Chapter 15: The Appointed Hour
The raven found Prince Aemond Targaryen in the smoldering ruins of what had once been the town of Fairmarket. He stood beside Vhagar, the great she-dragon's bronze chest stained with soot, her breath still steaming in the chill air. He was not a prince; he was a figure from a tapestry of hell, his armor blackened, his single sapphire eye a beacon of cold fire in a face gaunt with rage and sleeplessness. He took the scroll from the terrified maester, his gauntleted hand steady.
He read the words, and for the first time in weeks, a sound other than a curse or a command escaped his lips. He laughed. It was not the sound of mirth, but the grating, joyless sound of a fanatic whose darkest prayer has just been answered.
"He has spirit, I will grant him that," Aemond said to his captain, a grim-faced knight named Ser Willis Fell. "The old worm has spirit."
"My prince?" Ser Willis asked, approaching cautiously. "News from the capital?"
"Better," Aemond declared, holding up the scroll as if it were a holy relic. "News from the abyss itself. My dear uncle, Daemon, tires of his new castle. He has invited me to a duel. He summons me to Harrenhal to 'end this dance.'" He laughed again, a wild, unhinged sound that made Vhagar stir restlessly.
"A duel?" Ser Willis paled. "Against Caraxes? My prince, it is a trap! Why would he offer single combat when he commands a power that can melt armies?"
"Because he is arrogant!" Aemond proclaimed, his eye shining with manic glee. "He thinks his shadow-player, his pet demon, makes him invincible. He thinks he can lure me into his haunted castle and spring his true trap." He turned and patted Vhagar's colossal, scaled leg. "He does not understand. I am not walking into his trap. He has walked into mine. I burned this kingdom to draw out the monster, and now its master has come to answer the call personally. Today, we do not merely kill a traitor. We kill the hand that guides him."
He strode towards his dragon, his purpose absolute. "Send a raven to my mother. Tell her… tell her the hour is at hand. Ser Willis, you will take what remains of our forces and march for King's Landing. Your prince has an appointment to keep."
"My prince, you cannot face him alone!" the knight protested.
Aemond paused, halfway to Vhagar's wing. He looked back, and for a moment, the madness in his eye cleared, replaced by a look of profound, weary certainty. "I have never been more alone, Ser Willis. That is the point." He finished his climb and settled into the saddle. "Today," he whispered to the great dragon beneath him, "we hunt a god."
In King's Landing, Aemond's message arrived like a death sentence. The Green Council gathered in a state of barely controlled panic.
"He has accepted?" Otto Hightower's voice was a strangled whisper. He looked at the scroll on the table as if it were a venomous snake. "By the Seven, he has lost his mind. He risks everything! The Prince Regent, the last great dragon of our house, our entire cause on a single, mad throw of the dice!"
Queen Alicent clutched the arms of her chair, her knuckles white. "The pride of dragons… it will be the death of us all. To seek out Daemon, the most dangerous man in the realm… Maester, is there no way to recall him? To command him to return?"
Grand Maester Orwyle shook his head sadly. "The Prince Regent commands his own host, Your Grace. He will not heed a raven from us now. His course is set."
"It is a course set by our enemy," Larys Strong observed, his voice cutting through the panic with its usual chilling calm. "Consider, my lords. Daemon Targaryen, who has benefited from a power that requires no risk to himself, suddenly issues a challenge for a very risky, very public duel. Why?"
"Because he is a Targaryen!" Otto snapped, his patience frayed to nothing. "Pride is the blood in their veins and the poison in their minds!"
"Perhaps," Larys conceded, steepling his fingers. "Or perhaps his mysterious weapon has a weakness. Perhaps it cannot be used against a single, fast-moving target like Vhagar. Perhaps it requires a stationary army, a fleet at anchor. By calling Aemond to a duel, Daemon forces him into a predictable location at a predictable time. A location where his true power can be brought to bear."
Alicent's face went pale. "You think this duel is merely the bait for a larger trap?"
"I think," Larys said, his eyes seeming to look at something far away, "that when gods play games, mortal princes are merely the pieces. And our prince is marching to a square on the board from which I suspect he will not be leaving."
The same news was met with equal confusion, though of a different flavor, on Dragonstone. Rhaenyra had read Daemon's first message with a surge of relief and pride, trusting in her husband's strength. But when the news of the formal challenge spread through the castle, her council was thrown into turmoil.
Prince Jacaerys, her son and heir, stormed into the Chamber of the Painted Table, his face flushed with anger. "He what? He challenges Aemond alone? After what happened to Luke?" He turned to his mother, his hands clenched into fists. "It is suicide! Vhagar is five times the size of Caraxes! You cannot let him do this! Let me go. Vermax and Caraxes, we can face her together! We can avenge my brother together!"
"I have forbidden it, Jace, and your Prince Consort has forbidden it," Rhaenyra said, her voice firm, though her own heart was aflutter with anxiety. "Daemon knows what he is doing. He has a plan."
"What plan?" Lord Corlys Velaryon's voice was cold as the northern sea. He had watched these events unfold with a growing, profound suspicion. "What plan involves sacrificing your best remaining dragon and the most experienced warrior in the Seven Kingdoms? What plan, Your Grace, makes any sense at all?"
He fixed his gaze on Rhaenyra. "Forgive me, my Queen, but let us speak plainly. Your husband has been at Harrenhal for weeks. During that time, the allies who swore fealty to him have been burned and butchered. He did not lift a finger to help them. Now, he issues a challenge for single combat, a chivalrous duel, while the smallfolk of the Riverlands choke on the ashes of their children. This is not the Daemon Targaryen I have known for forty years. The man I know would have unleashed hellfire upon Aemond without a second thought."
"Perhaps he has changed," Rhaenyra offered weakly.
"Or perhaps he is no longer his own master," Corlys countered, his voice low and dangerous. "This power that has been fighting our battles… we have all seen its work. We have all benefited from it. But a sword without a wielder is just a piece of steel. Someone is guiding this storm. First, I thought it was Daemon. Now… now I believe he is merely the storm's herald. He is not flying to a duel. He is flying to an appointment, one set by another."
Jacaerys stared at the Sea Snake, then at his mother. "What is he talking about? What power?"
Rhaenyra stood tall, her regal composure a shield against the questions she could not answer. "Lord Corlys, your counsel is valued, but your speculation borders on treason. I trust my husband. He has delivered us the Riverlands and now he will deliver us Aemond's head. The matter is decided."
Corlys bowed his head, but his eyes were grim. "As you say, Your Grace." He knew then that the Blacks were no longer guided by strategy or hope, but by a blind faith in a man who was walking into the heart of a hurricane, and calling it a plan.
At Harrenhal, Daemon was the picture of serenity. He had bathed in the castle's ancient, steaming bathhouse, scrubbing away the grime of the past weeks. He donned a suit of black scale armor, trimmed in red, the colors of his house. Dark Sister was strapped to his hip. He was not preparing for a battle; he was dressing for a state occasion.
He spent the day on the shore of the Gods Eye, skipping stones across its glassy surface, Caraxes coiled on the bank behind him, the red dragon's usual vicious energy calmed by his master's strange tranquility. One of Daemon's new squires, a nervous boy from House Blackwood, approached him hesitantly.
"My prince," the boy stammered. "The men… they are anxious. They watch the sky. They say… they say the sky to the east is growing dark."
Daemon did not turn. He found a perfectly flat stone and sent it skipping across the water. Six times it touched before sinking. A personal best. "Let them watch," he said, his voice calm and even. "The sky is a grand theater. They should be grateful for such good seats to the end of an age."
"The end of an age, my prince?"
Daemon finally turned and looked at the boy, a faint, pitying smile on his lips. "All things end, boy. Dynasties. Dragons. Ages. Today, we are privileged to see all three die at once. It should be a fine show." He looked back at the lake. "Now leave me. I am waiting for my co-star."
Deep in his benthic throne room, Krosis-Krif felt the convergence. He felt the threads of fate, destiny, and raw emotion pulling taut, all centered on the placid grey lake above him. He felt Aemond's burning, obsessive rage, a beacon of focused hatred winging its way across the land. He felt Daemon's cold, fatalistic resolve, the acceptance of a man who has willingly become a sacrificial blade. He felt the terror of the Greens in King's Landing, a delicious, high-pitched whine of despair. He felt the hope and confusion of the Blacks on Dragonstone, a chaotic jumble of emotions that was just as nourishing.
It was all an aperitif. The emotional energy of the entire kingdom was focused on this one, appointed hour. Aemond was right; he had set a feast. He just never realized he was not the chef, but the main course, alongside his bitterest rival.
Krosis-Krif stirred, his immense form displacing a volume of water that would have emptied a lesser lake. He moved from his deep cavern to a position directly beneath the center of the Gods Eye. He was a spectator in the front row, a god in the pit, waiting for the curtain to rise on the opera of death he had so carefully arranged.
Daemon saw it first. A speck. A tiny, dark speck against the brilliant orange of the setting sun. It grew with unnatural speed. He stood up, wiping his hands on his breeches, and walked calmly to his dragon.
"The time is now, old friend," he murmured, patting Caraxes's long, scarred neck. "One last dance for us both."
He mounted the Blood Wyrm as the speck resolved into a shape. The long, arching neck. The vast, tattered wings. The unmistakable, lumbering silhouette of Vhagar. She was a flying mountain, a living relic of a dead empire, and she was coming for them. The ground itself seemed to tremble as she approached, the beat of her wings a slow, powerful thrum that was felt more than heard.
Aemond did not roar a challenge. Daemon did not urge Caraxes forward. The two dragons and their riders simply watched each other across the expanse of the sky above the great lake. The stage was set. The actors were in place. The sun touched the horizon, bathing the world in a final, bloody light. The appointed hour had arrived.