PROLOGUE
Denys was hungry.
This was not new or different for him at all, but as familiar as breathing in the shit-caked smell of King's Landing. He'd never in his life gone outside the city walls, but he heard it said that the smell carried beyond the horizon, and he believed it. Apparently kings and queens and important people came here and even lived here, but that he had a harder time believing.
Why would anyone who had money or power ever willingly come here? He'd seen the castle, 'the Red Keep' he'd heard adults call it, and it looked like a king's castle, but he'd never seen anyone from it, and he'd never seen anyone go into it either.
In his little group of friends, when they were hiding from the goldcloaks with their catch of the day, be it some bread or some fruit or something else to ear, they talked sometimes about what each of them thought or had heard was really in there. They had all heard plenty from other kids and even some adults, but no one seemed to have proof any way or the other, so they liked to pass time by imagining. Farin thought it was the city's prison, that it was where they took thieves they caught, and kept them and hurt them until they got bored and got a new person. Maeris said that was silly, but Darek had seen bodies get tossed out and told them so, and Denys himself had once heard screams when he got much closer than was safe, but he never told them about that. They'd want to hear for themselves, and he didn't think they should.
When asked about her ideas, Maeris said that there were rooms in the Red Keep high enough in the air that they couldn't smell the city, and that's where the important people were – the lower they went, the less important they were and the more they could smell. That sounded clever to Denys, but he could not imagine there was a room high enough to get away from this smell. He only ever got away from it by going not higher, but deeper, beyond the sewers and into the twisting tunnels. Going deep enough one time, he'd actually found a different smell that reminded him of a bakery they'd stolen from once, a burnt sugar smell that came from some kegs he couldn't open on his own. Denys had never found his way back there, but wanted to someday. It was strong enough that it knocked the shit smell out of his nose for days afterwards.
For his own part, Denys thought the prison idea was probably true, but when they asked him he said that he thought it was a sept for dragons, that the other sept was for praying to gods, so this one was for praying to the dragons. It made some sense to him, seeing the stone figures on the castle walls, and it explained the dragon banners he'd seen in that tunnel with the kegs, that was so near the castle. They liked the idea, but Denys had never seen a dragon, and he had never seen anyone carrying those dragon banners or looking like they prayed to dragons.
Today, all that changed.
He and his friends were watching carefully from a rooftop, huddled down so only the tops of their heads peeked over the ledge as a huge army, way bigger than the one that left a while ago, came stomping in through the Gods' Gate as people cheered them on. Most of them carried weapons, meaner looking ones than the goldcloaks had, but a lot of them carried those dragon banners Denys had once seen. And riding at the front of this army was the prettiest person any of them had ever seen. Silver-white hair flowed from under a steel crown, a steel nicer than any metal he'd ever had pointed at him. Pale lilac eyes, a colour Denys had never seen before, looked out over the city and once in a while flitted over to the not-quite-as-pretty man riding next to him all in red and gold. The man's own armor was black as night, and had small red stones in the eyes of the three-headed dragon on his chest.
That, he thought,
is a man who looks like a king.
Then there was a sound unlike any cry or scream Denys had ever heard before, and he lived in a poor enough part of the city that he'd heard a lot. A shadow passed over the city too quick to be a cloud, and he and his friends looked up to see a dragon. It was black as coal with red wings and it was swooping over the streets, real and alive and the most amazing thing he had ever seen or ever would.
After its cry, the army began to cry out, too, cheers and yells and sounds of joy, and Denys breathed a little easier in the shitstained air. Happy men were usually good men, he and his friends knew. Angry men were dangerous men.
Then some of them started singing something, and it took Denys a bit to recognise it. Really, he didn't put it together until he heard Maeris humming along, and it was the same tune, but different words than the song he'd heard whispered among some adults, played quietly in some places his mother didn't think him old enough to get into. He didn't know what all of the words had meant, but knew the song referred to dragons and princes and now it made a lot more sense with this new king in front of them. As he listened, a smile grew on his face, something in the song making him feel like something new was coming. What it was, he didn't know. But he hoped to find out, as the soldiers sang.
On the Trident, the waters of fate,
Came the Dragon, his forces great.
Then charged again the Stag in vain
For in the waters, his doom did wait.
Pretender Stag, his reason fled
Sought another, who lay long dead.
Instead he found his fate and drowned.
Once more the river was ruby red.
When came the call, we answered all,
And brought them home, 'fore Winter's Frost.
March now, their home and throne wait.
Ride now, the Realm must be led.
We'll march through every Gate.
Fly their banners black and red.
Follow prince, princess and king,
As they take the Iron Throne.
We will reap the peace that they bring
Now they claim their long awaiting home.
From far away, the Three-Headed Dragon's come!
-------------
Thirteen years after Robert's Rebellion drove them from their home, the Targaryen Restoration has been a resounding success.
An end has been made to the Usurper's reign of terror, and now the Targaryens, being siblings Viserys & Daenerys, and their
nephew Aegon are to be seated as the rightful rulers of Westeros. Their exile is over, but their reign is just begun.
Now, they hope, begins their lasting joy.
