Chapter Sixteen (Patreon)

Aerea Targaryen liked her cousin. She did not know when it began. She had always loved Aenar, ever since she saw the tiny lump of shining scales upon his straw crib, but this was something more. Her heart grew stronger when he neared, her innermost thoughts settled upon seeing his smile. Even the dreariness and dullness of Dragonstone was brightened by his mere presence.

“We got something!”

Aerea turned, purple eyes watching as bubbles rose to the surface under grey skies. Narrowing her gaze she could make out dappled black and white skin.

“An orca,” Aenar grinned. “Good, I’ve been wanting a real hunt.” He turned to her, his voice suddenly serious. “Stay on the boat.”

“Of course I will.” Who would willingly jump off a ship in the middle of the ocean–

Aerea sighed as Aenar, wearing nothing but a pair of trousers and wielding a harpoon, did precisely that. He landed upon the creature in the waters, stabbing down with the barbed steel tip. Yet as he stabbed his slipped upon the wet skin, falling into the water.

Aerea gasped. “Aenar!”

A roar came from above. Aenar’s ‘wild’ dragon, covered in black scales glimmering like dragonglass, dove into the sea. His talons tore into the orca’s flesh, wings carrying it briefly into the air only for the beast to tear itself free again. Chased by dragonflame it fell back into the water, where Aenar emerged once from his fall. Her cousin’s head was barely above the waves when the whale leapt for him, its great maw opening to display row upon row of teeth, each long and sharp as a steel dagger. Aerea gasped, her hands clutching the railing. “N–”

Aenar moved. It was not graceful. It was not contained. It was rough and desperate, his entire body flinging itself across the sea. Yet it worked. The orca’s jaw closed around a swell, nothing but saltwater and seaweed in its grasp. Aenar swung down as the jaw closed, and the harpoon at last secured itself into the whale’s flesh.

The dragon flew down. Claws tore into the whale. Teeth ripped at its flesh. The whale tried to bite back, but how can the sea grasp the land? Even as Aenar climbed into the ship, Aerea knew the fight was over.

So did the whale. It screamed, trying to dive deep into the waters. On the deck of their ship Aenar grasped onto the rope, holding it steady. Aerea watched in awe as he matched the strength of the the beast, muscles bulging beneath his claws, the wood of the ship straining as the orca’s desperate struggle continued.

Then the dragon dove once more, and all fight ceased. Aenar’s grip on the rope relaxed. As the dragon circled above them, roaring out its victory, he turned to Aerea.

“So,” Aenar said. “What do you think?”

Aerea stepped towards him. “You,” she said, “are insane.” She smiled, a brilliant thing that parted the cloudy sky. Sunlight beamed down upon obsidian scale and golden hair alike. “I quite like it.”

*

Aenar huffed as he swung the hammer down, the steel expanding before him. It rolled slightly, and Aenar quickly corrected it with a gentle knock. He held up the lump of metal and nodded. A few more strikes and he’d have the beginnings of a good shield. Aenar put it back in the furnace. As it began to warm, his mind drifted.

The High Septon was dead. To Aenar it mattered little. To House Targaryen it mattered a great deal, as Aunt Rhaena had been willing to inform him (and, in doing so, sentence him to another week of lessons with the Maester on politics). The next High Septon was favored to be Septon Mattheus of King’s Landing, who opposed incest in general and the Targaryens in particular with a zeal befitting the Crusades. Yet by royal (and draconic) intervention, Septon Alfyn, one of the Seven Speakers who preached the Doctrine of Exceptionalism, was chosen instead. Now nameless like all before him, the High Septon was holding a grand tourney to celebrate his coronation and the union of the Seven Kingdoms.

Aenar took the steel from the fire. He struck it one, twice, thrice. The metal moved. He turned it, striking the sides, then flattening them out. Bit by bit it became a proper shape. A heater shield, as scholars called it in a long-lost world. Merely a shield, as Aenar knew it now. Most would be made of wood, yet Aenar made his of steel instead. He could afford it, he could bear the weight, and it was worth the difference.

With the shape secure, Aenar pushed the shield into the fire once more. Not to move steel again, but to color it. He took out the tints, the bits of charred bone and cinnabar. Taking out the shield, he carefully introduced the pigments. Not randomly, nor in great doses, but bit by bit, as if embroidering a pattern of a thousand stitches. Dot by dot the pattern grew, three red heads forming upon a black shield. At last Aenar reached for the small jar of copper ore, and filled in the eyes with bright, wildfire green.

Aenar stood. He stretched his back. He held up the shield and smiled. Now that, he thought, is worthy. I just have the breastplate and the helm left, and I’ll have armor fit for a lord.

As for why Aenar needed armor fit for a lord? Well, that came back to the tourney. Specifically, the melee. The High Septon’s melee would be an organized affair, quite unlike Lord Velaryon’s scrum. Seven teams would compete, based upon their regions; the Crownlands, the Riverlands, the Stormlands, the Vale, and the Westerlands would each have one while the Reach would have two, divided into North and South, though they were labeled after the great rivers of their region, the Mander and the Honeywine. Each team would be made of seven wings, led by one knight with six companions. It was up the Lord Paramount, or the King, to decide who led the wings, and King Jaehaerys had decided to hold a small tourney of his own to determine the recipients of such an honor.

Aenar had no intention of being left out.