Chapter 2: The Pyre of Ambition
Summerhall rose from the rolling hills of the Dornish Marches like a dream of Old Valyria, its white towers and graceful arches a testament to Targaryen artistry and wealth. It was a place of joy, of respite, a summer palace designed for pleasure, not the grim theatre of dynastic desperation it was about to become. Vaelyx, now seven years of age, took it all in with his customary quietude, his pale lilac eyes missing nothing. The air itself seemed to thrum with a nervous energy, a stark contrast to the festive banners fluttering in the warm breeze.
His grandfather, King Aegon V, was a man consumed. His every gesture, every word, was imbued with a desperate fervor. He saw dragons in the flickering flames of every hearth, heard their roars in the sighing of the wind. The Seven, the prophecy, the restoration of Targaryen might – these were the litanies that played ceaselessly in his mind, a fact Vaelyx confirmed with a brief, almost contemptuous brush of Legilimency against the old King's surprisingly unguarded thoughts.
Prince Duncan, Aegon's eldest surviving son and heir before Jaehaerys, was present, his common-born wife Jenny of Oldstones beside him. Duncan the Strong, they called him, tall and formidable like his namesake, the Lord Commander. He exuded a quiet skepticism, a weariness that Vaelyx found… sensible, if ultimately irrelevant. Ser Duncan the Tall, the Lord Commander himself, was a mountain of a man, his loyalty to Aegon etched into every line of his weathered face. He moved with a practiced ease, his presence a comforting bulwark for the anxious King.
Aerys, Vaelyx's twin, was practically vibrating with excitement. His eyes, a deeper, more restless shade of purple than Vaelyx's, darted everywhere, particularly towards the roped-off area where the royal pyromancers were making their arcane preparations. He peppered everyone with questions about wildfire, about the heat required to hatch dragons, his voice already carrying the sharp, impatient edge that would later curdle into true mania.
"Will they breathe fire the moment they hatch, Father?" Aerys asked Jaehaerys, tugging at his sleeve. "Will they be as big as Balerion?"
Jaehaerys, looking strained, patted his son's head. "Patience, Aerys. These are mysteries even the maesters do not fully comprehend."
Vaelyx, standing slightly apart, feigned absorption in a tapestry depicting the Dance of the Dragons. He already craves their destructive power, he noted internally, not their majesty, nor their strategic value. Predictable.
The "dragon eggs" – Vaelyx's flawless transfigurations – were transported with solemn ceremony to a specially constructed dais within the great hall of Summerhall. They lay on cushions of black velvet, looking for all the world like the priceless artifacts they were meant to be. Vaelyx watched, a ghost of a smile playing on his lips, as maesters and sages leaned close, murmuring about their luster, their perfect form. No one suspected. His magic had held. His cautious nature had ensured he'd practiced the Transfiguration for months, imbuing the stone with subtle, illusory warmth that would dissipate slowly, mimicking a living thing cooling. By now, they were cool to the touch, which would be attributed to the journey or the inherent mystery of such ancient things.
His own suitcase, containing the true future of House Targaryen, was never far. Shrunken to the size of a small book using Voldemort's familiar spells, it was tucked into an inner pocket of his tunic. He could feel its slight weight, a constant reassurance.
The days leading up to the ritual were a flurry of activity. Alchemists consulted ancient texts, pyromancers mixed their volatile substances, and King Aegon prayed openly to any gods who might listen, Valyrian or otherwise. Vaelyx used the time to subtly explore Summerhall, mapping its exits, its hidden passages, his mind a cold engine of calculation. He brushed his Legilimency against the minds of the key players. The pyromancers were a mixed bag: some genuinely skilled, others charlatans, all of them nervous. They were using far too much wildfire, far too close to flammable materials, in their desperate attempt to generate the cataclysmic heat Aegon believed necessary.
"It is said that only with fire and blood can dragons be born anew," Aegon declared at a tense family dinner, his eyes blazing with conviction. He looked at his assembled kin, at his pregnant daughter-in-law Shaera, at his grandchildren. "A great sacrifice may be required, but from its ashes, glory will rise!"
Your sacrifice, Grandfather, not mine, Vaelyx thought, carefully schooling his features into an expression of childish awe. And the glory will be entirely my own.
On the appointed day, the Great Hall was sealed. Only the royal family, key members of their household, the officiants, and a few select guards, including Ser Duncan the Tall, were permitted entry. The seven stone eggs lay upon their pyre-like altar. The air was thick with incense and an undercurrent of chemical sharpness from the wildfire.
Aegon V, dressed in robes of Targaryen red and black, began the incantations, his voice ringing with a hope so profound it was almost painful to witness – for anyone capable of feeling such sympathy. Vaelyx felt only a clinical detachment, watching a chain of events he had foreseen, and in one crucial aspect, manipulated.
The pyromancers ignited the base of the ritual structure. At first, the flames were controlled, licking upwards, casting dancing shadows on the high, vaulted ceiling. Chants filled the air. Aerys watched, mesmerized, a strange, almost ecstatic expression on his young face. Vaelyx positioned himself near a sturdy stone archway, slightly away from the main congregation, his hand instinctively covering the pocket containing his shrunken suitcase.
Then, the shift. A sudden, violent whoosh as a cache of wildfire, improperly stored or perhaps simply too volatile, ignited prematurely. A wave of greenish-white flame erupted sideways, engulfing a section of the hall with terrifying speed. Screams pierced the air.
"The wildfire!" a pyromancer shrieked, before being consumed.
Panic erupted. The controlled ritual dissolved into a maelstrom of fire and terror. The green flames spread with unnatural hunger, leaping from tapestries to wooden beams, the heat intensifying to an unbearable degree.
King Aegon V, his face a mask of horrified disbelief, stumbled back, his robes catching fire. "No! It was meant to be… controlled!"
Ser Duncan the Tall, roaring, charged towards his King, attempting to beat out the flames, but another gout of wildfire cut him off, trapping them both. Vaelyx watched them burn, the legendary Lord Commander and the King who dreamt too big, their screams swallowed by the inferno. It was… efficient.
Prince Duncan and his wife Jenny were caught near the altar, trying to shield each other. They vanished in a furious conflagration.
Vaelyx felt the searing heat even from his relatively sheltered position. A flaming beam crashed down near him. With a flick of his will, faster than thought, he projected a silent, invisible Protego fragment, deflecting the worst of the debris. To any observer, if there had been one not consumed by their own survival, it would have looked like a near miss, a lucky chance.
His father, Jaehaerys, had grabbed Shaera, who was screaming Aerys's name. Vaelyx saw his twin, Aerys, not retreating, but standing transfixed, his face illuminated by the hellish green light, a terrifying smile plastered on his lips. He was giggling. Giggling, as the world burned around him.
The madness takes root early, Vaelyx noted, a sliver of ice in his own veins. This was useful. This was exploitable.
Jaehaerys, a look of utter horror on his face as he saw his son's reaction, finally managed to grab Aerys, dragging him towards a smaller, secondary exit that Vaelyx had noted earlier. Rhaella, Aerys's younger sister, was already with them, pale and weeping.
Vaelyx, ensuring his suitcase was still secure, followed, moving with a speed and agility that belied his age, the chaos his cloak. He saw his chance as they scrambled through the narrow passage. A section of the roof above the main hall, where the fake eggs were, groaned and then collapsed inwards with a deafening roar, sending up a plume of smoke and cinders.
Perfect. The "eggs" were now irretrievably lost, buried under tons of burning rubble. The narrative was complete.
Outside, the scene was one of utter pandemonium. Servants and guards ran screaming, the beautiful pleasure palace transforming into a monstrous funeral pyre. The surviving Targaryens – Jaehaerys, Shaera, Aerys, Rhaella, and Vaelyx – stumbled out into the smoke-filled air, gasping for breath. Jaehaerys, his face streaked with soot and tears, stared back at the inferno that had claimed his father, his brother, and the hope of their House.
"All gone," he choked out, his voice raw with grief. "The eggs… the King… Duncan…"
Shaera was sobbing, clutching a strangely silent Aerys, whose eyes still reflected the dancing green flames. Rhaella clung to her mother, trembling.
Vaelyx allowed himself to look appropriately shocked, his small body shaking – a carefully controlled tremor. He even managed to squeeze out a few tears, the actor in him taking over. "Grandfather…" he whispered, his voice laced with a child's convincing sorrow.
Jaehaerys pulled him into a rough embrace. "We live, Vaelyx. We live. That is all that matters now."
For you, perhaps, Father, Vaelyx thought, his face buried in Jaehaerys's smoke-stained tunic. For me, what matters is what I carry in my pocket.
The journey back to King's Landing was a grim, silent affair. Jaehaerys, now by tragic default King Jaehaerys II Targaryen, was a broken man, thrust onto the Iron Throne in a crucible of fire and death. The weight of a kingdom, and the crushing loss of his family and their most cherished dream, aged him visibly in days.
King's Landing received the news with stunned horror. A pall fell over the city. The bells tolled for the dead King, for the lost prince, for the legendary knight, and for the last hope of dragons.
Jaehaerys II's coronation was a somber, muted event, starkly contrasting the usual Targaryen grandeur. He was a reluctant king, his reign born from ashes. Vaelyx watched his father, now his king, struggle with the burdens of rule, his grief a constant shadow. It made him weak, Vaelyx assessed. A good man, perhaps, but not a strong king. His reign would be short, the fan-memory insisted. More opportunity.
Aerys was… changed. The giggling in the inferno had subsided, replaced by a sullen, brooding silence, punctuated by sudden bursts of temper. His fascination with fire, however, had clearly intensified. He would spend hours staring into fireplaces, and more than once, Vaelyx caught him trying to set small things alight. The maesters called it a trauma response. Vaelyx knew it was the blossoming of a terrible hunger.
Vaelyx himself cultivated the image of the quiet, traumatized young prince. He spoke little, stayed mostly in the library or his chambers, and flinched convincingly at loud noises or sudden flashes of light. It earned him pity and, more importantly, allowed him to be largely ignored. This was ideal.
In the privacy of his chambers, or more often, deep within the expanded, soundproofed sanctuary of Newt Scamander's suitcase, he was anything but traumatized. He was exultant.
The seven real dragon eggs rested in a specially prepared habitat he was slowly constructing within the suitcase – a volcanic, obsidian-lined cave, magically warmed to a consistent, intense heat. Voldemort's memories contained extensive knowledge of creating and maintaining magically controlled environments, and even some obscure texts on reptilian creatures and their needs, though dragons of this scale were new territory. He knew it would take more than just heat. The stories spoke of blood magic, of sacrifice. He filed that away for later. For now, incubation was key.
He redoubled his magical practice. His control over non-verbal spells became absolute. He experimented with Voldemort's darker arts, careful to avoid anything that might leave a detectable trace on his soul – if such things were even monitored in this new world. He honed his Legilimency, subtly probing the minds of the courtiers, the Small Council members, even his own family. He learned their fears, their ambitions, their secrets. Knowledge was power, and he was amassing an arsenal.
Years passed. King Jaehaerys II ruled with a gentle, melancholic hand. His health, never robust, began to fail under the strain. Aerys grew taller, more arrogant, his moods increasingly erratic. He was obsessed with the idea of Targaryen purity, fueled by old prophecies his father still clung to, and it was decided he would marry his sister, Rhaella, to keep the bloodline pure. Rhaella, a gentle soul, seemed resigned to her fate. Vaelyx watched it all, a silent, calculating shadow.
His plan for Essos was solidifying. He would need funds, a pretext for leaving, and a way to transport his growing hoard – particularly the dragons, if he could hatch them. He would turn eighteen in a few years. That would be his target. Adulthood, and freedom.
The tragedy of Summerhall had been a monumental success. The world believed the dragons were gone forever. His family was weakened, vulnerable. And he, Vaelyx Targaryen, the forgotten twin, held the future in his hands, biding his time, waiting for the opportune moment to unleash his own, far more terrifying, fire and blood upon an unsuspecting Westeros. The game of thrones was long, and he had all the patience of a serpent coiled to strike.