. This new "maester," a Faceless Man of unparalleled intellect and mimicry, began to subtly alter historical accounts sent to various lords, highlighting ancient grievances or fabricating precedents that justified their most aggressive or self-destructive ambitions.
Aizen, as "Maester Valerion," remained a trusted, if enigmatic, advisor in Rhaenyra's Black Council on Dragonstone. He used his position to consistently advocate for the most aggressive strategies, exploiting Rhaenyra's grief and Daemon Targaryen's inherent recklessness. When news of Rhaenys's death and Aegon II's injuries at Rook's Rest arrived, he was the first to counsel against any pause for mourning or regrouping.
"Your Grace," he said to Rhaenyra, his voice resonating with feigned sorrow and righteous anger, "Princess Rhaenys fought as a true dragon of Valyria, a testament to your noble blood. Her sacrifice demands not tears, but vengeance! The Greens are wounded, their king incapacitated. Now is the time to strike, to press your advantage with overwhelming fire and fury! Let the usurper know that the true Queen of Westeros does not falter, does not forgive!"
He "interpreted" dragon dreams (Rhaenyra's own, or those of her children, which he subtly induced with Kyōka Suigetsu's influence) as divine portents urging swift, brutal offensives. He presented "ancient Valyrian stratagems" (of his own invention) that promised glorious victory but invariably led to prolonged, high-casualty engagements. He subtly undermined any voices on the Black Council advocating for caution, diplomacy, or a negotiated settlement, painting them as weak, disloyal, or naive to the "true nature of Green treachery."
His attention was particularly fixed on the dragons. He kept a meticulous mental ledger of each beast, its rider, its temperament, its reported victories and vulnerabilities. He saw them as magnificent, living vessels of primordial power, and their souls as the choicest delicacies in this continental feast. When dragon fought dragon, the spiritual energies released were exponentially greater than those of mere mortal armies. He subtly maneuvered, through his advice to Rhaenyra and his agents' manipulations on the Green side, to make these draconic duels more frequent, more inevitable. Perhaps he would "discover" a prophecy that only a specific dragon pairing could fulfill, or arrange for rival dragonriders with deep personal animosities to "accidentally" encounter each other.
A major turning point Aizen subtly engineered was the Battle of the Gullet. The Blacks, desperate to break the Greens' naval blockade of King's Landing and to secure allies in the Free Cities, planned a major fleet action. Aizen, as Maester Valerion, "discovered" ancient Valyrian naval tactics that promised Rhaenyra's Velaryon fleet a decisive victory, but these tactics involved a risky, dispersed formation that left them vulnerable to a concentrated counter-attack. Simultaneously, through a Faceless Man in the Green council, he fed intelligence that exaggerated the strength of the Velaryon fleet but also highlighted this "new, daring Valyrian formation" as a potential weakness if exploited correctly by a smaller, more agile force.
The result was a catastrophic naval battle in the Gullet, where the Triarchy (Myr, Lys, and Tyrosh, already subtly encouraged by Iron Bank loans to intervene on behalf of the Greens) ambushed the Velaryon fleet. It was a slaughter. Ships burned, thousands drowned, and several young Targaryen princes and their dragons, including Jacaerys Velaryon on Vermax and Viserys II (later king) who was captured, were lost or presumed lost. The souls reaped from this maritime inferno were immense. Rhaenyra was devastated, driven further into grief and a desire for vengeance. The Greens were emboldened, but also suffered significant naval losses, ensuring the war would drag on. Aizen had, with one carefully orchestrated naval disaster, achieved multiple objectives: a massive soul harvest, the elimination of key Black heirs and dragons, and the deepening of the enmity between the factions.
From his Obsidian Spire, where he would often retreat to fully integrate the vast influx of spiritual power and oversee his global machinations, Aizen would commune with Ignis Primus. The colossal magma dragon, its intelligence now rivaling that of any mortal scholar, its power capable of shattering mountains, watched the events in Westeros through Aizen's shared senses with a fiery, predatory interest.
"They burn so brightly, these little Targaryens," Ignis Primus's thoughts would resonate in Aizen's mind. "Their fire is but a pale imitation of the True Flame, yet their passion is… amusing. When will we join their Dance, Master? When will they feel the heat of a true god of fire?"
Aizen would smile, a gesture of divine patience. "All in due time, my First Fire. Their self-immolation is proceeding perfectly according to my design. Your debut must be reserved for a moment of ultimate despair, of exquisite crisis, when their hopes are ash and their souls are primed for the final, grand harvest. Or perhaps," a new thought flickered, "you shall be the instrument of their 'salvation' from a threat even greater than themselves – a threat I shall, of course, provide."
The human cost of the Dance was mounting horrifically. Famine stalked the Riverlands and the Crownlands as armies stripped the countryside bare. Refugees choked the roads. Entire noble houses were extinguished. The Faith preached of the gods' displeasure, of a curse upon the Targaryen line. Aizen observed it all with the detached curiosity of a biologist studying a particularly aggressive ant colony devouring itself. Their suffering was merely the byproduct of their passions, and their passions were the seasoning for the feast of their souls.
His own divinity continued to evolve. The sheer volume and variety of souls – the valor of knights, the despair of peasants, the pride of princes, the ancient fury of dragons – broadened his understanding of existence, refined his control over spiritual energy, and unlocked new depths within the Hōgyoku that was his core. He was becoming less a god of something, and more a god of everything, a being whose power touched upon all aspects of creation and destruction, life and death, order and chaos.
As the Dance of the Dragons raged into its bloodiest phase, with battles like the Fishfeed and the First Tumbleton painting the landscape with gore and dragonfire, Aizen Sōsuke prepared for the crescendo. He had weakened both sides, manipulated their leaders, and positioned his assets perfectly. The greatest duels, the most tragic betrayals, the fall of King's Landing itself – all lay ahead. And he, the unseen god, the true master of this terrible, beautiful Dance, awaited it all with the serene, insatiable hunger of a predator whose prey was joyfully, inexorably, rushing towards its doom. The funeral pyre of House Targaryen was burning bright, and its light illuminated his path to ever greater divinity.