I could not tell exactly how much time had passed.
Perhaps a few weeks.
That was the limit of what I could estimate in my current state.
At first, I could not even properly distinguish day from night. I would think I had opened my eyes, only to fall asleep again; I would close them for what felt like a moment, and the room would already be dark. At other times, I felt I had slept for an unbearably long while, yet the light entering through the window had scarcely changed.
Expecting a newborn to have a normal sense of time had apparently been too much to ask.
Still, some things changed.
The world gradually became clearer.
At first, I could distinguish nothing but light and darkness. Then great blocks of color emerged, and now, if someone came close enough, I could at least tell that their face had eyes, a nose, and a mouth.
Compared with an adult’s eyesight, it was still frustratingly poor.
But the days when I confused people’s faces with walls had passed.
‘I really am a baby.’
I no longer denied it.
That stage was long behind me.
I had suckled, shit myself, and had my arse wiped by other people’s hands more times than I could count. To insist at this point that it was all a hallucination dreamed during a coma would not be reasonable doubt. It would be running from reality.
So I changed my approach.
Why I had been reborn could wait.
I had no data.
I had met no god, and no thunderous voice had bestowed some mission upon me. Nor did a status window float in the air to kindly explain my circumstances.
If I could not trace the cause, I first needed to organize what I could observe.
That was familiar work.
Where was I?
When was I?
And who were the people around me?
The most pressing problem was language.
At first, I had been quietly confident.
I was fairly good at English. My TOEIC score from university was not something I needed to hide, and after entering graduate school, I had read more papers in English than in Korean. I had even attended meetings with an Indian professor for collaborative research several times.
His accent had troubled me at first, but after hearing it a few times, I adapted.
So I thought:
‘It is spoken by people. If I keep listening, surely I will catch something.’
It was arrogance.
The two women standing before me spoke to one another for quite some time.
I focused every shred of attention on my ears.
When one spoke at length, the other gave a brief answer, and sometimes the end of a sentence rose as if she were asking a question. Certain sounds seemed to be repeated by several people.
It was clearly a language.
But I could get no further than that.
‘Where do the words even break apart?’
There were only sounds.
I could not see them written, so I could not even determine where one word ended and the next began. There was no dictionary, and I could not ask what anything meant.
Even when I first learned English, I had at least seen the letters `apple` and learned that they formed a single word.
This was different.
An entire sentence passed from beginning to end as one great mass of sound. Even if I remembered recurring syllables, I had no standard by which to judge whether they were names, verbs, or endings.
After wrestling with it for several days, I suddenly remembered the Indian professor I had worked with in graduate school.
‘Professor.’
I apologized respectfully in my heart.
‘I take back every complaint I made about how hard your pronunciation was to understand.’
That had been English.
Excellent English.
At least I had heard familiar words here and there.
Here, there was nothing.
In the end, I put aside my ambition to decipher the language at once.
Instead, I began observing people.
Actions were simpler than words.
Among them, there was one person whose role was especially easy to infer.
She was often nearby when I woke, and when I cried, she responded before anyone else. Day or night, she picked me up, washed me, put me to sleep, and fed me.
‘She must be my mother.’
If even that was wrong, I would have to reconstruct my assumptions about human society from the ground up.
The day my eyesight had improved enough for me to properly see her face for the first time, I stared at her for a long while.
‘...Wow.’
She was beautiful.
I did not know whether a baby’s vision somehow idealized human faces, but even allowing for that, she was remarkably lovely.
She had a fine face and large eyes, while her dark hair shone when the light caught it. The colors of her skin and eyes were plainly unlike those of the Korean people I had seen all my life.
At first, I naturally thought:
‘She is a foreigner.’
Then I immediately corrected myself.
If I had been born here, then she was a native.
The foreigner had been me in my previous life.
In any case, she was a beautiful mother.
That ought to be a good thing.
Probably.
After looking at her face for a long time, someone else suddenly came to mind.
My mother from my past life.
I could not immediately remember when I had last seen her face. I could not tell whether it had been when I went home or during a video call.
But I remembered the last phone call.
The day I stormed out of the laboratory.
My mobile phone had rung like mad, and the screen had clearly read `Mom`.
I did not answer.
At the time, I had not wanted to speak to anyone. I had no idea what I was supposed to say first about beating up my professor, and I thought I could call after calming down a little.
Then I was hit by a car.
‘...’
Something in one corner of my chest grew strangely tight.
If I really had died, my parents would have been contacted.
They would have learned that I had caused trouble at school.
That I had struck my professor.
And that right afterward, their son—who had not even answered their calls—had been hit by a car and killed in the street.
That had been the end.
‘I should have at least answered the phone.’
Belated regret was useless.
Yet the thought would not leave me.
It was not that I hated the woman holding me now. If she was my mother in this life, she was already someone deeply important to me. She fed and washed me, waking even in the middle of the night whenever I cried.
But apart from that, my mother from my former life was someone else entirely.
That day, I was full and warm, but suddenly the tears burst out.
"Waaah... waaah!"
The woman startled and pulled me more deeply into her embrace.
She softly whispered words I could not understand and slowly patted my back.
I did not know what they meant.
But I knew her hand was warm.
That only made me sadder.
‘I am sorry.’
I did not know to whom I was apologizing.
Perhaps to both of them.
*
The more I watched the people around me, the more one other thing became clear.
This place was strange.
More precisely, it was far too different from the era in which I had lived.
For the first few days, I thought I was in the home of some immensely wealthy family abroad. The rooms were large, the furnishings ornate, and more than one person attended to me.
But as time passed, more and more things appeared that did not fit that explanation.
I never saw an electric lamp.
Lights were lit at night, but their glow was unsteady. Like candles or oil lamps, their brightness flickered with the movement of people and the wind.
The clothes were the same.
The women wore long gowns and dresses that fell to their ankles. Many of the men wore tunic-like garments reinforced with leather or adorned with metal ornaments.
Armed men were common as well.
The swords at their waists did not look like decorations. Their scabbards were worn, and the leather on their hilts was darkened by use.
They were things used in earnest.
For a time, I seriously suspected cosplay.
But there was no reason everyone in the household would remain immersed in their roles for weeks without a day’s rest.
Nor was this a film set.
There were no cameras, no lighting, and no one who looked like a director or crewman.
More than anything, these people lived this way whether anyone watched them or not.
The building itself was peculiar.
Thick walls, great wooden doors, windows, beds and washbasins, metalwork.
There were many fine things, but none possessed the uniformity particular to modern manufactured goods. Even ornaments that appeared identical revealed slight differences in the thickness of their lines and the shapes of their two sides when examined closely.
They bore the marks of handwork.
That did not mean I could immediately declare it the Middle Ages.
I was not a historian.
Much less an expert in the history of clothing.
I had no talent for seeing a collar and naming the century.
Still, when I gathered all that I had observed, one conclusion became increasingly likely.
‘At the very least, this is not the modern age.’
Having already been reincarnated, it was hardly surprising that the era might be different as well.
Even so, I decided to watch a while longer.
I lacked observations.
And in this house, there was one man far more conspicuous than the question of what age this was.
On the days he came, I could recognize it before the door even opened.
The maidservants’ voices lowered first.
Their hands moved faster as they tidied the room, while the armed men guarding the door straightened visibly.
More than anyone, my mother changed.
Normally, she seemed fairly at ease.
But whenever heavy footsteps began drawing near in the corridor, the arm holding me tightened ever so slightly.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
‘He is coming.’
Without realizing it, I too had memorized that sound.
The door opened.
A huge man entered.
The first few times, he had looked no more than a black mass.
Now that my eyesight had improved, it was different.
‘Wow.’
He was monstrously huge.
He was tall, but what struck the eye before that was the thickness of him. His shoulders were absurdly broad and his arms thick.
If I had seen someone like him at the gym in my former life, I would have suspected drugs before asking about his workout routine.
His face suited his build.
It was fierce.
His features were large and rough, and he bore scars as well.
‘What sort of man is he?’
Whenever he entered the room, everyone lowered their heads.
Some even bent deeply at the waist.
When the man gave a brief order, someone moved at once.
A man with power.
And a great deal of it. I had no need to understand the language to see that.
And there was something else.
My gaze stopped between the right side of his neck and shoulder.
At first, I thought it was an ornament on his clothing.
Then I thought it was a hump.
I wondered whether it might be a tumor.
Only when my sight grew a little clearer did I understand.
There was an eye.
It was nearly shut, but it was clearly there.
There was a nose too.
And a mouth.
‘...A face?’
A small human face was attached between the man’s neck and shoulder.
One familiar word suddenly sprang to mind.
Parasitic twin.
I could not remember the exact medical term. I only knew that among conjoined twins, there were cases where one twin failed to develop properly and remained attached to the other’s body.
It could happen.
It would be extraordinarily rare, but surely not biologically impossible.
Just as I was about to reach that reasonable conclusion, a memory utterly unacademic leapt forth.
A gigantic body.
A savage face.
Two heads.
‘...Cho’gall?’
I almost laughed.
Then I stopped.
The real thing was far too frightening.
‘Fuck, he really looks like Cho’gall.’
And then this Cho’gall came straight toward me.
‘Why are you coming over here?’
The man did not speak long with my mother.
He asked something brief and heard her answer.
Then he always looked at me.
It was not merely a glance at my face. He examined my head and neck, pulled aside the cloth wrapped around me, and checked my shoulders and limbs.
His gaze lingered especially long on my neck and shoulders.
‘What is he examining?’
At first, I thought he might serve some role akin to a physician.
But I had never seen him do this to anyone else.
That day, after staring at me for a while, the man held out his hands.
‘Ah.’
I did not like that.
After experiencing it a few times, I knew for certain.
This man was damned terrible at holding babies.
My mother hesitated briefly before handing me over.
The man did seem to be trying to take care.
The trouble was that he did not know how.
He supported my back.
But my neck was held awkwardly.
The back of my head tipped slightly backward.
‘Hey.’
I tried moving my body.
My position became even stranger.
‘My neck. Support my neck.’
Of course, he could not understand me.
He looked down at me as if he did not understand why I was squirming.
In the end, my body protested first.
"Waaaaah!"
His brow furrowed.
He said something in a low, thick voice.
Judging from his expression, it certainly was not anything kind.
‘What are you looking at?’
I cried louder.
"Waaah, waaah!"
This time, my mother quickly began speaking.
Her tone was a little stronger than usual.
The man looked at her.
My mother was afraid.
Held so close to her, I could tell.
But she did not retreat.
She touched the back of her own neck, then pointed to the man’s hand.
Only then did he look down at me.
He seemed to think for a moment, then shifted the placement of his hands.
The back of my head and neck were properly supported.
‘Ah.’
It was much more comfortable.
My crying gradually subsided.
The man looked at me, then at his own hand, then back at me.
His expression was strange.
I could not tell whether he was annoyed or bewildered.
‘Yes. That is how you do it.’
Before long, I was back in my mother’s arms.
The man did not stay long.
Everyone in the room remained tense until he went out, and only after he vanished down the corridor did the air loosen a little.
I looked at the closed door.
One possibility naturally came to mind.
‘Surely not.’
I rejected it at once.
‘No, it cannot be.’
He might be the highest-ranking person in this house.
He could be my mother’s kinsman, or an elder of the household.
Perhaps I was important for some reason, and he was personally checking on my condition.
There were many possibilities.
There was no reason to conclude he was my father.
I thought that way for several days.
Then that man came again.
Again he examined me, and again he held me.
This time, he supported my neck correctly from the beginning.
‘...At least he learns.’
He was still dreadful at holding a baby, but at least my head no longer fell backward.
When I fussed because I was slightly uncomfortable, his expression soured again.
My mother said something.
He shut his mouth.
After similar incidents repeated several times, it became increasingly difficult to find a counterexample.
I had never once seen him show such concern for another child.
Nor did the relationship between my mother and that man seem like an ordinary one between a master and a maidservant.
More than anything, the man took an excessive interest in me.
I did not know whether liking me was the right word.
I was not yet certain that someone with that face was capable of liking people.
But he did care.
Eventually, one day as I lay in my cradle staring up at the ceiling, I admitted it.
‘...Fuck.’
It was a conclusion I very much disliked.
‘I think Cho’gall really is my father.’
My father from my former life came to mind.
He had been an ordinary man.
He watched the news in the evenings and went hiking on weekends. When his son said he was entering graduate school, he had been pleased at first, but after several years, he asked whenever we met when I would graduate.
It had annoyed me then.
Now, that seemed like nothing at all.
‘Father.’
I spoke with utmost seriousness in my heart.
‘Thank you for everything.’
It was true that people only understood what was precious after losing it.
My father in my past life had one head.
That fact alone suddenly felt like an enormous virtue.
*
Not long after, the man I presumed to be my father brought something strange.
More precisely, he did not carry it himself.
A man following behind him entered, holding a small bronze brazier in both hands.
Charcoal glowed red inside it.
At first, I thought it was an incense burner or a brazier for warmth. Such things were not uncommon here.
But something rested atop the brazier.
It was round and long.
And large.
‘...An egg?’
I stared at it for a long time.
Its dark-red surface was layered with patterns that looked like scales. Whenever the firelight shifted, smooth patches and rough ones appeared in turn.
An ostrich egg?
By size alone, it looked about that large, perhaps a little larger.
But no ostrich egg I knew had looked like that.
Nor had a crocodile egg.
‘Is it an ornament?’
That was at least more realistic.
This house had many ornaments whose purpose I did not know.
The question was why they had put it over a fire.
At the man’s brief command, the brazier was placed only a few steps from my cradle.
I looked back and forth between the egg and brazier.
‘Will it not cook like that?’
Charcoal burned inside the bronze brazier.
Yet the egg did not directly touch the charcoal. It rested on a separate stand above the brazier, some distance from the fire.
In that case, radiant heat from the heated charcoal and brazier, along with convection from the hot air rising upward, would contribute more than conductive heat transmitted through the stand.
I briefly studied the brazier’s structure.
‘...’
Then reality suddenly hit me.
‘What am I doing right now?’
With a body only a few weeks old, I was analyzing heat transfer into a mysterious egg.
Still, once I had begun watching it, I found it hard to look away.
They did not stoke the fire fiercely.
The charcoal was always kept at roughly the same level.
After a day or two, it became clearer.
At regular times, people changed the charcoal, and if the fire grew too strong, they removed some. Sometimes they even carefully lifted the egg and turned it.
‘Are they trying to maintain a constant temperature?’
If so, its purpose was not decoration.
It was probably not cooking, either.
They were keeping the heat even, even turning the object being heated.
‘Are they trying to hatch it?’
It was possible.
The problem was what might emerge from it.
No creature in my knowledge laid an egg of that size with such a shell.
‘I do not know.’
Insufficient information.
Conclusion deferred.
In any event, I had time in abundance.
I could not read books, and let alone use the internet, I could not freely pick up even a sheet of paper. Nor did I have hands fit to make anything.
Observing a mysterious egg was an excellent pastime.
At night especially, it was strange.
When the lights in the room dimmed, the brazier’s red glow slowly moved over the dark-red shell. Because of its scale-like patterns, sometimes the entire surface seemed alive.
Of course, it was most likely an illusion.
That was what I thought.
There was another change that troubled me more.
Cho’gall’s visits became less frequent.
At first, I was happy.
‘He has not come lately.’
It was peaceful.
I no longer had to feel my life threatened in his clumsy arms.
But the entire household grew busier instead.
More armed men passed through the corridors. The sounds of leather and steel striking each other continued into the night, and people bearing spears, swords, and shields came and went without cease.
Outside, I heard horses more often than before.
Countless crates were moved as well.
On some days, unfamiliar men came in, spoke for hours, and left.
My mother changed too.
She spent longer standing by the window and looking outside, and sometimes she received and read letters before sitting silently for a long while.
‘Is there a war or something?’
At first, it had been half a joke.
But the more I saw, the less it felt like one.
The increase in armed men.
The supplies being moved.
My mother’s anxiety.
And the frequent absence of the man who seemed to be highest in the household.
If not war, something akin to it was happening.
Then, one day, those familiar footsteps sounded again.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
‘It has been a while.’
The door opened.
The man looked different than usual.
Steel showed beneath his clothes.
Armor.
A sword hung at his waist, and a dark cloak fell down his back. In the corridor, fully armed men stood in ranks.
‘Is he really going somewhere?’
That was all I thought.
As always, the man came straight to me.
This time, he did not spend long examining me.
He soon took me into his arms.
He securely supported the back of my head and my neck first.
The hand bracing my back was much more natural than before as well.
I was a little surprised.
‘Oh.’
He has become a proper person.
At least where holding babies was concerned, it was considerable progress.
There was no need to cry.
I quietly looked up at him.
Though my sight had improved, I still could not make out every detail of his face well enough to remember it for a lifetime.
Big.
Rough.
Frightening-looking.
And on his right side, there was one more form that a normal human should not possess.
That was all.
He said something to me.
It was brief.
Naturally, I did not understand it.
Then he brought one thick finger close to my hand.
Without thinking much of it, I grabbed it.
It was so thick that my hand could not even wrap halfway around it.
He did not move for a while.
I only blinked, still gripping his finger.
After some time, he returned me to my mother.
There was no particular farewell.
He spoke another brief word, then turned away.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
His footsteps receded.
‘He is leaving early today.’
I thought he would come again in a few days.
He did not.
*
That man’s name was Maelys Blackfyre.
In Westeros, that name was not known in a good sense.
Rather, he was the kind of man whose name alone gave sufficient reason to close a castle’s gates.
Kinslayer.
Monster.
Both were names Maelys had earned while alive.
In Westeros, kinslaying was not mere murder.
Those who prayed to the Seven in the south and those who swore by the old gods in the North alike shunned anyone who spilled the blood of his own kin. The belief that even if men forgave, the gods remembered had endured across regions and faiths for a very long time.
Maelys killed his cousin.
Not merely by cutting off his head with a sword.
He seized the head of the cousin who opposed him over the Golden Company in both hands and tore it from his body.
The tale spread across the Narrow Sea to Westeros.
And even without the tales of kinslaying, people would have remembered him for a long time.
Because of the small face attached between his right shoulder and neck.
Some called it a twin that had never been born.
Others called it a dead brother.
There were even those who whispered that it was a curse the gods had left in Blackfyre blood.
And so he was named:
Maelys the Monstrous.
Maelys himself cared little for either name.
There was another name he valued.
Blackfyre.
The Black Dragon.
And blood destined one day to become king.
Maelys paused before the door of the birthing chamber.
Soldiers waited outside.
Beyond the palace stood horses, and farther on lay the port of Tyrosh and the ships.
The Golden Company waited as well.
War waited.
Yet before opening the door, he looked down once at his right hand.
He had killed many men with this hand.
It had gripped swords and broken spears. He had once crushed the neck of an armored grown man with one hand.
These two hands had torn his cousin’s head from his body as well.
But until a few weeks ago, he had not known how to properly hold a newborn child.
Maelys did not like that fact.
More displeasing than the fact that there was something he did not know was the fact that he had learned it from a woman.
Still, he had no intention of stubbornly persisting in the wrong way.
It was the same in war.
A commander who repeated the same mistake did not live long.
He opened the door.
Everyone in the birthing chamber bowed at once.
"Your Grace."
Maelys went straight to the child.
The woman held the child in her arms.
When he approached, her arms tensed slightly.
She still feared him.
Only natural.
He did not care.
"Give him to me."
The woman handed over the child.
Maelys supported his neck first.
Now, no one needed to teach him.
The small head rested securely in his palm.
The child did not cry.
Maelys’s gaze naturally moved below the neck.
Right side.
Nothing.
The left was the same.
The shoulders were smooth, and nowhere on his body was there any unnecessary lump of flesh.
He had confirmed it on the first day he saw him.
He had confirmed it many times since.
Yet every time he came, his eyes went there first.
The dead face attached to his own shoulder had been with him so long that he usually could not even feel its weight.
The people of the world were different.
They saw that face before he ever took up a sword.
Before he won victories.
Before he gained an army.
Before he was called king.
Monster.
He had long been accustomed to the word.
But he did not think his son needed to be called by that same name.
That was all.
Maelys looked away from the child.
"He is healthy."
The child’s mother answered.
"Yes, Your Grace."
"Does he feed well?"
The woman looked a little surprised.
It seemed she had not expected him to ask such things.
"Very well."
"Any fever?"
"None."
Maelys nodded.
That was enough.
His gaze shifted to the brazier beside the cradle.
A dark-red dragon egg received heat atop it.
"The fire?"
"As you commanded, we have not let it go out."
"Continue."
"Yes, Your Grace."
There were those who called them dead stones.
They said dragons were finished.
That the last dragon had died long ago, and every remaining egg had become stone, so no matter how much fire they were fed, they would never wake again.
Maelys did not believe it.
Dragons were not finished.
He was alive.
The child was alive too.
The blood of the Black Dragon beat within both their bodies.
If blood remained, fire could return as well.
That was what he believed.
Whether the child understood it did not matter.
One day, he would know.
Whose blood he carried.
What had been taken from him.
What he must reclaim.
Royal blood was not something one chose to receive.
It mounted one’s back from the moment of birth.
Maelys looked down at the child in his arms.
For now, he was a creature unable to control even a single finger as he wished.
But blood did not change.
"You will succeed me."
The child only blinked.
Eyes that understood nothing.
"What I reclaim will be yours."
Maelys supported the child’s back.
"I do not speak of one castle or a few chests of gold."
The child’s small hand moved.
"A kingdom."
His fingertips scratched the back of Maelys’s hand, then seized his thick forefinger.
He let him.
"You are my blood."
There was scarcely enough strength in the child’s grasp to call it strength.
"The name I leave behind me."
The child’s mother bit her lip.
Maelys did not look at her.
"Become a glorious legacy."
It could have sounded like a blessing.
In truth, it was closer to an order.
Maelys did not think about what the child might want.
The heir of a king had duties before desires.
A cautious voice spoke from beside the bed.
"Your Grace."
"Speak."
"Will you be gone long?"
"As long as necessary."
"I heard you were going to the Stepstones."
"I am."
The woman looked at the child.
"And afterward, will you go to Westeros?"
"Yes."
After hesitating for a moment, she asked again.
"Will you return?"
A faint sneer touched Maelys’s lips.
"I have no thought of returning without a throne."
"That is not what I mean."
Maelys turned his eyes toward her.
The woman’s face stiffened.
Still, she did not close her mouth.
"What if the Black Dragon loses again this time?"
The birthing chamber fell silent.
Several maidservants lowered their heads more deeply.
Maelys did not grow angry.
The Black Dragon had risen four times.
Four times, it had fallen.
Cutting down the mouth that spoke facts did not change the past.
He looked down at the child in his arms.
"If I fall, this child remains."
"He knows nothing yet."
"Then he will learn."
"What?"
"Who he is."
There was no hesitation in his voice.
"What was taken from him, and what he must reclaim."
The woman looked at the child.
"What if he does not want it?"
Maelys’s eyes turned toward her again.
It was not that he failed to understand the question.
He failed to understand why she would ask it.
"Does not want it?"
"The cause of the Black Dragon."
Silence passed briefly.
"Blood does not ask your will."
The woman’s expression hardened.
"The moment one is born, some things are already decided."
Maelys held the child a little closer.
"He is my son."
That fact was enough.
"If I fail, he succeeds me."
The woman asked quietly,
"And if he fails as well?"
"Then the blood after him will take up the cause."
The answer was calm to the point of cruelty.
"The Black Dragon is not one man’s name."
The woman said no more.
Maelys returned the child and turned toward the door.
After taking a few steps, he heard her voice again.
"Your Grace."
He stopped.
"Give the child a name."
Maelys did not turn around.
"He has none yet?"
"Today is his twenty-first day."
Only then did he turn his head slightly.
"He has survived."
Children died easily.
They died of fever, died because they could not feed, and sometimes stopped breathing for reasons even a maester could not understand.
For that reason, some delayed naming a child until they believed he had properly set foot in life.
This child had passed twenty-one days.
He was healthy.
He fed well and cried well.
He had survived.
"Please choose a name for him."
Maelys said nothing for a while.
Soldiers waited outside in the corridor.
Ships waited in the harbor.
Beyond the sea, war waited.
Then an old name came to him.
The beginning of the Black Dragon.
The man who had received the king’s sword, been proclaimed king by countless lords, and once come closest to the Iron Throne.
Daemon.
The cousin he had killed bore the same name.
But that name had not belonged to his cousin.
It was far older, and far greater.
The first memory of the lost crown.
"Daemon."
The woman drew a small breath.
Maelys turned to look at her.
"Call him Daemon."
That was all.
There was no kiss.
No lengthy blessing, no farewell.
Maelys left the birthing chamber.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
His great footsteps passed down the corridor and faded away.
Behind him remained his son, the woman, and the dragon egg sleeping atop the brazier.
War lay ahead.
*
The sea could not wash away blood.
Whenever the waves rolled in, dark-red water swept between sand and pebbles. When they drew back into the sea, they dragged away broken spear shafts, arrows, torn scraps of banners, and gloves bereft of owners.
A shield rolled over under the waves.
A crowned black stag stared at the sky from its bloodied wooden face.
The Stepstones.
Rocky islands scattered over the sea.
Ordinarily, it was land whose name even most people would not spare a thought for, save fishermen and pirates.
Today was different.
The army that had crossed from Westeros and the army of the Black Dragon were spilling one another’s guts over those wretched rocks.
Maelys’s sword came down.
His opponent raised a shield.
Steel and wood rang together.
The first blow shook the shield.
The second broke its edge.
When the third fell, the opponent’s stance collapsed.
Maelys immediately rammed into him shoulder first.
The armored knight went sprawling backward.
Before he could rise, the sword point drove into the gap between neck and shoulder.
The scream broke off short.
When Maelys pulled free his sword, blood spilled over his armor.
He did not look back.
The banner of the Black Dragon billowed greatly in the sea wind.
Beneath it, the long spears of the Golden Company advanced as one mass.
"Drive them back!"
Maelys’s voice pierced the clash of steel and the screams.
"Give them no time to crawl back to their ships!"
The sellswords shouted.
They had waited from the very instant the Westerosi host began landing.
The moment when the men left on the ships and those ashore were divided, when men hauling up landing craft and those forming ranks were tangled together.
When they were weakest.
The Golden Company drove into them.
The Westerosi could not even secure their footing on the shore before being forced back. Men continued pouring from the ships behind them, but the narrow beach could not receive all those soldiers at once.
The Black Dragon pressed them from the front.
The sea was behind them.
Maelys was smiling.
It had been a very long time.
In the birthing chamber, everything had to be careful.
The child’s neck was too thin, his body too small, as though he might break if handled with the wrong force.
He had to lessen his strength.
He had to restrain his hands.
The battlefield was different.
Here, there was no need to take care not to break one’s opponent.
If one was strong, one simply swung hard.
If the weak could not block, they died.
He liked that simplicity.
A long spear thrust at his face.
Maelys twisted aside.
The spearhead scraped the side of his armor.
His left hand seized the shaft.
He pulled.
The soldier was dragged forward.
The sword pommel smashed into his face.
Nose and teeth broke together.
Maelys stepped over the falling man and moved on.
The banners of Westeros swayed in the sea wind.
A lion.
A rose.
A crowned stag.
There were the sigils of countless other lords as well.
Men of different lands and names, yet all had come across this sea at the command of one man.
The usurper.
The king of the Red Dragon.
For an instant, a chair wrought from hundreds of entwined blades rose in his mind.
The Iron Throne.
A throne he had never sat upon.
Never even seen with his own eyes.
Yet it was as vivid as though it were his.
What had been taken.
What must be reclaimed.
‘Wait for me.’
Maelys’s sword shattered a soldier’s collarbone.
‘I am coming soon.’
Then, beyond the battle line, the stag’s banner moved forward.
Several soldiers who had been about to flee stopped.
A shout rang out.
"Raise your shields!"
Another shout followed.
"Do not stand with your backs to the ships! Hold the line!"
The crumbling formation gradually took shape again.
The front ranks locked their shields.
Spear points rose behind them.
Men who had fled in terror returned to their places.
Maelys’s eyes moved toward their center.
A large man stood there.
He carried sword and shield, running among his soldiers himself.
He pulled one man to his feet and shoved another back into formation.
A crowned stag badge was pinned to his armor.
Maelys’s mouth curled upward.
The usurper had not come.
He had sent his own hand instead.
"Do not touch that stag."
The nearby sellswords looked at Maelys.
With the point of his bloodied sword, he indicated the man.
"He is mine."
Men moved aside.
The man opposite him spotted Maelys as well.
Their eyes met.
The soldiers fighting between them opened a path little by little, as though none had to tell them to do so.
The sea wind blew.
The Black Dragon and the crowned stag snapped toward one another.
The stag raised his bloodied sword.
"Maelys Blackfyre."
Maelys bared bloodstained teeth.
"The usurper’s Hand knows my name."
Ormund Baratheon spat instead of answering.
Blood mixed with the spittle.
"A kinslayer’s name travels well across the sea."
"Yours will travel too."
Maelys raised his sword.
"After you die today."
Ormund adjusted his grip on his shield.
"The traitor’s seed still has a tongue, I see."
"Come find out whether it is only my tongue that lives."
Ormund charged first.
The first cut came for the face.
Maelys raised his sword to block it.
Steel sprang apart.
Ormund’s blade instantly changed direction.
The flank.
Maelys blocked again.
The third attack dipped low, then thrust for a gap in his armor.
Mail scraped as sparks flew.
Maelys took a step back.
Ormund did not let him go.
He cut again.
This time, Maelys could not evade completely.
The blade’s tip grazed his cheek.
Blood ran.
A brief distance opened between them.
Ormund smiled.
"Your blood is red."
Maelys wiped the blood from his cheek with his thumb.
He looked once at his fingertip.
"So is yours, I expect."
Then he came in at once.
His sword fell from above.
Ormund blocked it.
Bang.
His knees buckled.
The second blow.
This time, the edge of his shield bent.
Ormund clenched his teeth.
Just before the third strike fell, he slipped aside and thrust his sword in.
The blade smashed against Maelys’s shoulder armor.
The steel dented deeply.
Maelys was driven back half a step.
Ormund pressed after him.
His sword moved again.
Maelys did not evade.
He thrust out his left hand.
He seized the wrist holding the sword.
Ormund ground his teeth.
Maelys tightened his fingers.
The wrist twisted.
Ormund dropped his sword.
In that instant, he drove his head forward.
Blood burst from Maelys’s nose.
"Yes."
He smiled.
Ormund smashed an elbow into his jaw.
"Laugh."
Once more.
"Monster."
The laughter stopped.
Ormund saw it.
His gaze went to Maelys’s right shoulder.
The small face.
The lump of flesh that had never been born.
"And you call yourself a dragon looking like that?"
Maelys said nothing.
Ormund breathed hard and spat blood.
"They say you tore your cousin to death with your own hands."
Maelys’s eyes sank.
"Keep wagging that tongue."
"Why?"
Ormund bared his teeth.
"Is it false?"
All around them, men still died.
Swords clashed.
Someone screamed.
A corpse sprawled face-down in the surf.
The two men did not take their eyes from one another.
Ormund spoke.
"You tore off your cousin’s head."
He stepped closer.
"You swallowed the Golden Company too."
Another step.
"So did that make you king?"
Maelys’s sword slowly lowered.
Ormund’s laughter grew louder.
"No, it did not."
Maelys dropped his sword.
Steel struck stone.
The look in Ormund’s eyes changed.
"The crown is still across the sea."
Maelys walked toward him.
Ormund drew the dagger at his waist.
"You tore off your cousin’s head, yet could not tear away the throne."
The dagger darted forward.
Maelys knocked aside his wrist.
A massive hand closed around Ormund’s throat.
His back slammed into a shattered hull.
"Ghk!"
Maelys lifted him with one hand.
The feet of an armored grown man rose from the ground.
Ormund seized his wrist.
He clawed at it with his fingers.
He kicked with his feet.
Maelys did not budge.
He brought his face close.
"Are you finished?"
Ormund’s face reddened.
Every attempt to draw breath let out a strangled sound from his throat.
Still, he smiled.
"With... two heads..."
His breath failed.
Again, he forced the words out.
"Did you think... you would get two crowns too?"
Maelys’s fingers dug deeper into his throat.
"Go on."
Even in agony, Ormund did not abandon his sneer.
"Your cousin is pitiful."
Maelys’s eyes turned cold.
"Why?"
"Even after dying at the hands of a bastard like you..."
Ormund bared bloodied teeth.
"...he never became king."
A moment passed.
"Neither did you."
Maelys did not smile.
The hand around Ormund’s throat tightened further.
"My cousin’s tongue stayed lively to the very end as well."
Ormund gasped.
"So?"
"I tore off his head."
Maelys’s voice was low.
"His tongue came away with it."
Blood vessels bulged in Ormund’s eyes.
But he still did not let go.
Clutching Maelys’s wrist, he twisted his body with his last remaining strength.
"Do it."
Hardly any sound came out.
"Kinslayer."
Maelys’s left hand moved toward Ormund’s chest.
He seized the badge of the Hand.
Cloth tore.
The metal pin was ripped free.
Maelys looked down once at the bloodied badge.
"The usurper’s Hand."
Ormund raised his eyes.
Maelys looked at him again.
"Your master extended his hand."
His grip tightened.
The neck bones held.
Only for a moment.
A dull crack sounded.
Strength left Ormund’s body.
Maelys did not stop.
He twisted once more.
This time there was a definite sound.
Ormund Baratheon’s head bent at an unnatural angle.
Maelys let go.
The corpse fell onto the stones.
Its knees struck first, and then its body collapsed to one side.
Its eyes remained open.
It would never breathe again.
Maelys looked down at him for a moment.
The usurper’s Hand.
Lord of Storm’s End.
The strongest stag of the Stormlands.
A man who moments ago had rallied thousands of soldiers now lay sprawled between blood and seawater.
That was the battlefield.
Even the strong died when their necks broke.
Great names were no different.
Maelys held the badge of the Hand in his fist.
Then a cry of anguish erupted beyond the battle line.
"Father!"
A young man came running.
The same stag adorned his armor.
Knights tried to seize him, but he threw them off.
He dropped to his knees beside Ormund’s corpse.
"Father."
He lifted the body.
One hand supported the head, the other cradled the nape.
But the neck was already angled in a way no living man’s neck could be.
"Father!"
There was no answer.
The young man’s face twisted.
Maelys watched him for a moment.
A son held his dead father.
It was not an uncommon sight on a battlefield.
Yet strangely, the birthing chamber in Tyrosh came to mind.
A little head that could be supported in a single palm.
The neck that had tipped backward because he supported it wrongly the first time he held the child.
After that, it was always the first place he put his hand.
And the little hand that could not properly wrap around even one of his fingers.
Daemon.
Maelys’s gaze stopped briefly.
Then he returned to the battle.
There would be time for sentiment after he survived.
He raised the bloodied badge of the Hand high.
"The usurper’s Hand is dead!"
The nearby men of the Golden Company lifted their heads.
Maelys pointed at Ormund’s corpse.
"The stag is dead!"
A roar erupted.
At first, it came from only a few close by.
Then dozens.
Hundreds.
"The Black Dragon!"
"For the Black Dragon!"
"For King Maelys!"
The sound covered the shore.
News of Ormund’s death spread faster than spears could fly.
The battle line he had barely restored moments before began to waver once more.
Someone in the front rank stepped back.
The soldier beside him was pushed back as well.
When one place broke, fear flowed through the gap.
The men behind, not even knowing what had happened, saw the soldiers before them flee and turned to run with them.
The formation collapsed in an instant.
The Golden Company would not let such an opening pass.
Long spears pushed forward.
Maelys watched the scene.
The sea wind carried the smells of salt and blood together.
Above him, the banner of the Black Dragon snapped violently.
Beyond it lay the sea.
Farther still lay Westeros.
And at the heart of that land stood a throne made of hundreds of swords.
Today, he had broken the usurper’s hand.
Next, he would cut off the arm.
At last, he would seize the heart.
Maelys opened his palm.
The badge of the Hand lay there.
Blood pooled in every groove.
‘Daemon.’
His son’s name came to mind.
He had said he would leave him a kingdom.
He had commanded him to become a glorious legacy.
Maelys looked west.
At that moment, he did not consider even slightly the possibility that he might fail to keep that promise.
Even the usurper’s Hand lay dead at his feet.
How could the usurper be any different?
Maelys picked up the sword he had dropped on the stones.
"Pursue them."
The Golden Company moved.
"Drive them into the sea."
The banner of the Black Dragon moved forward.
That day, the sea around the Stepstones remained red for a long while.
Great chapter