Daemon, sensing the shift in the air before it could turn into something heavier, let out a low breath and rolled his shoulders.
"Little brother," he said, voice carrying that familiar rough edge again, "as glad as I am that you've decided to explain the nature of the world to us…" his gaze flicked down to the frozen sea beneath their boots, "…shouldn't we be having this discussion somewhere that isn't standing on top of a slab of ice in the middle of nowhere?"
He gestured around them.
The frozen ocean stretched endlessly in every direction, the wind biting again now that the earlier stillness had passed, frost creeping slowly along the surface beneath their feet.
Jeanyx blinked once.
Then twice.
"…right."
For the first time since they had arrived, he actually looked a little sheepish.
"Yeah, that's fair."
He straightened slightly, brushing a bit of frost from his coat as his usual composure slipped back into place.
"Let's head back to my home," he said. "We can finish this conversation there… and you can see exactly where I've been hiding for the past few years."
He snapped his fingers.
The sound was sharp, clean, and immediate.
At the edge of the frozen platform, where they had deliberately stayed out of the way during the reunion, the Black siblings stirred at once. Sirius stretched as he stood, Regulus exhaled slowly like he had been waiting for that signal, and Bellatrix—who had been crouched lazily near Garric Harlowe—grinned as she grabbed the unconscious man by the back of his bindings.
Garric had long since stopped struggling.
Whether from exhaustion, fear, or something else entirely, he was completely out, his body limp as Bellatrix hauled him up like he weighed nothing.
"Up we go," she muttered, almost cheerfully, before dragging him toward Nyx.
Without another word, Jeanyx bent his knees slightly—
—and jumped.
He cleared the distance to Nyx's back in a single motion, landing lightly on the saddle as if gravity had only half-applied to him.
Daemon blinked.
Rhaenys stared.
Even after everything they had seen, that small display caught them off guard.
Meanwhile, the Black siblings didn't react at all.
To them, it was normal.
Bellatrix swung Garric up onto Nyx's back before climbing up after him, settling in with practiced ease. Sirius and Regulus moved toward Meleys and Caraxes without hesitation, splitting naturally between the two dragons like they had done this countless times before.
Jeanyx adjusted his position on Nyx's back, glancing down at his family with a faint smirk as the massive dragon beneath him began to stir, her crystal-black wings shifting slightly against the frozen sea.
The moment Jeanyx gave the signal, Nyx didn't hesitate.
Her massive wings unfurled with a low, crystalline rasp, catching the cold air in a single powerful motion before she surged upward, shattering the stillness of the frozen sea. The ice beneath her claws cracked outward in jagged lines as she launched, mist spilling from her jaws like breath from something not entirely bound to the natural world.
Caraxes and Meleys followed almost immediately, their riders urging them forward with practiced ease, but it didn't take long—barely a few seconds—for something to feel… off.
Nyx was faster.
Not just faster in the way a younger dragon might be more energetic, or how a lighter body might cut through the air with less resistance. No—this was something different, something harder to explain.
She didn't seem to fight the wind.
She moved with it.
The currents didn't resist her wings—they bent around them, flowed beneath them, carried her forward as if the sky itself had chosen to support her flight. Each beat of her wings looked almost effortless, as though she wasn't expending nearly as much energy as she should have been for a creature of her size.
Caraxes, long and serpentine, pushed forward with powerful, aggressive strokes, his body slicing through the air with raw force. Meleys followed with controlled strength, her rhythm steady and refined.
And yet—
They were being outpaced.
Daemon narrowed his eyes, leaning slightly forward in the saddle as Caraxes strained to keep up.
"…you seeing this?" he called over the wind.
Rhaenys didn't answer immediately.
Her gaze was locked on Nyx ahead of them, watching the way the black dragon seemed to glide between currents rather than carve through them.
"I am," she said finally, her voice tight with focus.
There was no logical explanation for it.
At least—not one they had known before today.
But now…
Now they had one.
Jeanyx's words echoed in both their minds.
The Force.
Magic.
For the first time, neither of them dismissed it.
Rhaenys' thoughts drifted, not to the dragon itself, but to what it represented. If what Jeanyx had said was true—if this power could be learned, controlled, passed down—then what would that mean for her children? For their future? For dragons like Meleys?
Daemon's thoughts went in a different direction entirely.
His lips curled slightly as the wind whipped past him.
Useful.
He was still young—not yet at his peak. Still a few years away from the point where most men began to plateau.
Which meant he had time.
Time to learn.
Time to take whatever Jeanyx had discovered… and make it his own.
The flight continued, the frozen sea stretching endlessly behind them until, slowly—almost imperceptibly at first—the horizon began to change.
Thirty minutes later, land appeared.
At first it was just a shadow.
Then a shape.
And then—
An island unlike anything either of them had ever seen.
Both Daemon and Rhaenys went still in their saddles, eyes widening as the full sight of it revealed itself.
They had flown across all of Westeros. Seen the Reach in full bloom, the harsh cliffs of the Stormlands, the vast plains of the Riverlands, and the frozen north beyond the Neck.
But this…
This was something else entirely.
The island looked like it had been pulled straight from a dream—or a story told to children about places that didn't exist.
Massive forests blanketed the land, but these were not ordinary woods. The trees rose impossibly high, their trunks thicker than towers, their canopies stretching so far into the sky they seemed to blur into the clouds themselves. Their leaves shimmered faintly in hues that didn't quite match anything found in the natural world—greens too deep, too vibrant, touched with hints of silver and faint violet when the light caught them just right.
Strange formations dotted the land—crystal-like outcroppings, winding rivers that glowed faintly beneath the surface, hills shaped in ways that felt almost intentional, as though the island itself had been sculpted rather than formed.
But what truly drew their attention—
Was the east.
A massive portion of the island was covered in black ice.
Not snow.
Not frozen water.
Black ice.
It spread across the land like a second skin, jagged and reflective, absorbing light rather than reflecting it. Even from the air, it gave off a presence that felt… heavy. Ancient. Alive in a way that made both dragons beneath them shift uneasily.
Rhaenys exhaled slowly.
"…what in the gods' names…"
Daemon didn't answer.
For once, he didn't have one.
Ten minutes later, they descended further, circling toward the northern side of the island where the terrain shifted again—this time into something far more familiar, yet somehow just as unsettling.
A village.
No—
A city.
Not quite King's Landing in size, but close enough to make the comparison uncomfortable. It sprawled outward in organized layers, its structure far more deliberate than anything found in Westeros.
And as they flew over it, both Daemon and Rhaenys felt something they hadn't expected.
Disbelief.
Because nothing about what they saw made sense.
There were no slums.
No crumbling districts.
No signs of poverty.
Every structure was well-built, maintained, and designed with purpose. The materials themselves looked refined—stone cut cleanly, wood treated and reinforced, metalwork integrated into buildings in ways that felt… advanced.
Strange contraptions lined parts of the city—devices neither of them could immediately identify. Some moved. Some emitted faint light. Others seemed to serve functions that weren't obvious at a glance.
And the people—
They looked… comfortable.
Not just surviving.
Living.
No desperation. No filth. No overcrowded desperation like King's Landing, where the scent of rot and waste clung to entire districts.
There was no stench here.
No decay.
Just order.
Wealth.
Stability.
Rhaenys felt something twist quietly in her chest.
Daemon's expression darkened slightly.
And then, through the rushing wind, Sirius' voice carried back toward them, loud enough to be heard despite the height.
"Pretty impressive, right?" he called casually.
Daemon's gaze flicked toward him.
Sirius grinned slightly.
"This?" he said, gesturing broadly to the city below them. "All Jeanyx."
Rhaenys' breath caught.
"…all of it?" she asked.
"Ten years," Sirius replied.
That was all he said.
But it was enough.
Because as both Targaryens looked down again at the city beneath them, at the scale of it, the precision, the sheer level of advancement and stability…
A quiet, uncomfortable realization settled in.
No kingdom in Westeros had ever achieved this.
Not the Reach.
Not the Stormlands.
Not even Casterly Rock, with all its gold and power.
And the fact that one man—one Targaryen—had built something like this in just a decade…
It didn't just impress them.
It unsettled them.
It took them only a handful of minutes more to reach Jeanyx's home, though by that point both Daemon and Rhaenys had already stopped trying to guess what waited ahead of them. Whatever expectations they had formed—whether it was some isolated manor tucked into the mountains or a fortified but modest stronghold—were quietly discarded the moment Nyx began her descent.
At first, through the thinning clouds, the structure looked like any other great keep perched high above the land.
Then the details sharpened.
And everything they thought they knew about architecture… shifted.
The Mourning Keep rose from the mountain like it had grown there rather than been built. Its size alone rivaled the Red Keep in King's Landing, but the resemblance ended there. Where the Red Keep was heavy, layered, and ancient in its construction—stone stacked upon stone in a testament to time and power—this was something else entirely.
The lines were cleaner.
Sharper.
The towers didn't just rise—they curved, angled, and interlocked in ways that felt deliberate rather than decorative, as if every inch of the structure had been designed with both purpose and flow in mind. Dark stone was fused with lighter materials that shimmered faintly under the sun, and throughout the structure ran veins of metal—gold, silver, and something darker—that were not simply embedded, but woven into the architecture itself.
Rhaenys felt her breath catch without meaning to.
She had seen cities across the Narrow Sea, heard Corlys boast of wonders from far beyond Westeros, from Qarth to Yi Ti, from the Summer Isles to Asshai's distant shadow.
And yet—
She had never seen anything like this.
Not even close.
As Nyx lowered herself toward the mountain, the full scale of the keep became undeniable, its presence dominating the peak as though the land itself had bowed to accommodate it.
They descended into a wide, clearly man-made clearing just below the main structure. The ground had been flattened with intention, stone and earth shaped to create a natural landing space large enough to comfortably hold all three dragons—and still leave room to spare.
At the center of the clearing sat a large pond.
But even that wasn't ordinary.
The water moved constantly, even without wind, shifting in slow, deliberate currents that reflected light in strange patterns. Beneath the surface, fish darted in large numbers—far more than should reasonably exist in a single body of water—each one larger, stronger, more vibrant than anything found in the rivers of Westeros.
Nyx landed first, her claws settling into the earth with a low, heavy sound as her wings folded behind her. Caraxes and Meleys followed shortly after, both dragons clearly relieved to be back on solid ground after such an exhausting flight.
Once they dismounted, the silence of the mountain settled around them.
Daemon stepped forward a few paces, taking in the view without hiding his appreciation.
From this height, the island stretched out in all directions. The coastline curved in the distance, clear blue water crashing gently against jagged cliffs far below. The forests rolled endlessly outward, and the occasional bird passed close enough through the air that Daemon could easily track its movement with a hunter's eye.
"I must admit," Daemon said after a moment, his voice carrying a rare note of genuine approval, "this is a fine keep, little brother. I wouldn't have believed the First Men capable of building something like this on their own."
Jeanyx didn't even look offended.
"Good thing they didn't," he replied casually.
Daemon glanced at him.
"I built it."
There was a pause.
Then Jeanyx added, with a small shrug, "Well… designed it. That's more accurate."
He gestured vaguely toward the structure.
"I was too lazy to do most of the actual work. Helped out when I felt like it."
Daemon and Rhaenys both turned to look at him.
Neither of them spoke.
At this point, disbelief had already settled into something quieter—acceptance, perhaps, or resignation. Whatever Jeanyx had become, whatever he had learned or gained in the years he'd been gone, it was far beyond anything they could measure against normal understanding.
So they stopped trying.
Without another word, they followed him toward the entrance of the Mourning Keep, the Black siblings moving along with them while Sirius dragged the still-unconscious Garric Harlowe across the stone like excess baggage.
The moment they stepped inside, the difference became even more pronounced.
Luxury was everywhere.
But not the kind they were used to.
The Red Keep was rich, yes—but it was layered, cluttered with history, filled with symbols of power meant to remind everyone who walked its halls who ruled.
Driftmark carried a different kind of wealth—nautical, practical, tied to trade and the sea.
This place…
Felt intentional.
The walls, floors, and ceilings were crafted with precision, every surface smooth and refined without feeling excessive. Gold wasn't simply displayed—it was integrated, threaded through the structure in patterns that enhanced rather than overwhelmed the design.
Vases lined the halls—intricate, elegant, each one clearly made by hand.
Paintings covered sections of the walls, but they weren't portraits of lords or historical victories.
They were… personal.
Scenes of landscapes. Abstract shapes. Moments frozen in time that didn't seem meant for display so much as expression.
Daemon slowed slightly, glancing around.
"…this is excessive," he muttered, though there was no real criticism in his tone.
Jeanyx shrugged as he walked ahead of them.
"We mined the mountain first," he said. "Turned out it was filled with ore. Gold, mostly."
Rhaenys' brows lifted.
"Mostly?" she repeated.
Jeanyx nodded.
"More than I needed."
He waved a hand dismissively.
"My vault was already getting full. Figured I might as well use it instead of letting it sit there."
Daemon gave a short, incredulous laugh.
"So you lined your entire keep with it?"
"More or less."
Jeanyx didn't slow his pace.
"And the vases? The paintings?" Rhaenys asked, her eyes lingering on a particularly intricate piece as they passed.
Jeanyx glanced at it briefly.
"I made those."
That earned him another look.
"When?" Daemon asked.
Jeanyx shrugged again.
"When I was bored."
There was a beat of silence.
"And you were bored often?" Rhaenys asked.
Jeanyx smirked faintly.
"Most of the time."
He pushed open a set of large doors deeper within the keep, the light from outside spilling across the polished floors as the group moved further inside, the quiet weight of everything they had seen settling in slowly as they tried—unsuccessfully—to fully grasp just how much Jeanyx had built in their absence.
Jeanyx didn't linger on the entry hall for long.
"Come on," he said over his shoulder, already moving, expecting them to follow without question—and they did, Daemon and Rhaenys falling into step beside him while the Black siblings drifted behind, as comfortable in the space as if they had lived there their entire lives.
The tour was… brief.
Not because there wasn't anything to show, but because Jeanyx clearly didn't care to make a spectacle of it.
He led them first into the throne room.
It wasn't like the Iron Throne's chamber—there was no grotesque pile of swords meant to intimidate or remind men of conquest. Instead, the space was wide, open, and almost unnervingly clean. The throne itself was carved from dark stone and veined metal, sleek rather than jagged, positioned at the center of a raised platform that overlooked the entire chamber. It felt less like a symbol of domination and more like a place where decisions were made… quietly, deliberately.
Daemon slowed slightly as they passed through it, eyes flicking across the space, taking in the lack of clutter, the absence of unnecessary ornamentation.
"…you don't entertain much, do you?" he muttered.
Jeanyx didn't even look back.
"Only when I have to."
From there they moved through the dining hall, which was large enough to host dozens comfortably but arranged in a way that felt more intimate than grand. Long tables were set, not overly decorated but still refined, and servants moved efficiently through the space, adjusting placements, cleaning surfaces, preparing for meals that hadn't even been announced yet.
A few more rooms followed—libraries filled with scrolls and strange texts, workrooms cluttered with half-finished projects, spaces that clearly held purpose even if that purpose wasn't immediately obvious.
Then came the servant wings.
That, more than anything else, caught Rhaenys' attention.
Over sixty rooms lined the halls, each one occupied, each one maintained. Servants moved constantly—cleaning, organizing, repairing—yet there was no frantic energy, no tension, no fear in their movements. They worked efficiently, yes, but comfortably, as if they weren't simply surviving under noble rule, but living within it.
Rhaenys noticed it immediately.
So did Daemon.
Neither of them said anything.
But they saw it.
Finally, Jeanyx pushed open a set of wide doors that led outside again.
The training grounds.
The moment they stepped out, the sharp sound of impact reached them—wood striking wood, feet shifting against packed earth, controlled breaths cutting through the air.
Daemon's attention snapped forward instantly.
And then his eyes widened.
In the center of the training field stood a young girl.
Six.
Maybe seven namedays at most.
And she was fighting.
Not sparring.
Fighting.
Multiple grown men surrounded her—three, maybe four—and while they clearly weren't elite warriors, they weren't incompetent either. Their movements were coordinated, their strikes controlled but real.
And she was handling them.
Effortlessly.
She moved like a shadow slipping between them, her small frame twisting and turning in ways that made her nearly impossible to hit. One man lunged—she stepped inside his reach, struck his wrist, and sent his weapon flying before pivoting and sweeping his legs out from under him.
Another came from behind—she ducked low, rolled, and came up already striking, forcing him back with precision that had no business belonging to a child.
Daemon didn't blink.
Didn't move.
For a moment, his mind simply… stalled.
Jeanyx raised his hand slightly.
Snap.
The sound cut clean through the air.
The girl stopped mid-motion.
And then—
She vanished.
Daemon's eyes snapped wide as his instincts flared.
Before he could react, she reappeared directly in front of Jeanyx, standing upright as if she had been there the entire time.
No stumble.
No delay.
Just… there.
Jeanyx rested a hand lightly on her head.
"This," he said calmly, "is my daughter."
He glanced between Daemon and Rhaenys.
"And my heir."
The girl looked up, violet eyes sharp and alive, her expression carrying that same untamed edge Jeanyx had described earlier.
"Arya Targaryen," he continued, "of House Slytherin."
Daemon was still staring.
His mind was trying to process what he had just seen—the speed, the control, the technique—and none of it made sense. Not for someone that young. Not even close.
Even untrained men were still men.
And she had moved through them like they were obstacles, not opponents.
Rhaenys, however, recovered first.
Her gaze lingered on Arya for a moment longer before she spoke, her tone measured, careful.
"I'm not personally bothered," she said, "but the court will be."
Jeanyx glanced at her.
"They'll see her," Rhaenys continued, "and any other children you may have… and they will call them bastards."
There was no malice in her voice.
Just truth.
"You are still married," she added quietly.
For a moment, Jeanyx said nothing.
Then—
"Oh, right."
He said it like he had genuinely forgotten.
Daemon let out a short, disbelieving breath.
Jeanyx's expression didn't change.
"If anything," he continued, almost idly, "that just reminds me."
His gaze lifted slightly, drifting past them, as if he were already looking beyond the island… beyond the sea… back toward Westeros.
"When I return," he said, voice calm, almost too calm, "things are going to change."
The air shifted.
Not physically.
But something in the tone of his voice made it feel that way.
"Every lord outside the North," Jeanyx continued, "is going to remember exactly who controls who."
Then he smiled.
It wasn't wide.
It wasn't loud.
But it was enough.
Enough to make something in Rhaenys' chest tighten.
Enough to make Daemon feel something he rarely did.
A mix of intrigue…
…and something dangerously close to unease.