bookbashuk Chapter 1 Blood and Fire
Chapter 1 Blood and Fire
287 years after the conquest, Braavos, three years after the fall of the Targaryen dynasty.
Eleven-year-old Viserys Targaryen clutched his three-year-old sister Daenerys's hand as they desperately fled through the narrow alley. He was panting heavily, each breath feeling like a knife cutting into his skin. Daenerys staggered along, her little hand turning white from his grip.
The footsteps behind me were neither hurried nor slow.
The hunter is enjoying the hunt.
Viserys looked up, his heart sinking. A dead end. At the end of the alley was a high wall beyond which lay the canal. He could climb over it alone, but Daenerys couldn't. There was no time.
"Dani".
He crouched down and pushed his sister behind a collapsed wooden crate, which leaned against the wall and just big enough to fit a child.
"Close your eyes and cover your ears."
Daenerys looked up at him, her purple eyes brimming with tears, but they didn't fall.
"...And you?" Her voice trembled.
"I'll be back soon. Close your eyes, cover your ears, and don't come out no matter what you hear. Promise me."
Daenerys looked into his eyes and nodded, then covered her ears with her small hands and closed her eyes tightly.
Viserys stood up, biting the dagger, stepped back, kicked off the wall, and rubble fell down. He rolled over and squatted on the three-meter-high wall, his back against the eaves, hiding in the shadows, his heart pounding painfully against his ribs.
Footsteps drew closer.
A person.
He took the dagger and gripped the hilt tightly with both hands.
The person in the dark cloak walked into the alley with unhurried steps, a confidence that only someone who controls the life and death of their prey possesses. The person walked straight past the wooden crates without stopping, reaching the base of the low wall.
Viserys lunged down.
They're gambling with their lives.
The knife tip struck his neck with a dull thud, like leather ripping, then plunged in, scalding liquid splashing all over his face, accompanied by a metallic, pungent stench.
The man reacted incredibly fast, kicking him in the chest. Viserys flew through the air, his back slamming against the wall. Everything went black, and he couldn't hear anything anymore. He could only open his mouth like a fish out of water.
The cloaked man staggered a few steps, clutching his neck tightly. Blood gushed out from between his fingers. He reached for his dagger but collapsed to his knees, face down on the cobblestone ground. Blood slowly seeped into the cracks between the stones.
Viserys leaned against the wall, staring intently at the corpse.
There was no movement for a long time.
Only then did he dare to breathe heavily, enduring the tearing pain in his chest as he got up and walked to the wooden box.
"It's alright, Dani, it's over."
Daenerys lowered her hand and opened her eyes, her lips trembling, but she still didn't cry.
Viserys pulled her out from behind the crate, positioned her with her back to the corpse, and then knelt down beside the dead body and turned it over. There were no badges, no purse, nothing at all.
Except for a leather cord, which hung around her neck with a pendant at the end.
He held the pendant up to the moonlight.
My heart skipped a beat.
Dragon bones, he recognized them.
Only the Valyrian Dragon King would use dragon bones for ornaments, the size of a thumb, engraved with runes he had never seen before, smooth on the surface with worn edges, a very old thing. This thing shouldn't be in the alleys of Braavos, much less hanging around the neck of an assassin chasing him.
He ripped the leather cord, stuffed the pendant into his pocket, pulled the dagger from the corpse's neck, wiped it clean, and sheathed it. Only then did he notice that the hood had slipped down, revealing a woman's profile.
Without a second thought, he grabbed Daenerys and prepared to leave; they had to find a new hiding place before dawn.
A low chanting sounded behind me.
Each syllable was slurred so tightly that the air seemed to tighten, like fingernails scraping against glass.
Viserys whirled around, his pupils contracting sharply. The woman with the pierced neck was slowly rising from the ground, her movements stiff and eerie, as if her spine were being lifted by invisible threads. The wound on her neck was still gruesome, but no longer bleeding; its edges were an unnatural grayish-white, and crimson flames flickered in her pupils.
A cold hand gripped Viserys's neck.
He was lifted into the air with his feet off the ground, and his vision began to darken.
"...Run." He squeezed out a single word.
Daenerys did not run away.
She screamed as she picked up the dagger Viserys had dropped from the ground, gripping the hilt with both hands and pointing the tip at the woman. She was trembling all over, the blade wobbling wildly, her feet seemingly rooted to the ground.
"Let him go!" she cried, her voice shrill and high-pitched. "Let my brother go!"
The woman glanced at her, then turned back to stare at Viserys.
"The blood of a true dragon," she said sarcastically, "cowering in the gutter like a rat."
She glanced at the knife in Daenerys's hand and scoffed.
She pulled Viserys in front of her, a mocking smile playing on her lips: "Burn, beggar king. Prove you're not ashes."
I'm going to die, Dani.
A surge of scalding power welled up from the depths of Viserys's blood, the sensation of magma flowing into his veins spreading to his limbs and bones, and his right hand suddenly burst into flames.
The woman, in pain, let go and threw him to the ground.
Viserys scrambled to his feet and snatched the dagger from Daenerys's hand. Flames coated the Valyrian steel, turning the blade from dark to dark red and then to a dazzling orange-red, while the ruby on the hilt emitted a golden-white light.
The dragon bone pendant in my pocket was simultaneously getting hot and shiny.
"Go to hell!"
He plunged the dagger deep into the woman's heart.
The flames instantly engulfed her. The surrounding space trembled violently, tearing open a dark rift. Unfamiliar scenes flashed through the rift: lakes, castles, forests. The woman, disintegrating in the flames, looked at him and uttered a string of broken syllables. It wasn't a language he could understand, but each word struck him like a stone, shaking his very soul.
It's a curse, or a prophecy.
The rift suddenly expanded, and the suction swept everything away. Viserys desperately grabbed Daenerys's hand, and the two of them were swallowed by the darkness.
Icy.
Consciousness is scattered the moment it hits the water's surface, only to reassemble instinctively.
Water, water everywhere, icy coldness pressed against him from all sides, his right hand gripping Daenerys tightly.
Viserys opened his eyes, the stinging tears making them hurt. There was light above him. He pulled Daenerys uphill, his lungs already empty, choked shut in the alley, leaving only suffocation burning his chest. The flame in his right hand had died down, but his palm was still burning.
The water surface is getting closer and closer.
Finally, it broke through.
He gasped for breath, the air feeling like knives cutting into his lungs.
The two floated on the lake, surrounded by deep, frigid water. In the distance, morning mist shrouded the mountains, and a majestic castle stood atop a cliff, its towers reaching into the clouds—a place so unfamiliar it made his heart pound. He searched his memory but could not find where this castle belonged.
It's not Braavos, not Essos, not Westeros.
He carried the unconscious Daenerys, enduring the pain in his chest, and swam to shore. The two collapsed on the grass, soaked and shivering from the cold.
Viserys looked down at his right hand.
A rune branded with flames appeared in his palm, identical to the pattern on the dragon bone pendant in his pocket, and it was faintly warm.
At the same moment, at the lakeside castle, in front of the window of the tallest tower.
Albus Dumbledore opened his eyes.
On the windowsill in front of him, a magical artifact that had been dormant for a thousand years emitted a faint golden-red light for the first time.