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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions on them, so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
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Unknown time, Unknown Place
He looked at its source and saw that it belonged to the egg, for there was a faint crack that leaked a bright light. The crack began to spread outward, very quickly, until finally, the shell parted, and Daemon could see no more, for the world was swallowed by light.
Aemond Targaryen blinked his eyes open in confusion. His head was throbbing, and yet something didn't feel quite right. He quickly realised what it was when he remembered that he had opened both his eyes, not just his remaining one. In his shock, he raised his hand to his face and covered each of his eyes, trying to grasp that the impossible truly had occurred, that he had regained his eye, the one that his bastard nephew had taken from him.
He needed to find a mirror to be sure, or perhaps a polished piece of armour would do. Seven hells, he would even be happy with a cup of water to see his reflection on, for Aemond Targaryen had regained his eye. He had spent years making up for the lack of depth that plagued him, becoming the best swordsman in House Targaryen, the blade of his brother's claim on the throne.
And yet, here he was, whole again, and the world itself felt strange. It was only then that Aemond realised in shock that the world was… different. He was in the courtyard in the Red Keep, where he preferred practising his swordsmanship without dealing with the whispers of the court, who had been filled with pity. Strangely, it was also covered with snow, or at least what he assumed was snow, despite the fact that it was not cold. Looking up, most of the castle seemed to be covered with it, yet Aemond did not remember the last time it had snowed in the Red Keep.
And yet there was something that niggled at him, something that made him feel as if the courtyard was empty, even if very few people came here in the first place. Embarrassingly, it had taken Aemond too much time to realise that this was because the servants were not there.
Even when the Red Keep was at its most empty, there was always movement, noise that Aemond had learned to set aside with every moment.
And yet, as he pushed himself up from the ground, all he could hear was pure silence, which was far more deafening than any noise he had heard before.
Despite not knowing the truth of the situation, Aemond's eyes drifted towards a rack of swords laid on the other side of the Courtyard and he immediately walked towards them, each step he took disturbing the impossible snow that littered the world around him.
He grasped the bastard sword, which he often practised his two-handed grip. He was not yet a man grown, and so, he could not yet wield a longsword properly, but the skills should transfer as he grew.
Aemond walked with the unsheathed sword, feeling unnerved. Every instinct he had told him to make as little noise as he could. It did not take long for him to realise that there was something wrong with the Red Keep, aside from the fact that he had not seen a single soul inside it.
There was a wrongness permeating the air, and the young prince felt as though something was missing, something critical and extraordinarily important, and yet, it continued to slip his mind. The entire castle was entirely deserted, with only his slow footsteps breaking the silence. And as he walked forward, he noticed that destruction seemed to increase. Walls were collapsed, and ceilings, which sometimes let the snow inside. The suits of armour were rattled onto the ground, and expensive tapestries were ripped apart. It was as if whatever occurred struck the very heart of the castle and spread outwards.
He passed through corridors that he knew well, yet which seemed twisted somehow. The great hall stood open and empty, its long tables overturned, benches splintered, wood almost rotten.
By the time he approached the Throne Room, the Red Keep was utterly roofless, and he walked amongst the strange snow, which still fell slowly around him. When he entered and saw the ruined and abandoned throne room, his eyes immediately turned towards the Iron Throne.
From afar, the young prince could still see the thousand swords of Aegon the Dragon's enemies, melted by Balerion the Black Dread, and forged into the throne for his descendants. Most of the Red Keep was destroyed, and yet, the throne endured. It looked almost unharmed, even.
As he approached, he saw a figure sitting atop it. It looked almost akin to a skeleton, which was impaled by a familiar sword, Blackfyre. Even as he neared, he did not recognise who it was at first, but the fact that it had a single arm, which was clenching on a familiar dagger, made him realise that it must have been his father, the King. The man rarely walked without this dagger, even when he was at death's door, often claiming that it belonged to the Conqueror himself.
The realisation that this was his father stopped Aemond cold, and the weapon that he held slipped from his hands, landing with a loud clang. He almost heard whispers all around him, and he decided to approach his father's corpse.
He did not know why he grieved him so. The King cared very little for Aemond, or any of his children with Alicent Hightower, truly. It was often that he was too sickly to care, and what little vigour he had left was spent ruling the realm. Aemond had known this for so long, and yet, a pit appeared in his stomach as he saw his father's corpse being impaled by their family's ancestral weapon, atop the throne that their ancestor built.
Aemond slowly removed Blackfyre from the stiff corpse, which slid out extremely easily, and grasped the dagger. As he did so, he heard a distant rumbling far away from him in the castle, the noise being faint, and yet it was almost deafening given the silence around him.
The young prince lifted his sword, ready for an attack at every moment, but nothing came for it. He couldn't help but murmur to himself, "What happened?"
The rumbling returned when he spoke; this time it was louder. Aemond would not say that he was particularly knowledgeable about magic, but something in his very blood seemed to warn him from making more noise. He should probably not speak anymore.
Still, that did not change the fact that something felt inherently wrong with the Red Keep. He needed to know what could have happened that could have changed things, affected things so much.
And… And if his father was dead, then what happened to his siblings and his mother? He had seen no corpses but that of his father, which was strange, if this were some kind of attack that befell the city.
The city…
He did not know if the rest of the city held the same fate as the castle, and perhaps that would be the first way to find out. With renewed purpose, Aemond turned and made his way through the ruined halls of the Red Keep, stepping over broken stone and fallen beams, until at last he emerged upon the outer walls that overlooked the city below.
He slowed as he approached the edge, and he knew without looking what would most likely meet him, for he had never lived a day when King's Landing was silent, even in the quietest of nights.
Despite knowing that devastation would meet him, nothing could have prepared Aemond for the sight that met him when he stepped forward and looked down, for only ruin remained in King's Landing's stead.
It was as if something had the city apart. Deep crevices appeared where the streets of King's Landing once were, with only hints of structures, barely more than rubble, that showed that a city once lived there. Even the blackwater seemed to have turned black, almost bubbling. Despite the damage to the Red Keep, it was a far cry compared to what the city had suffered, for it was an absolute destruction that none could have possibly survived, one that continued for as long as the eye could see.
The sky itself was filled with a fog so dense that he could not see the sun, only a faint greyness that illuminated the world around him, and it was then that he realised that the city was not covered in snow, but ash.
Before he could fully grasp the consequences of what was before him, Aemond's blood thundered, and he turned barely enough to dodge as some grey… thing appeared, trying to kill him. He did not see a weapon, but felt a burn across his chest, and he realised that he was bleeding.
He did not have the time to see the extent of his wounds, as he felt the attacker leap towards his throat once more. Aemond rolled and swung blindly at this strange enemy with Blackfyre, and given the deafening shriek that followed. He would have been worried by the thundering that occurred if it were not for his surprise at the sight of his attacker.
For before him were the enraged yet familiar features of Rhaenyra Targaryen, his half-sister. She was not… human, that was true, for she was not made of flesh and blood. She was grey, with ash clinging to her, giving her life, and she floated like some kind of ghost or wraith. She wailed at him, "MURDERER!"
The noise made him wince from the unnaturalness of it all, and Aemond would have tried to protect his ears, were it not for the fact that his enemy was attacking him. It was instinct. He did not have time to think, to weigh in the fact that it might have been his half-sister, as the apparition of Rhaenyra leapt towards him, her hands morphed into claws, and he ducked, and expertly stabbed her in the heart.
Rhaenyra released a loud screech, "KINSLAYER!" as she disappeared, the ash dissipating away.
Before Aemond could slump in relief, he found himself face to face with dozens of apparitions, each one trying to kill him. Aemond quickly jumped up in the air and kicked the ash towards them, which made them more visible, and fought them.
They were not particularly troubling to battle, with Blackfyre slaying them with ease, and these apparitions did not seem particularly skilful, but it was the faces that troubled him most. He hesitated the first time when he saw one of the shades appear with his mother's face, calling him a failure. That earned him a gash to the cheek. The other was when Aegon leapt at him, calling him a traitor.
Aemond closed his heart and killed them all the same, chanting to himself that these were not his family. Following them, he faced off against shades of both Cole and Daemon, who did not come close to their true skill, but seemed to retain enough of it to be very troublesome.
And yet, with every wraith defeated, the thundering became louder and louder, and the young prince knew that he could continue doing this, not for long. Just as he parried an attack from his uncle, he felt it, the thundering this time, and with it came a pressure unlike one he had felt before. He saw the shades around him completely dissipate from it, and yet, he knew that he could not celebrate.
His worries were proven to be correct when an ash-covered shade, one larger than any he had ever imagined, appeared from the skies.
At first, he thought it to be some monstrous cloud drifting through the grey heavens, for it moved slowly, vast wings cutting through the falling ash. But as it descended lower, its shape became clearer, and Aemond felt his breath catch in his throat.
It was a dragon.
No… it had once been a dragon, for he noticed that it looked barely more than a corpse, with its wings seeming almost shredded apart. Huge gouges covered its scales, something that should have been impossible in a beast this large, and yet, it was.
But that was not why Aemond stayed frozen, for he recognised that dragon, for it was his own. Vhagar.
It was with this realisation that he understood what had felt so wrong from the moment he had woken up in the courtyard. His bond with Vhagar, the constant faint warmth in the back of his mind from the moment he had first ridden the Green Beast, was gone, leaving behind an ache so deep that he could no longer ignore the more he remembered it, reached for it.
The despair he felt at the realisation that he was dragonless and at the state of what was once his mount, stopped him from moving as he saw the wraith fly down towards him.
There was nought that he could do either way.
He closed his eyes for a moment and almost jumped when he felt something grab him.
Aemond opened his eyes and saw a strangely familiar white owl appear before him and release a pulse of light that somehow allowed it to hold back the largest dragon in the world. A bird against a dragon. He would have called it a mummer's tale if he had not seen it with his own eyes.
He turned as he looked at what had grabbed him, and his eyes widened when he saw his sister's form. "We need to go, quickly!"
Despite knowing that some sort of magic might have been at hand, he followed Helaena Targaryen to a secret passage, one that he was unfamiliar with, which she closed behind her.
The moment he saw her relax, he jumped towards her and pulled her to his embrace, "Gods, Helaena. I am so happy to see you well."
His sister had a familiar dreamy expression when she answered, "As am I, brother. Though you are different. Your eye is wrong."
Aemond stiffened as he saw her look specifically at his eye, one that he had lost at the hands of the Strong bastards. At least she must have realised that something was wrong as well, "I woke up with it having grown back."
Helaena gave him a strange look and prepared to ask something, but Aemond beat her to it, "What happened?"
"Do you not remember, Aemond?" his sister retorted.
He did not answer, and she seemingly continued after a moment of silence, "It was Rhaenyra. Our grandfather was right in that her obsession with the Red Faith was troublesome, especially given the fact that she was at odds with the rest of our family after the events of Driftmark."
"Driftmark?" Aemond asked.
"Yes," Helaena answered slowly, "Are you well, brother? Have the magicks lingering in this place affected you so?"
He shook his head and asked, "I am simply confused. Could you elaborate? What happened in Driftmark?"
His sister had a dreamy expression on her face as she answered, "You struck Jacaerys in the head with a rock after some spat you had after claiming Vhagar. He was at death's door for some time, until she was approached by a Red Priestess, who used her magicks to heal him, though he has not woken up to this day. Father refused to punish you, calling it an accident, and she never forgave him for that. We had heard rumours that she had embraced a new faith, but the king dismissed them, deciding not to enflame tensions even further."
That… That felt familiar in some way. He could almost remember it, like a faint echo in the back of his mind, being called a kinslayer. The mere thought sickened him. He… He hated the Strong boys, but to kill them, to spill family blood, that of a Dragonrider… It was just wrong.
This… This was not what happened. He had almost hit him with the rock, but Lucerys had cut off his eye in his defence. Would he have killed Jacaerys, had Aemond not lost his eye, had the boy not taken it from him?
Aemond was sure that he had never killed his nephews, faint echoes be damned. He knew that this was not to be. His hands raised towards his eye, the one that he had lost, yet was seemingly unharmed. Two versions of the same events seemed to battle within his head, and he could not reconcile them.
His sister's voice broke him from his inner battle, "Yet you lost an eye. That is strange indeed… You should not have lost an eye… Do not despair, for you were always meant to have a dragon's blood on your hands. The loom had decried it so."
Aemond shuddered at the reminder, the echo of Jacaerys's blood in his hands returning, and the horror of his action. He shook his head and repeated his earlier question, "What happened here?"
"Rhaenyra came with the Red Priestess, calling herself the rightful Queen, claiming that only she could stop some vague threat. She was… wrong. Her eyes were crimson, and she was filled with such a flaming rage. The witch killed the Kingsguard, and Rhaenyra took Blackfyre, the blade becoming aflame, before slaying our father with it."
"Our father's death caused all of this?" he asked in confusion.
"No, it did not. I know not whatever Rhaenyra's plans were, or of the magic she wielded, but it was interrupted by what I can only assume were measures crafted by Aegon the Conqueror. The magics collided, and this is the result: a ruined city, and a ghost of what was once a mighty castle, our legacy, our dragons gone. I know not if they were attacked on purpose, or if it was the collapse of the Dragonpit that killed them, it might have even been the Conqueror's magic that did it, but they are no more, and all that remains are remnants, echoes of life, who populate this city of ash."
Aemond felt utterly and completely sickened by Helaena's words, though her words had felt familiar. He remembered Rhaenyra, who had chased after him in a maddened frenzy, looking for his sister, who wielded power far beyond what was possible. He remembered a pulse of light banishing away whatever magicks she had used. Yet, he did not remember the Red Keep falling into ruin, the city being destroyed by it… He did not remember Rhaenyra killing his father either… Or did he?
No, issues with his memory aside, he needed to come up with a plan and quickly, "How to survive?"
"The Godswood," Helaena answered, though she did so absentmindedly while also with urgency in her tone, the contrast being very strange to hear. "We need to go to the Godswood. The Old Gods still hold power there…"
He did not need to be told twice. He trusted his sister and knew her to be a Dreamer. Only a fool doubted a Dreamer's words. After all, only House Targaryen survived the Doom, and that had only been because of Daenys the Dreamer, herself.
He nodded, and they walked as silently as they could, following Helaena's knowledge of the secret passages, exiting them when they neared the Red Keep's Godswood. They slipped from the hidden passage into the open air, and Aemond immediately felt the difference.
Ruin and ash surrounded them still, and yet, it seemed to have stopped before the Godswood, as if some divine intervention had stopped the devastation from touching it. The difference was startling, mostly with the absence of ash, but also because Aemond had not noticed the greyness of the world around him until he compared it to the colours of the small woods before him. The grass was green and vibrant, the trees remained standing and whole, with the Heart Tree growing valiantly in the middle of it all.
For a moment, Aemond simply stared, taken aback by the sight. It was only the urgency in Helaena's voice that brought him out of his stupor, "The Godswood, quickly."
They began moving toward it at once, trying to be as fast as they could, while still being silent and vigilant. Aemond kept Blackfyre raised, his eyes constantly searching the ruins around them for any surprise attacks.
They had nearly reached the outer trees when they heard a screech split the air.
Aemond spun toward the sound just in time to see a grey shape rising from the rubble behind them. One of the shades had seen them. Its twisted face turned toward them as it released another screech. Aemond raised Blackfyre and, with a swing, silenced it, but the damage was done, for he heard similar shrieks echoing in the distance and approaching him.
"Run!" he said to his sister, grabbing her hand, as they ran through the corridors, hoping that the safety of the Godswood would protect them.
He could see them all, dozens, perhaps even hundreds, of wraiths coming down to end him, but before any of them could, they stepped past the threshold of the grove and landed onto the green grass of the Godswood. Aemond rolled, taking a defensive stance with Blackfyre, but it seemed that Helaena was right to take them to this place, as he saw the approaching wraiths stop as if they attempted to go past an invisible barrier of some sort, and they recoiled with a violent hiss each.
Aemond kept stiffening in fear of another surprise, but eventually relaxed when he realised that the wraiths could not go past the invisible barrier.
Of course, that was when a shadow appeared before him, darkening the grove, and Aemond slowly lifted his head to see it, and saw three vast shapes almost drifting in the sky. The familiar sight of the ghostly Vhagar appeared first, followed by the broken, yet somehow still flying, forms of Sunfyre and Dreamfyre. They were barely recognisable, for if Vhagar was horrifically injured, his siblings' dragons were little better than shades of corpses.
The three dragon shades hovered above the Godswood, before finally, they stilled and their jaws opened.
Ghostly flames poured from their throats, a mimicry of their ability to breathe flames. Yet, the fire struck the unseen barrier surrounding the grove and burst apart against it. Against all odds, the barrier somehow resisted the flames, and yet, it was not without a price.
As the dragons continued to batter the barrier with their fire, the human shades clawed onto the barrier, and to his horror, they managed to pierce it, though briefly. The barrier closed behind them, but they were through. It seemed that there was only so much that the protections of the Godswood could take.
Aemond did not hesitate, familiar faces or no. With a shout, he rushed forward, Blackfyre in hand, and cut through the attacking shades. He kept doing it again and again, the barrier letting through more and more of them every time. He could feel the protections around the Godswood weakening with every moment, from the flames of three dragons and the hundreds of wraiths trying to cut through it.
At the corner of his eyes, he saw one of the wraiths ready to attack his sister, and he leapt at it and killed it, "Helaena…"
He was preparing to warn his sister, to ask her to hide, or take cover, but whatever he planned to say would not leave his mouth as he realised that she was not afraid. She simply stood beneath the branches of the Heart Tree, with the white owl that had appeared before.
She gave him a soft yet sad smile, "This is it now. I am glad to have seen you once more, little brother, a different one you might have been. I think I almost forgot for a time, the bargain that I struck."
"What bargain and with whom?" Aemond found himself asking in confusion, feeling himself shiver.
"A friend of yours, a great power, a Lord of Space and Time," she answered.
The title was familiar somehow, and Aemond's eyes widened as he remembered, "Potter."
His sister's grin widened, "Just so. You must realise the truth now. This is not real. This is not where nor when you are meant to be, and you need to leave while you still can."
Aemond looked around them and saw the wraiths ready to attack them once more, "Dream or no, you are my sister. I would not leave you for dead."
"Oh, Aemond. I already am dead."
Just then, Helaena changed. Her body shimmered and turned almost translucent, though when the owl on her shoulder pecked her, her form began to release a silver shine. He could feel what remained of his sister glow more intensely with every second, "Do not be sad, my clever little brother. Now we may finally have our peaceful rest. You need only remember."
Those were the last words his sister uttered to him before she disappeared in a burst of light. The light illuminated the Godswood for a moment and exploded outwards, destroying every wraith in sight, and Aemond knew deep down that they would not reform. Even the dragons who had been battering the barrier with their flames had disappeared, leaving Aemond alone in the middle of a Godswood.
Well, not quite. The white owl was there with him, and Aemond knew instinctively that it belonged to Harry Potter in some way. He looked at the bird, trying to ignore the tears stinging his eyes, and uttered, "I am ready. Take me back."
The owl nodded and began to circle him, and the world quickly turned into a blur. Aemond did not care for it, nor did he care for the impossibilities that followed, still remembering the last smile on his sister's face.
The world turned dark for a moment, and Aemond found himself being pulled up by the sorcerer from far too shallow waters, and he opened his mouth with a gasp. He looked up and saw Harry Potter standing there with his white owl sitting on his shoulder. Daemon was also there, leaning on his scabbard of Dark Sister. However, Aemond's vision was overtaken by the gigantic tree of stars behind them all, each leaf feeling more than he could possibly describe.
He did not know what to say or ask, but thankfully, the sorcerer spoke up for them, "You were certainly in quite the pickle, Aemond. I have to say that out of all timelines you could have landed in, this might have been one of the more troublesome ones. Still, I suppose we have talked for too long. So, let us go meet our hosts, shall we?"
As he nodded, mostly out of instinct than confirmation, Aemond swore that he saw the wandering stars of the tree before him gather into the likeness of a dragon. Yet, when he blinked, it was gone. He shook his head, thinking it to be nought but a trick of his tired eyes.
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Excerpt from: The Battle of Ice and Fire by Archmaester Marwin of the Citadel
The battle of ice and fire is nigh. I do not know why I write this, for none shall ever see my words past this day. The lord of Light and the Others battle for the supremacy of creation. Perhaps it is fitting that this battle occurred in the City of Ashes, which had once been the Capital of the Seven Kingdoms during their brief century of unity, that barely lasted when the armies of Westeros, pushed by the Faith of the Seven, sacked many temples of R'hllor, before they inevitably turned on one another.
I know it is foolish of me, but I cannot help but wonder if the Seven Kingdoms had remained united under the rule of the Targaryens, could they have fared better, especially the dragons? None had answered the call when House Stark urged them so, and when the Wall fell, it was all too late. And now, two great beings battle for the supremacy of all, and I could feel it in my heart that this shall be the end. Magic had become quite active in recent years, perhaps hoping for a path to survival, and I have seen nought but ruin, as Night and Light collide, destroying all that ever was, is, or could be.
I hope deep in my heart that someone would see my words, that something would remain past this day, yet I know it is but a vain hope. For I am the last Maester of the Citadel, and I shall record the end of days with my own hands.
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AN: I know that some of you did not like this concept in the previous chapter, and I thought about skipping this one, but it just would not leave my mind. Sorry, I guess.
As you probably noticed, this was a bit of a companion story to that of Daemon, where Aemond was stuck in a different world. Both chapters are meant to answer a single question: What if?
In Daemon, it would have been What if his mother had not died (or not gotten pregnant with their third brother who died later). In this case, it was what if Aemond had never lost his eye. He would have ended up accidentally putting Jace in a coma, Rhaenyra would have gone insane from the grief, and R'hllor would have used that to take over the Seven Kingdoms, but would have backfired because of Aegon and Visenya's measures in case of foreign involvement appeared in King's Landing, which doesn't go well.
I always felt that these were big parts of Aemond and Daemon's characters, wondering if things could have been better if something was different, which had driven their rage. Though some of you might notice that I was inspired by Daenerys's visions in the Temple of the Undying in Canon.
Don't worry, we'll get back to the whole thing with the Elder Dragon in the next chapter, and a few things about what happened should be clarified, too. As usual, so please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
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If you want to support me, check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions on them, so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.