The letter arrived in the evening.
It was sealed with deep red wax, pressed with the sigil of a minor Essosi spice trader—just another name in the merchant rolls of Elyria, a city halfway devoured by the Smoking Sea. Most nobles would've thrown it into the fire without opening it.
But I wasn't most nobles.
I slit the seal with a silver hairpin and unfolded the parchment carefully. The message was brief, the handwriting neat and sharp:
To the honored collector,
I have received your inquiry with interest. My family has kept a relic in our care for over a century—claimed from the ruins near Old Valyria. It is… stone, but not. Warm, sometimes. The locals whisper of curses. I whisper of coin.
If you are interested, meet me in Elyria within a fortnight. Discretion is assumed.
—M.
I read it three times. Then I smiled.
My first dragon.
Getting permission to travel was the harder part.
Illyrio didn't let us leave Pentos often—not without Viserys, and not without a very good reason. But I'd planned for this. I waited until Viserys had one of his drunken, angry days. After he stormed off to scream at the servants and throw things in his room, I knocked softly on Illyrio's study door.
He looked up from his wineglass, already half-soused.
"Aelya," he said, smiling with that slow, calculating grin. "Come in, my dear. What can I do for you?"
I stepped inside in my nicest blue dress and offered him my best performance.
"I've been feeling a little… lost," I said, playing with the lace on my sleeve. "Everything is so routine here. I want to see something real. Something old. Something from the world we came from."
He raised a bushy brow. "Real?"
"Artifacts," I said smoothly. "Relics of Old Valyria. I heard there's a trader in Elyria who displays pieces from the ruins. Coins, obsidian blades, even dragonbone. I just want to look."
He hummed. "And what would Viserys think of this?"
"I'll tell him it's boring," I said simply. "Then he won't want to come."
Illyrio chuckled.
By morning, he had arranged a carriage, a small escort, and a stern warning not to stray too close to the Smoking Sea.
I packed the letter in my boot.
Elyria was a dying city.
It sat near the edge of the world like a scar—a once-proud trading port with empty towers and silent canals. The buildings leaned like old men. The air smelled of salt and soot. A thousand years ago, Valyrian dragonlords walked its streets.
Now, beggars and ghosts did.
We arrived just past noon. The sun was pale and hazy, like it was afraid to shine here.
I wore a plain cloak, my hair bound tight beneath a scarf, and moved through the narrow alleys with my escort close behind. The letter said nothing of a specific place—just a name and a sigil.
So I searched.
Three inns.
Two dead ends.
Then, finally, at the edge of a crumbling plaza, I found a door marked with that same red wax seal.
I knocked once.
It opened immediately.
The man who greeted me was thin, tall, and dark-eyed. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his hands were stained with ink.
"Lady Aelya," he said softly. "You came."
"I did," I replied, stepping inside.
The room was plain, but clean. A table stood at the center, draped in red velvet. The object on it was covered in cloth, the shape unmistakable.
He pulled the cloth back.
And there it was.
The egg.
It wasn't like Daenerys's egg—hers had been black with scarlet veining, shimmering like glass. This one was rougher. The scales were dark blue, almost obsidian, with streaks of copper running through them like veins of fire. The surface was matte, not shiny, and it looked… heavy. Solid.
I stepped forward and touched it.
It was warm.
Not hot, but unmistakably warm—like sun-soaked stone. My fingers tingled.
"How did you come by this?" I asked, not taking my eyes off it.
"My grandfather was a scavenger," the man said. "Worked the coast near the ruins. He found it in a broken shrine, deep in a flooded valley. Claimed it sang to him in his dreams. Carried it home and locked it away."
"And he never tried to sell it?"
He shrugged. "He was afraid of it. Thought it was cursed."
I smiled faintly. "It is."
I reached into my sleeve and passed him a small pouch of gold.
He weighed it. Nodded. "It's yours."
That night, I held the egg in both arms like an infant.
It was heavier than I expected, but comforting. Like cradling a stone heart that had just begun to beat.
Dany sat across from me in the small inn, watching with wide, curious eyes.
"You didn't tell me we were coming for that," she whispered.
"I wasn't sure," I replied honestly.
"Is it real?"
I looked down at it. "Yes."
She stepped forward slowly, brushing her fingers over the shell. "It feels alive."
"It is. Not awake. But alive."
She looked at me then—not at the egg, not at the road behind us, but at me. Her eyes were soft. Trusting.
"How did you know it would be here?"
I hesitated.
Then I smiled.
"I just… had a feeling."
We returned to Pentos three days later.
Illyrio asked no questions—he had enough coin and influence to ignore strange souvenirs. I told him it was a gift for our future throne. He laughed and ordered wine.
Viserys barely noticed.
He was too busy ranting about a Dothraki warlord he'd heard rumors about—some savage with forty thousand riders. I nodded along, pretending to listen.
But that night, while the house slept, I lit a single candle and placed the egg before me on the floor.
And I whispered to it.
Old words. Ancient syllables that tasted like fire on my tongue. Words I hadn't spoken aloud in years.
Words I'd never learned in my first life.
"Dracarys… Vezof. Qelbar. Mēre nyke ābrar."
The candle flame flickered.
The egg pulsed with warmth.
And deep within it, just for a heartbeat, I thought I heard a sound.
Like breathing.
I didn't tell Daenerys. Not yet.
Not until it was ready.
Not until I could hatch it on my own.
She would always be my sister, my love, my light—but this was mine. My dragon. My piece of the future I was building.
And there would be more.
There were other eggs. I knew where to look. Who to bribe. Who to threaten.
The world thought the Targaryens were nearly extinct.
But we would be more than survivors.
We would be conquerors.
ADVANCED CHAPTERS:
patreon.com/CozyKy