The void pulled him back.
Aemon felt it like a tide reversing, an unseen force wrenching him from the past, dragging him through the abyss with a violent, unstoppable pull.
He had no control.
No form.
No breath.
There was only darkness.
Then—
A shudder. A lurch. A sharp, sudden expulsion—
The void spat him out.
Aemon crashed onto solid ground, his knees hitting rough stone. The impact sent a shock through his body, his breath leaving him in a ragged gasp.
For a moment, he remained still, the remnants of the abyss still clinging to him like frost. His mind reeled, disoriented, his senses struggling to catch up with his body.
Then—
Salt. Smoke. Stone.
The familiar scents filled his lungs, thick and heavy with the tang of the sea. The acrid whisper of unseen flames lingered beneath it, woven into the air like an unspoken presence.
Aemon's fingers curled against the ground.
Not ice.
Not snow.
Not the endless ruin of a frozen world.
But something familiar.
Obsidian.
The realization sent a jolt through his chest.
Slowly, Aemon lifted his head.
Waves roared in the distance, their ceaseless crash echoing through the air. The sky above was a deep, brooding grey, the sun veiled behind thick clouds, casting a dim, muted light over the landscape.
And ahead—
Dark stone towers twisted against the sky, their jagged forms like frozen fire, carved by Valyrian hands long before his time.
Aemon's breath hitched.
He knew this place.
Dragonstone.
His home.
The weight of recognition settled over him, both relief and unease coiling in his chest.
This was real.
This was now.
The past had released him.
But why?
Aemon pushed himself upright, his legs still unsteady beneath him. He took a breath, steadying his mind as he turned his gaze toward the looming fortress.
Something felt off.
Dragonstone had always been a fortress of fire and shadow, standing unyielding against the sea, its halls carved with the legacy of Valyria.
But now, it felt… distant.
Like a place that had been waiting.
The castle loomed before him.
Dark. Silent. Watching.
Aemon's boots pressed against the ancient obsidian as he climbed the familiar steps toward the great doors of Dragonstone. And yet, with every step, an unsettling sensation crawled down his spine.
This was his home.
But it wasn't.
The castle felt distant—not abandoned, not ruined, but… wrong.
As if it was out of time.
The air inside was thick with something unseen, a heavy presence pressing against his skin. The torches burned, casting long, flickering shadows on the walls, yet there was no warmth to them. The flames danced, but their light felt muted as if the very stone drank the fire's heat before it could reach him.
He walked the corridors he had known all his life—but they did not welcome him.
The walls, the doors, the very halls of Dragonstone felt like they belonged to another moment. Another existence.
Was this the past?
Or the future?
Aemon exhaled slowly.
He did not stop.
His steps guided him toward the war room.
The heart of Dragonstone.
The place where kings and princes had planned wars and conquest, where the fate of kingdoms had been written upon the Painted Table.
Aemon reached the great doors.
They stood ajar, slightly parted, as if the room itself had been waiting for him.
He hesitated—only for a breath.
Then, he pushed them open.
The war room lay before him.
And his breath caught.
Standing by the Painted Table, bathed in the flickering glow of unseen flames—
Three figures.
Aemon's breath slowed as his eyes traced the figures before him.
They stood tall, regal, unmoving, their very presence commanding the space around them. The flickering torchlight bathed them in a golden glow, casting long shadows against the ancient walls of Dragonstone.
Yet, despite their undeniable reality, there was something off about them.
Something beyond mortal understanding.
Aemon could see them.
Could hear the faint rustle of their robes.
Could feel the weight of their presence.
But they—
Could not see him.
They spoke in hushed, measured voices, their words lost in the silence of time, their movements smooth yet purposeful.
Their hair, the unmistakable silver-gold of Old Valyria, cascaded in waves, untouched by age or imperfection.
Their eyes, deep violet, gleamed with a quiet, knowing intensity—not quite human, not quite godly, but something in between.
Aemon knew those features.
He had seen them before—in portraits, in murals, in books.
Targaryens.
Yet—
He did not recognize them.
Something in his mind refused to place them as if their names had been erased before he could grasp them.
His pulse quickened.
He had seen them somewhere.
Read of them.
And yet—
His mind failed him.
Who were they?
Aemon's hands curled into fists at his sides, frustration creeping into his veins. He was a scholar, a healer, a prince raised with knowledge of his house, yet here he stood before three unknown Targaryens whose names slipped through his grasp like smoke.
His gaze settled on the man at the centre.
Tall.
Broad-shouldered.
A presence that filled the room without effort.
His posture spoke of authority, his very stance a declaration of dominion. His robes, woven in black and deep crimson, bore the unmistakable sigil of House Targaryen—a three-headed dragon, its heads frozen in an eternal snarl of conquest.
At his hip, a sword rested.
Valyrian steel.
A king's blade.
Aemon's throat tightened.
This man—who was he?
Beside him stood two women.
One like a blade—
Her stance was sharp, rigid, and precise, like a warrior honed by battle. Her very presence carried a weight heavier than steel as if the air itself yielded to her will.
Her eyes, sharp as a dagger's edge, flickered with something unreadable.
The other like fire—
A vision of beauty wrapped in quiet strength. She held herself with the elegance of a queen, yet there was something untamed beneath the surface, something Aemon could not name.
Where the first was discipline, this one was grace—but neither lacked strength.
The three of them stood together, a silent force—fire, steel, and shadow woven into flesh and blood.
Aemon's heart pounded.
His instincts screamed at him as if his soul knew what his mind refused to understand.
Who were they?
And why—
Did he feel as if he had walked into a moment long lost to time?
Aemon stood frozen, his breath caught in his throat, his body still as stone.
The man stood over the Painted Table, his hands resting on its carved surface, his eyes distant, lost in something far beyond the war map before him.
And then—
He spoke.
His voice was deep, measured, and filled with the weight of something greater than conquest, greater than ambition.
"I have seen it," the man murmured, his fingers tracing the outline of the North, his gaze unfocused, as though looking past the present into something only he could see. "A great darkness, a long night without end. It comes, creeping beyond the edge of the world, waiting, watching."
Aemon's pulse hammered.
"Winter, deeper than any before. A cold that does not break, does not fade. A storm that drowns fire, that swallows steel, that brings not death—but something worse."
The two women beside him stood in silent understanding, their expressions unreadable, yet something burned within their violet eyes.
"The world of men will fall to ruin," the man continued, his fingers now resting over the Westeros, over Dragonstone itself. "Unless we stand against it. Unless we prepare."
Aemon's breath hitched.
His words—
He knew these words.
He had read the words before, buried within the pages of A Song of Ice and Fire—a secret passed only from king to heir since the days of the dragons, now lost to time. The knowledge had died with Queen Rhaenyra, never reaching her son, Aegon III.
No Targaryen king after him had known, and no ruler had believed. What was once prophecy had become a myth, dismissed as fables, the foolish dream of a long-dead conqueror.
His blood turned to fire.
And then—
It clicked.
Like a blade sliding into its sheath.
Like a lock turning with finality.
The man before him—the king, the dreamer, the conqueror—
Aegon.
Aegon the First.
Aegon the Conqueror.
Aemon's mind reeled, his vision narrowing as realization crashed over him like a wave of dragonfire.
The women at his sides—
One like steel. One like fire.
Visenya.
Rhaenys.
His queens.
His wives.
His sisters.
Aemon's breath left him in a shuddering exhale.
He was standing before legends.
The man who had forged a kingdom in fire and blood, who had ridden Balerion the Black Dread into battle and bent the Seven Kingdoms to his will.
The warrior queen Visenya, blade-sharp, unyielding, Dark Sister hanging at her hip, the very presence of the sword humming with old, restless power. The rider of Vhagar, the great she-dragon of war.
The fierce yet untamed Rhaenys, Meraxes' rider, whose heart burned as bright as her fire, the queen who dreamed of a more united realm than her husband had ever envisioned.
Aegon, Visenya, and Rhaenys.
The first dragons.
Aemon swallowed, his mind spinning.
He had studied their histories, pored over the accounts of their conquest, traced their legacy through the ages—
And now he stood before them.
Not in books.
Not in dreams.
Here.
Real. Breathing. More than just the echoes of history.
Aegon's violet gaze burned with something far beyond ambition.
"A Targaryen must sit on the throne," Aegon murmured, his eyes never leaving the Painted Table. "A dragon must rule, for only from our blood will the fire to withstand the storm be born."
Aemon's heart thundered.
Aegon didn't know.
He had no name for the threat he feared.
He did not speak of White Walkers, of the Night King, of the endless dead marching beneath a frozen sky.
He only knew doom was coming.
A great, nameless darkness.
A long winter that would bring ruin beyond war, beyond conquest, beyond mortal reckoning.
And in his vision—only a Targaryen, a dragon born of his bloodline, could stand against it.
Aegon's jaw tightened, his expression unreadable as he turned to the warrior queen at his side.
Visenya's grip on Dark Sister was iron as if she could already sense the weight of what was to come.
"Then we will be ready," she said, her voice calm but edged with fire. "For whatever comes."
Aemon's breath came shallow, his mind racing as he stood frozen in the shadows of the war room. His body still tingled with the remnants of something unnatural—the feeling of standing in a place that was both real and beyond time.
And then—Aegon moved.
The conqueror's hands drifted to his belt, where a dagger lay nestled in its sheath.
Aemon's stomach clenched.
He knew that dagger.
He had seen it before.
Had held it.
Had revealed it to Ser Barristan not long ago—mere moments before the void swallowed him into this strange vision of the past.
The weight of fate pressed against Aemon's chest, but he did not move.
Aegon unsheathed the dagger.
The Valyrian steel caught the dim candlelight, its dark, rippling surface gleaming like a shadow kissed by fire. The hilt of Dragonbone rested firm in his grip, an unyielding contrast to the fine craftsmanship of the blade itself.
His queens turned to him, their expressions unreadable.
"This," Aegon murmured, lifting the dagger between his fingers, "is more than Valryian steel."
He turned it over, tracing his thumb along the blade.
"I have inscribed my dream upon it."
Aemon's pulse pounded in his ears.
"With the help of the pyromancers, I have set my words into this steel," Aegon continued, his voice steady, yet filled with something heavier than mere belief. Conviction. Purpose. Fate.
"It will be passed down through my bloodline, so those who come after me will know what must be done."
Rhaenys stepped closer, her violet eyes reflecting the candlelight.
"What would you call such a thing, Aegon?" she asked, her voice soft, thoughtful.
Aegon lifted the dagger higher.
The flames from the nearest brazier flickered in response, licking toward the blade as if drawn to it.
A moment passed.
And then—
"The Song of Ice and Fire."
The words hung in the air, charged, shaped by something more than mere prophecy—something woven into the very bones of fate itself.
The fire leapt higher, dancing along the dagger's length.
And then—the words appeared.
Aemon's breath caught.
The steel, dark as the depths of the abyss, began to glow with an ethereal shimmer as hidden inscriptions emerged across the blade, revealed only in the heat of fire.
Rhaenys' lips parted.
Her fingers ghosted over the dagger's hilt as she whispered:
"From my blood comes the prince that was promised, and his will be the Song of Ice and Fire."
Aemon felt something deep within him shift.
The words burned into his mind, searing him to his core.
"It is more than a dream," Aegon said, his voice low but unshakable. "It is a warning. A call to action."
Visenya's grip on Dark Sister tightened.
"And you would entrust this to those who follow?" she asked, her gaze lingering on the glowing steel.
Aegon nodded.
"They must know. One day, they will have to stand where I cannot. And when that day comes, they will not fight for conquest, nor glory, but for survival itself."
Aemon's heart thundered in his chest.
This moment—this very moment—was when the prophecy had been sealed in steel.
It was when Aegon had set into motion something that would ripple through the blood of House Targaryen for centuries to come.
And Aemon—Aemon had already held that dagger.
Had already read those very words with his own eyes.
Aemon's mind churned, a storm of thoughts and revelations crashing into one another. The weight of what he had just witnessed—Aegon's prophecy, the dagger, the truth behind the Targaryen conquest—settled like molten steel in his bones.
It was real.
Not just whispers passed through generations.
Aegon had foreseen it.
And Aemon knew, with terrifying certainty, that the Long Night was coming again.
Would Westeros be ready? Would its rulers heed the warnings, or would they fall to their endless games of power and pride?
He exhaled sharply, his fingers flexing as if grasping for something solid. But before he could dwell any further—
A roar shattered the stillness.
Deep. Thunderous. Primeval.
It did not simply shake the air—it commanded it.
Aemon's pulse quickened.
Instinct pulled him forward, his feet carrying him through the war room as another earth-rattling bellow echoed through the sky. He reached the balcony, heart pounding as he gripped the blackened stone railing.
And then—he saw them.
Dragons.
Not illustrations in aged tomes.
Not whispers of a dying past.
Not mere words from the lips of Maesters who had never truly known.
Real. Alive. Magnificent.
Three beasts of legend soared across the sky, their enormous forms carving through the clouds like gods returning to the world of men.
Aemon could not breathe.
The first, dark as the abyss itself, moved like a living storm, his wings stretching so wide they seemed to swallow the very heavens. His scales were the colour of midnight, so black they gleamed in the dim light, absorbing all around him like the night sky devouring the last traces of day.
His eyes, however—red as fire, red as blood—burned like twin suns in the darkness of his monstrous face.
But it was not just his size.
It was his presence.
Balerion did not merely fly.
He dominated.
The Black Dread was not a beast—he was a force of nature, a living calamity that dwarfed even his kind. He cast a shadow as vast as mountains, his wings creating a storm of their own as they cut through the sky.
This was a dragon that had seen the rise and fall of empires.
A dragon that had melted Harrenhal to ruin.
A dragon that had once been feared as much as death itself.
Balerion was destruction incarnate.
And yet, beside him, another force soared—his equal in legacy, though not in sheer mass.
She was long, lean, and deadly. Her wings stretched wide, her body fluid as a blade in the hands of a master.
Her scales, shimmering in dark bronze, kissed by the colours of dusk, reflected the faintest gold when the light touched her right.
Her eyes, sharp and knowing, burned with a hunter's focus.
She was not simply a beast of war.
She was a warrior's mount.
Fast. Cunning. Unrelenting.
Her wings cut through the air with ruthless precision, her body moving like an arrow loosed from an archer's bow. There was a grace to her destruction, a sharpened edge that made her deadly not in sheer size, but in her speed and fury.
This was Vhagar.
The dragon that would outlive them all. The queen of the battlefield, whose fire would one day forge the might of House Targaryen and claim the skies of war for generations.
Aemon felt awe grip his very soul.
Yet, even Vhagar did not stand as Balerion's second.
That place belonged to the third.
A colossal she-dragon, larger than Vhagar but still smaller than the shadow of the Black Dread.
Yet her size was not what made her extraordinary.
It was her majesty.
Her scales gleamed silver-gold, a radiant contrast to the deep blacks and bronzes of her companions. Her wings beat with an effortless might, carrying her through the air as though she had always belonged to the sky itself.
She was elegance and power, wrapped into one.
Her frame carried the weight of raw strength, her chest broad, her limbs thick with muscle. She was neither brute force nor mere agility—but the perfect balance between them.
Meraxes.
The she-dragon that had conquered cities, whose golden fire had turned men to ash, whose vast wingspan alone could darken entire castles in her wake.
She was bigger than Vhagar, faster than Balerion, her movements like flowing silver across the sky. She was the queen among conquerors.
And together, the three dragons embodied House Targaryen itself.
Aemon's throat tightened.
This was them.
The three dragons that forged an empire.
The three flames that had shaped the destiny of Westeros.
And suddenly—the Targaryen sigil meant more.
He had always seen it as a banner. A house emblem. A symbol of conquest and dominion.
But it was more than that.
It was Balerion—the unstoppable force, the shadow that could swallow kingdoms.
It was Meraxes—the majestic balance, the perfect union of might and grace.
It was Vhagar—the unyielding blade, the warrior's wrath made flesh.
Three dragons.
Three riders.
Three forces that must always stand together.
The wind lashed against Aemon's face as he gripped the balcony's edge, watching their forms twist and weave through the heavens.
He had seen dragons before—but never like this.
These were not remnants of a dying age.
Not weakened shadows of their ancestors.
Not mere echoes of power long since faded.
These were the dragons that had once ruled the world.
His heart ached with a sudden, burning longing.
Would he ever see such beasts again?
Would Westeros?
Would they ever take to the skies, just as these legends before him had?
Aemon clenched his fists so tightly that his knuckles burned, his nails digging into his palms.
Would his eggs hatch?
Would the fire in his blood call them forth?
Or would they remain lifeless, silent stones—forever unawakened?
Doubt. Fear. Hope.
It tangled inside him like a tightening noose.
No.
He wouldn't accept failure.
He couldn't.
The world would need dragons again.
And soon.
Aemon stumbled back from the balcony, his breath ragged, his body trembling with the crushing weight of everything he had just witnessed. His heart pounded like a war drum, each beat reverberating through his ribs, sending a raw ache into his chest.
Above him, the dragons vanished into the clouds, their mighty roars still trembling in the air like the echoes of a dying god. The image of Balerion, Meraxes, and Vhagar—beasts of conquest, symbols of Targaryen dominion, living titans of flesh and flame—branded itself into his very soul.
His breath came in short, shallow gasps.
His veins thrummed, his body vibrating with something he couldn't name—something buried deep inside him, stirring like a beast roused from slumber.
Then—his legs failed him.
The weight of everything—Aegon's dream, the dagger, the dragons, the Second Long Night creeping ever closer—crashed into him like a relentless tide. His knees slammed into the black stone of Dragonstone, pain jolting up his thighs. His hands trembled violently as he braced himself against the rough, weathered surface of the balcony.
The world spun.
His vision blurred, a swirling storm of shadows and fire, flickering between past and future—between what was and what would be.
Too much.
Too fast.
Too soon.
And then—it happened.
A spark.
Not of fire.
But something colder, sharper, more absolute.
Aemon gasped, his spine arching back violently as an unseen force coiled around his bones, seeping into his very marrow. A sensation—not pain, not pleasure, but something beyond mortal comprehension—tore through him like a storm.
A shift.
A rupture.
A rewriting of existence itself.
He tried to scream.
No sound came.
His mind was no longer his own.
It was being unmade.
For a moment, he felt himself on the edge of oblivion. Suspended. Split. Torn apart.
One moment, he was kneeling on the cold stone, clutching at his chest.
The next—he was floating.
No.
Not floating—splitting.
It felt as if his very soul was being pulled in opposite directions, stretched between past and future, between knowledge and the unknown.
His thoughts are fragmented, and his awareness flickered like candlelight in a storm.
Then—
A voice.
Cold. Mechanical. Absolute.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
Aemon gasped, his pupils dilating, his vision tunnelling into blackness.
The voice—it was everywhere. It did not come from above, nor below. It did not whisper in his ear or echo from the walls.
It was inside him.
1%… 2%… 10%…
His heartbeat faltered.
Then roared back to life.
His lungs refused to move as if the very air had turned against him. A cruel, invisible force locked his muscles in place, holding him in a vice of unbearable pressure.
His veins turned to ice, an unnatural chill spiralling through his blood, spreading, sinking, devouring. It was like a silent storm raging through his flesh, rewriting, restructuring, reforging.
He could feel it—raw, unrelenting power surging inside him, twisting, bending, reshaping.
25%… 50%… 75%…
His muscles spasmed. His hands twitched involuntarily, fingers curling and uncurling as if they no longer belonged to him.
His very essence was being rewritten.
The world around him—Dragonstone, the Painted Table, the legacy of his ancestors—blurred into nothingness.
90%… 99%…
Aemon's lips parted in a silent gasp, his mind fracturing, reality itself shattering as something unfathomably vast settled inside him.
Knowledge.
Power.
Purpose.
It flooded through his veins like liquid steel.
100%—SYSTEM ACTIVATION COMPLETE.
Darkness.
A wave of sheer void slammed into him, pulling him down, deeper, deeper, deeper—
Aemon's body collapsed against the blackened stone.
His mind shattered.
His breath stilled.
His heartbeat—once thundering—slowed.
Slower.
Slower.
Until it stopped.
Then—
Oblivion.
And for the first time since his rebirth—
Aemon knew nothing.