The winds changed again.
High and sharp, the gusts carried the smell of pine and ice and wind scoured stone. Mountains rose ahead like the jagged teeth of an ancient god. The Vale. A land cradled in rock and guarded by snow, distant from the sprawl of men.
Vezdaryon did not slow.
He soared above the rising peaks, his wings spread wide, casting his shadow across forests that clung desperately to the slopes. Below, eagles screamed and scattered. Goats fled into crevices. The thin air cut at him, but he welcomed it. This was a clean place not untouched, but proud. Quiet. The sky above was pale and endless, the kind that pulled at something in his chest he no longer named.
He flew between two high ridges, his massive body cutting through clouds that clung to the crags. The mountains whispered. Winds whistled in the sharp creases of stone, and in their songs, he heard ancient things. He didn't understand them not in words but he felt them in his bones.
The Vale was old.
It was not Valyria. It held no fire, no doom lingering beneath the earth. But there was power here. Deep. Subtle. A strength rooted not in flame, but in stillness.
He passed over a narrow mountain trail a group of riders had dismounted, huddled beside a cliff wall. One pointed up. The others followed his finger. Then silence. Even the horses stopped breathing for a moment. Vezdaryon did not look down. He didn't need to. Their fear was like heat rising from stone sharp and thin.
He banked right, curling around a peak where wind struck hard against his flank. He dipped lower, wings tight to his sides for a breath, then pulled up and rose again, higher until the clouds beneath him looked like snowfields, and the land below was only a memory.
He liked it up here.
The Vale had no wyverns. No strange beasts. No frost-bitten curses like the North, and no molten wounds like Valyria. It was sky and silence. The kind of place a dragon could rest if he wanted to.
But rest was not in him.
He'd learned that long ago.
He descended slightly, enough to glimpse the world again. Below, a valley opened like a wound in the stone rich green fields surrounded by cliffs. A castle perched upon a distant cliff, high and proud, protected by the sky. The Eyrie.
It was smaller than he expected.
Or maybe he was just… larger.
He kept his distance. He didn't roar. Didn't fly low. He let his shadow speak for him long and soundless across the Vale. It whispered of fire. Of power that had no leash. He could feel the eyes watching from castle towers, from forest clearings, from hidden mountain paths. Lords, knights, maesters, and common folk alike. All staring skyward. None daring to speak aloud what he was.
He flew on.
Another pass between peaks, another gust of wild wind. It brushed through the spines along his back, through the scarred and thick hide that bore the map of every battle he'd fought. One old wound flared as the cold pressed against it a line near his ribs from a wyvern's talon, long healed but still present. He welcomed the sting.
He remembered when he'd been young, clumsy in the air, still unsure of his body. He'd once struck a cliff wall out of arrogance and nearly spiraled into a gorge. He could still feel the way the wind had abandoned him then. But that had been years ago.
Now, he flew like the sky answered to him.
A storm with a will.
He passed over a lake nestled between steep cliffs calm, mirror-like, reflecting his form for just a moment. What he saw was not a creature. Not a beast. But something more a flame given shape, terrible and beautiful.
The land would remember his passage.
Not because he roared. Not because he burned.
But because he was.
He tilted westward now. Beyond the Vale, he knew, lay other kingdoms. The Reach. The Crownlands. The Stormlands.
He would learn their shapes and winds and rhythms. Not because he belonged to them, but because he did not. Because he chose to know the world that had forgotten him.
Of what dragons once were — wild, unbound, and godless.
As the sun dipped behind the mountains and cast long orange light across the stone, Vezdaryon let out a breath. It wasn't fire. Just heat. Smoke curled faintly from his nostrils, catching the dying light.
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