One hour before sunset, the council chamber of High Tide.
Cregan Velaryon listened to Mathos's report and remained silent for a long time.
More than a dozen senior officers and civil officials sat in the hall. All of them were looking at him, waiting for his decision.
"He really said that?" a young Velaryon knight could not help but ask.
"Our own property?"
"Not even the family castles will be left to us?"
"He's digging up our roots!"
"What he wants is complete submission," another knight sighed. "Not only our castles, but our dignity as well."
"Kneel, remove our armor, and welcome them like slaves…"
"If there is no honor left, how are we any different from the dead?"
"But if we fight, we'll die even more miserably," a logistics officer said, his face deathly pale.
"That's Vhagar!"
"One breath of fire from that old dragon can burn through the city walls! What do we have to defend with?"
The argument erupted.
The faction advocating war and the faction advocating peace quarreled fiercely. Some men angrily drew their swords and hacked at the table; others broke down in tears.
For hundreds of years, Driftmark had never fallen. Yet now, facing the terrifying reality of a dragon burning the city, everyone felt powerless.
Cregan said nothing the entire time.
He walked to the window and looked down at the castle below—his home, the place where he had grown up.
He also remembered what Lord Corlys had said when he entrusted Driftmark to him: "Guard it well, until I return."
But now… could he really hold it?
Sunset crept closer and closer, and the quarrel in the hall gradually subsided.
Everyone was looking at him. This decision could only be made by him.
Finally, Cregan turned around.
"Raise the flag of negotiation."
"Send Mathos again."
"Tell him Driftmark is willing to open the gates, but the garrison must be allowed to leave the city in formation with their personal weapons. That is the final bottom line."
"Velaryon warriors cannot be driven out of their own home like disarmed prisoners."
The adjutant looked at him. "My lord, if he still refuses…"
"Then we will defend," Cregan said softly, but with firm resolve. "Defend until the walls melt. Defend until the last breath."
"For the honor of the seahorse, and for the honor of the Lord of the Tides."
At sunset, in the negotiation tent.
When Mathos entered for the second time, his legs were trembling.
He repeated Cregan's conditions and bowed deeply, not daring to look at Aemond's face.
The tent was very quiet. Only the crackling sound of charcoal burning in the brazier could be heard.
After a long time, Aemond finally spoke: "Leave the city in formation with weapons?"
"Y-yes…" Mathos's voice trembled. "Lord Cregan said this is the Velaryon warriors' last dignity…"
"Dignity." Aemond shook his head and laughed.
He stood up, walked to the entrance of the tent, and lifted the curtain.
The sunset was like blood, dyeing the whole of Driftmark red.
Aemond stood with his back to Mathos, his voice distant.
"We Targaryens conquered the Seven Kingdoms with dragons and fire."
"But to maintain rule, dragons and fire alone are not enough. One must also have one's own rules."
He turned around and said with a smile: "The rule is obedience, or death."
"There is no middle option, no bargaining, and certainly no last dignity."
"Go back and tell Cregan Velaryon."
"The sun has set."
When Mathos fled the tent in a panic, the last ray of sunlight sank beneath the horizon.
A horn sounded outside the tent.
The war had begun.
The first wave of attack was launched just before nightfall.
It was not Vhagar, but Lothorne.
The young black dragon dove from the clouds like a bolt of lightning, plunging straight toward the western wall of High Tide.
Faster, more agile, its flight path was strange and unpredictable.
Before the defenders on the wall could react, Lothorne had already swept over the battlements, diving down and spewing dragonfire.
More than a dozen archers were set ablaze, screaming as they fell from the wall.
"Dragon! A dragon!"
"Scorpions! Take aim!"
"It's too fast! We can't aim!"
Amid the chaos, Lothorne wheeled around and swept across the wall a second time.
Dragonfire splashed across the wall and the crenellations. More than a dozen defenders were struck by the flames and immediately screamed in agony.
Where Lothorne's fire clung to the skin, it began to corrode their bones.
"Get down!"
But it was too late.
Then came the dive of the young dragon Sunfyre. The defenders rolled and wailed in the flames.
Some tried to leap from the wall to escape, only to fall to their deaths below.
This was only the beginning.
Just as the defenders' attention was completely drawn to the western wall, a deafening dragon's roar came from the eastern sky.
It was not Lothorne's sharp screech, but a deep rumble, as if it came from the depths of the earth. Everyone who heard it felt their hearts clenched by an invisible hand, their blood nearly freezing.
Vhagar had arrived.
The old dragon's shadow blotted out the moon that had just risen.
It flew very slowly. Unlike Lothorne's swift dives, it approached with calm, crushing pressure—like a mountain moving, like a tsunami gathering.
The defenders on the wall looked up and saw the last sight of their lives.
Vhagar opened its mouth.
Deep in the dragon's throat, green light did not flow out—it burst forth like an explosion.
It was not a single column of fire, but an entire sea of flame. The whole city blazed white like the noon sun, covering a stretch of wall seventy feet wide and two towers.
At that instant, there was no sound.
Because the sound had been vaporized by the heat.
The granite walls began to glow red as they touched the dragonfire.
The wooden structures of the towers vaporized instantly, and iron equipment melted into liquid metal, flowing down the liquefying stone walls.
The defenders on that stretch of wall? They did not even leave ashes.
The dragonfire lasted a full ten seconds.
When Vhagar closed its mouth—the barracks and warehouses behind the wall were also caught in it, erupting into towering flames.
A heat wave swept across the entire city. Even the defenders standing a hundred meters away felt the skin on their faces blistering.
"Withdraw! Fall back to the inner keep!" an officer roared. He could see large numbers of the royal army approaching beneath the walls, yet there was nothing he could do.
Facing dragonfire, no one could remain on the walls to defend them.
From the terrace of the main keep, Cregan witnessed everything.
He looked at the melted section of the wall, at the soldiers struggling in the sea of flames, and at the three dragons slowly circling in the sky.
"My lord, we can still hold the inner keep!" the adjutant shouted beside him.
Cregan answered: "We cannot."
"If Vhagar comes a few more times, the entire castle will become a furnace."
He turned to the messenger and said, "Raise the white flag."
"White flags across the whole city. Everyone out of the city…"
"My lord?!"
"We surrender." A bitter smile appeared on Cregan's face.
"There is no need anymore. So-called honor is worthless before dragons."
"If we do not surrender, the whole city will become an oven."
"Even if people are not burned to death, they will be suffocated."
"I will not let the sons of my house die in vain."
He removed his sword, took off his helmet, and put on a pure white cloak.
"Open the gates."
Vhagar landed on an open field not far away. The ancient dragon lowered its body, yet those amber vertical pupils still stared at the castle, ready to breathe fire again at any moment.
Lothorne continued to circle in the night sky.
The main gate of High Tide slowly opened.
One man in a white robe led the remaining soldiers out on foot. They had all removed their armor, discarded their weapons, and wore white garments.
The surrounding royal troops stepped aside in accordance with the order.
Cregan led the defenders to the open ground and stopped before Aemond, who stood beside Vhagar.
"Commander of Driftmark, Cregan Velaryon," his voice was clearly audible in the night wind.
"Requests to surrender to Prince Aemond Targaryen."
"The castle, the port, the fleet, the soldiers and civilians—all will be placed under the prince's disposal. We ask only…"
He raised his head, his gray eyes staring directly at the silver-haired youth standing upon the rock: "We ask only that the prince keep his word: do not kill those who surrender, and do not slaughter the smallfolk."
Aemond looked down at him. Only after a long while did he speak: "What did I say before sunset?"
Cregan's body stiffened almost imperceptibly.
"I said that if the gates were still closed at sunset, I would take it as your choice of war."
"But now the gates are open, and sunset has already passed."
Aemond pointed toward the flames still burning along the walls.
"You already chose war. And you lost."
Cregan's lips trembled. "Prince, we are willing…"
"Too late," Aemond cut him off. "I gave you a chance, more than once."
"The first time was unconditional surrender, and you wanted to negotiate."
"The second time was to leave the city after laying down your armor, and you wanted to surrender with weapons."
"Now the battle is lost, the dead are piling up, the walls have melted, and only then do you come to ask for surrender?"
He shook his head and said in disappointment: "This is not surrender, Lord Cregan."
"This is admitting defeat."
"And those who admit defeat have no right to bargain."
Aemond looked at these unarmed defenders standing before him.
"Now, I grant you one last choice."
"Kneel and swear fealty to me."
"Otherwise…" He lifted his eyes toward High Tide, which was still burning.
"Then your home will truly be on fire."
Cregan's body began to tremble.
He looked up at Aemond and said with difficulty, "We have surrendered. We should be prisoners, according to the customs between nobles…"
"My rules are the rules!" Aemond shouted, cutting him off.
The guards beside him had already gripped their sword hilts.
The army surrounding them had already begun to draw bows and set arrows.
Lothorne descended from the sky and drew near to his master, Aemond. Sensing Aemond's emotions, the black dragon's throat began to glow faintly.
Aemond stroked Lothorne's neck.
Behind him, the immense Vhagar had already risen to its feet, flame gathering in its throat. At a single command, the thousand prisoners on the open ground before him would be reduced to ashes.
Cregan glanced at the thousand men before him. Many were knights, distant branches of House Velaryon.
At last, he sighed and dropped to both knees.
Immediately afterward, large numbers of men slowly knelt as well.
Aemond watched coldly.
He had been worrying about how to take Dragonstone's Dragonmont. That fortress of black stone could absorb heat, and dragonfire posed limited threat.
Nor did he wish Vhagar to smash Dragonmont by brute force. After all, it was the ancestral seat of House Targaryen.
To seize that fortress, perched upon such perilous terrain, intact and without flaw, there was only one way—pile up human lives. These prisoners would serve well as such fodder.
But several dozen men still refused to kneel in fealty, standing there rigidly.
Aemond beckoned with a hand.
The soldiers, understanding the signal, pulled those several dozen men out of the ranks.
"I am Velaryon! I am loyal to Princess Rhaenyra!"
"I will never kneel in fealty to you, kinslayer!"
"The honor of the seahorse!"
"The honor of the Lord of the Tides!"
"By our Velaryon ancestors!"
Before their words had even finished, Vhagar exhaled dragonfire.
An orange-red sea of flames instantly swallowed those several dozen men.
The screams lasted barely half a second before vanishing completely.
Only a patch of charred black ground remained, along with a few wisps of rising black smoke.
The prisoners kneeling on the ground trembled violently, none daring to raise their heads.
Aemond slowly swept his gaze across the field.
"Now… is there anyone else who wishes to speak of honor?"
Silence filled the field.
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