The air above Valyria was heavy, thick with smoke and silence. The broken towers and scorched hills below stretched endlessly, marked by rivers of slow-moving lava and valleys where ash fell like snow. Nothing truly lived here anymore at least nothing that should.
Vezdaryon soared through it all with wings wide and steady, the winds of the ruined world whispering around him. His great body cast a shadow over the molten stone, and the heat didn't bother him. It soothed him now, welcomed him like an old friend.
He had made Valyria his home these past years. Or rather, what remained of it. The sky was his ceiling, the fire his company, and the bones of long-dead giants his monuments.
But today, the air held a strange pressure. A sensation curled down his spine not fear, but warning.
Something was watching.
Vezdaryon angled his wings to circle higher. He didn't see it at first. Just the rippling ash below, the crumbled silhouettes of ancient spires. He sniffed the air. The usual scent of sulfur, burnt stone, the faintest hint of something… alive. And close.
Then a shape burst from the gray haze.
It came fast sleek and silent. A wyvern, blackish green and scarred across its wings. It rose from the valley floor like a dagger thrown straight at his belly, mouth open in a hiss, yellow eyes gleaming with rage. No warning. No circling. No call. Just attack.
Vezdaryon pulled back hard, wings slamming air as he jerked upward. But the wyvern had momentum. It struck his underside with a crash of bone and claw, raking one of its hooked talons across his flank. Vezdaryon roared, the sound ripping across the skies like thunder.
He hadn't been hunted in years not since his earliest days when he was small and unknown. But this wasn't a hunt. This was a challenge.
The wyvern screamed again, a guttural rasp with no fire just fury and teeth.
It came at him again, talons extended.
Vezdaryon met it with full force.
The two creatures slammed together mid-air. Their wings tangled for a moment, biting winds howling past them. Vezdaryon lashed out with his claws, catching the wyvern's shoulder and ripping flesh away in bloody strips. The smaller beast shrieked but didn't retreat.
It dove below him, then snapped up toward his side, striking with its jaws. Sharp teeth punctured Vezdaryon's outer scales just barely but enough to draw blood. His tail lashed on reflex, catching the wyvern across the ribs with a bone-jarring thud.
They pulled apart.
Ash and blood churned in the sky between them.
Vezdaryon wheeled left, his breathing heavy. This was no mindless beast. The wyvern was wild, but it had battle in its blood. Fast. Unrelenting. Smaller, yes but reckless. It had clearly claimed this stretch of the sky before he'd arrived.
It wanted him gone.
But he wasn't leaving.
The wyvern struck again, aiming high this time, claws flashing. Vezdaryon beat his wings hard and twisted his body, letting the charge pass just below. As it soared past, he clamped his jaws down and caught the edge of its wing membrane.
It screamed as his teeth tore a jagged line across its wing. The wyvern faltered, tumbling slightly, but it didn't fall.
It turned, blood dripping, and dove again.
Vezdaryon exhaled sharply, not in fear but focus. His body was bleeding now from two gashes one across the shoulder, another on his side. The pain wasn't overwhelming, but it was a reminder.
This thing could kill him.
And it would try.
As the wyvern flew toward him again, Vezdaryon charged to meet it. The skies shook with the force of the impact. He roared as he drove his full weight into the smaller beast, clamping his forelegs around its torso and slamming it downwards. They spiraled toward the broken peaks, claws slashing and teeth snapping. The wyvern bit into his neck sharp, shallow but painful. He roared in fury and smashed his head into its skull, momentarily dazing it.
And then they hit the mountainside.
The force scattered stone and ash into the air like dust from a great hammer blow. The wyvern scrambled out from beneath him, wounded and wild, one wing dragging. It stumbled across the rocks and launched back into the air, albeit slower now, blood trailing behind.
Vezdaryon followed his wings burning, his breath ragged. But his rage was fire.
They circled again in the ash-heavy sky. And this time, Vezdaryon saw the weakness the wing wound was real. The wyvern flapped hard, trying to stay aloft. It didn't want to retreat. It couldn't.
It was too proud.
Too stupid.
With a final, thunderous beat of his wings, Vezdaryon surged forward and wrapped his jaws around the wyvern's back leg. He pulled it down like a falling hawk, twisted mid-air, and slammed it against the cliff wall.
The wyvern shrieked but it didn't move again.
Vezdaryon released it, letting the body fall. It bounced off jagged rock, wing dragging behind like a torn sail, before crashing into a heap below.
Still.
Bloodied and bruised, Vezdaryon hovered above it all, chest rising and falling like bellows. One of his wings ached. His side burned. Blood dripped from his jaw and soaked his underbelly.
But he had won.
His first true battle.
Not just for survival but for dominance.
He landed on a ledge overlooking the valley. For the first time in many moons, he folded his wings with effort. Each joint protested. A deep wound across his chest stung with every breath.
He lay down slowly, the stone warm beneath his body.
The wyvern had been ferocious. Even brave.
But foolish.
The skies here were not his anymore.
Vezdaryon blinked at the horizon as the smoke shifted. The world seemed quieter. His heart still beat hard, but slower now. And beneath all the pain, all the adrenaline, was something deeper.
Something old.
Pride.
Not arrogance. Not vanity.
But the certainty of having earned a place in the world.
He had come here small. Unknown. A mystery to dragons and men alike. And now he had been tested.
And survived.
Valyria had taken many. But not him.
He raised his head slightly and looked toward the distant mountains.
This land remembered dragons.
And now, it would remember him.
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hope you enjoy the chapter