The Shores of Blackwater Bay, 219 AC
The tide lapped at the pebbled shore, black waves curling beneath a sky choked in cloud. Prince Maekar Targaryen stood tall in dark steel plate, the three-headed dragon etched across his chest, cloak of black and crimson flapping in the salt-wind. Beside him, his sons—Prince Aerion Brightflame and Prince Aegon the Unlikely—waited with their father for the coming storm.
Aerion, as proud and cruel as ever, wore a helm shaped like a dragon's snarling maw, and his eyes burned with a wildfire hunger. He had once drunk wildfire in a drunken attempt to prove his blood was flame. It had scarred him within, but not softened him. "I hope they land soon," he muttered. "I'm bored of waiting. I want to see how quickly Bittersteel's bastards break when faced with real dragons."
"You speak too often, brother," Aegon said, a young man now, though not yet twenty. His purple eyes bore none of Aerion's cruelty, and his armor, simpler in fashion, bore the sigil of House Targaryen and the badge of House Peake—a nod to his unlikely friendship with Ser Duncan the Tall, once accused of striking a great lord. "War is not a game."
"Spoken like a hedge knight's pup," Aerion spat.
"Aegon is more a man than you've ever been," Maekar snapped, voice low but iron-bound. "And if the two of you cannot keep your swords pointed at the same enemy, we may well lose this day before it begins."
The rebuke silenced them, for a time. The princes stood with their father, all three clad in mail and fury, watching the mist beyond the bay.
The army stood behind them—four thousand strong, levied from the crownlands and the stormlands, knights and foot and archers alike, with banners snapping in the wind. The red dragon flew above them, and above all, the king's standard. Though King Aerys I had not left the Red Keep, the Targaryens led his host.
Behind them, atop a cliffside overlooking the shore, stood Lord Brynden Rivers, the King's Hand. He wore no helm, his pale face and red eye stark against his black cloak, a bow slung across his back. The Raven's Teeth, his personal guard of longbowmen, waited nearby, grim and silent. Like their lord, they saw further than most.
"The boy they crowned is no true king," Maekar said at length, his voice carried by the wind. "He has no birthright. He has no throne. All he has are the dreams of dead men and the steel of exiles."
"Then let us wake him," said Aerion with a cruel smile.
Before Maekar could reply, a sentry dashed from the shoreline, cloak soaked and breath ragged. He fell to one knee before the prince.
"They've been sighted, my prince! Dozens of ships—galleys, warships, and cogs flying the black dragon. The Golden Company sails with them. They'll be upon us within the hour!"
A hush fell across the shore. Even the waves seemed to still.
Maekar gave no word, only mounted his black destrier in one swift motion. "Sound the horns. Form the lines. Steel your hearts."
And as the drums beat out the call to arms, Brynden Rivers stood unmoving upon the cliffs, watching the dark sails crawl across the horizon like a shadow returning to its source.
The storm had come at last.