Chapter 4: The Dragon's Hoard and the Dying Fire
The return to Valyria was like stepping back into a gilded cage, albeit one whose bars Aelyx now knew how to bend, and whose occupants were largely oblivious to the predator in their midst. The year spent forging his dominion on Skagos had been raw, brutal, and invigorating. Valyria, by contrast, felt stagnant, its opulence a veneer over a deep-seated complacency, its power an edifice built on increasingly unstable foundations. His greensight flared more frequently now, the visions of fire and ruin sharper, more insistent. The Doom was a palpable pressure, a screaming silence just beyond the threshold of hearing. He had, at most, two years.
As Aelyx Velaryon, dutiful son and astute heir, he resumed his role with flawless precision. He presented his father with meticulously fabricated reports of burgeoning trade opportunities in the north, complete with samples of (carefully selected and innocuous) Skagosi furs and carved stones, presented as curios from "wild, but potentially lucrative, northern islets." Aerion Velaryon, blinded by paternal pride and the steady, inexplicable increase in House Velaryon's fortunes (courtesy of Mipsy's masterful laundering of Aelyx's transmutated gold through Velaryon shipping ventures), lauded his son's acumen. Lyra Stark, his mother, watched him with her unsettlingly perceptive grey eyes, a silent question in their depths, but she offered no challenge. She, too, seemed to sense the encroaching darkness, retreating further into her quiet melancholy.
With the vast, inexhaustible wealth of the Philosopher's Stone at his command, Aelyx embarked on a two-pronged campaign to acquire the final pieces he needed before Valyria's end: magical knowledge, artifacts, and, most crucially, dragon eggs.
On the surface, he was the inquisitive scholar, the young nobleman with a keen interest in the glories of Valyrian heritage. He frequented the grand libraries of the Freehold, spending hours poring over ancient texts on history, dragonlore, and the theoretical underpinnings of Valyrian sorcery. He cultivated relationships with aging scholars and cloistered Loremaster, using his charm and carefully placed donations (of pristine, untraceable gold) to gain access to restricted archives. Much of what he found was self-congratulatory myth and dangerously incomplete ritual fragments. Valyrians, he realized, were practitioners more than theorists, their magic often intuitive, passed down through bloodlines rather than meticulously documented. Still, he gleaned valuable insights into blood magic, the control and binding of fiery creatures, and the intricate glyph-work that seemed to power many of Valyrian's arcane constructs. This knowledge was meticulously cataloged, cross-referenced with Voldemort's and Flamel's lore, and stored within his Occlumency-shielded mind and, via dictation to a silent, observant Mipsy, in magically preserved scrolls within his trunk.
He purchased artifacts openly – ancient Valyrian blades rumored to hold enchantments (most were inert, but a few pulsed with faint, fading magic), obsidian spheres used for scrying (inferior to his greensight, but useful for practice), and curious devices whose original purposes were lost to time. Each acquisition was a piece of the puzzle, a glimpse into the magical tapestry of this world.
The open acquisition of dragon eggs was a far more delicate matter. While his previous successes had emboldened him, the imminent sense of doom made other families either more desperate or more fiercely protective of their legacies. He tasked Tibbit, glamoured as a wizened, obscenely wealthy merchant from a distant, newly-rich Free City, with making discreet inquiries. Tibbit, with his house-elf's ability to become utterly unremarkable, could navigate the treacherous undercurrents of Valyrian society, identifying Dragonlords whose pride was outweighed by their debts or their fear of impending irrelevance.
Over the next eighteen months, through a labyrinth of intermediaries and staggering sums of gold that would have made even the High Lords of Valyria blink, Aelyx managed to acquire three more eggs. One came from a flamboyant, decadent family whose fortunes had been squandered on pleasure barges and exotic pets. Another from a grim, paranoid Lord who believed the omens of destruction and sought to convert his assets into a more portable form, intending to flee Valyria (Aelyx knew from his greensight this lord would not escape the Doom, but his egg would). The third was procured from a lesser branch of a powerful House, whose main line looked down upon them; the sale was an act of spite as much as financial necessity. These eggs – one the color of molten gold with silver striations, another a pearlescent white that shimmered with all the hues of a dawn sky, and the third a deep, stormy blue – joined the others in the magically regulated hatchery within his trunk. Five eggs. A respectable start. But not enough. Not nearly enough for the dynasty he envisioned.
For the true prizes, the eggs of the most potent bloodlines, the secrets guarded jealousy by the ruling forty families, Aelyx unleashed the full spectrum of his clandestine capabilities. This was where Voldemort's ruthlessness, Flamel's subtle arts, and his own cold, calculating intellect merged with the unique talents of his house-elves.
His primary targets were Houses known for particularly strong or unusually colored dragons, or those rumored to possess unique grimoires of fire magic or blood sorcery. The risks were astronomical. The hatcheries of the great Dragonlords were fortresses within fortresses, guarded by loyal retainers, complex magical wards, and often, by brooding mother dragons themselves. Discovery meant not just death, but a horrifying, public execution intended as a lesson to any who dared defy the established order. Aelyx's ingrained caution warred with Voldemort's avarice, but the ticking clock of the Doom spurred him to calculated audacity.
The first secret acquisition was from House Belaerys, known for their magnificent amethyst-colored dragons and their mastery of certain fire-shaping techniques. Tibbit spent weeks as a virtually invisible presence within their sprawling manse, mapping guard rotations, identifying the intricate web of thermal wards and pressure-sensitive glyphs protecting their hatchery. Aelyx, reviewing Tibbit's magically transcribed mental maps, devised a plan that was breathtaking in its complexity.
Under the cover of a festival night, when Valyria was awash with revelry and distractions, Aelyx, cloaked in the true Invisibility Cloak of the Deathly Hallows, moved like a whisper through the Belaerys estate. He was accompanied by Kreely and Gorok, both under similar, albeit less powerful, disillusionment charms woven by Aelyx himself. While Aelyx, drawing on Voldemort's mastery of curse-breaking and Flamel's understanding of ward-nullification, painstakingly unpicked the outer layers of magical defenses, Kreely and Gorok, with their innate house-elf ability to bypass many forms of magical impediment, slipped through minute cracks in the physical structure, disabling internal alarm-glyphs from within.
The hatchery itself was a cavernous, geothermally heated chamber. A massive amethyst dragon, its scales shimmering in the volcanic glow, slumbered fitfully around a clutch of four eggs. Aelyx knew that directly confronting the beast was folly. Instead, he employed a tactic Voldemort had once used to subdue a particularly troublesome basilisk: a carefully concocted soporific gas, brewed by Flamel's art, delivered silently through magically created vents. The mother dragon stirred, snorted plumes of violet smoke, then slowly succumbed to a deep, unnatural slumber.
Working with chilling speed, Aelyx and the elves secured two of the four eggs – large, perfectly formed specimens glowing with an inner purple light. They also located Lord Belaerys's private study, a chamber Tibbit had identified as holding several ancient-looking, heavily bound tomes. Aelyx quickly scanned them with a diagnostic charm, identifying two as significant grimoires dealing with advanced fire magic and dragon-bonding rituals. These, too, vanished into a specially prepared, magically shielded satchel. The retreat was as flawless as the entry. By dawn, Aelyx was back in his Velaryon chambers, the two amethyst eggs and the grimoires safely stored in the trunk, the city none the wiser.
He repeated such clandestine operations four more times over the ensuing months, each one more audacious than the last. He targeted House Qoherys, relieving them of a magnificent bronze egg with veins of pure obsidian and a treatise on Valyrian blood magic that made even Voldemort's soul-fragment shiver with appreciative interest. From the reclusive House Maegyr, known for their secretive alchemical pursuits, he acquired not only a mottled green-and-gold egg but also several scrolls detailing the creation of Valyrian steel – not the complete formula, but vital missing pieces that Flamel's knowledge could potentially complete.
The most daring theft was from a lesser vault of the mighty House Targaryen themselves. Aelyx knew their primary hatcheries and strongholds were impregnable, guarded by dragons like Balerion the Black Dread. But Tibbit, through weeks of patient, perilous observation, discovered a smaller, less ostentatious family holding on the outskirts of Valyria where a younger son, less favored, kept his own small clutch. The risk was immense, the Targaryen name itself a ward. But the allure of their famed bloodline was too strong.
This operation involved a deeper level of magic. Aelyx used Confundus Charms on the outer guards from a distance, subtle compulsions delivered on the wind. He personally navigated a maze of pressure plates and light-sensitive wards, his senses heightened by a potion of Flamel's devising. Inside, he found three eggs: one black as night, one silver as moonlight, and one a fiery red. He took only one – the black one, knowing its genetic potential was likely the strongest, and to take more would be to invite an unprecedented, overwhelming response even his growing power might not withstand.
With each successful theft, Aelyx's confidence grew, yet so did his caution. He varied his methods, never using the same approach twice. He utilized every tool at his disposal: the Invisibility Cloak, his growing mastery of both light and dark Potterverse spells, Flamel's alchemical concoctions, the unique abilities of his house-elves, and his own sharp intellect and greensight-informed planning. The souls within him worked in concert: Voldemort's audacity and magical prowess, Flamel's subtlety and encyclopedic knowledge, and Aelyx's own core determination to protect and provide for his future.
By the time the final year before the Doom dawned, Aelyx had secretly amassed an astonishing thirteen dragon eggs in addition to the two phoenix eggs, each one a treasure beyond reckoning. His trunk now contained a veritable library of stolen Valyrian magical lore, supplementing the already vast knowledge of his conjoined souls.
He also continued his remote oversight of Skagos. Via the soul-bond with Mipsy, he received nightly reports. Icefang Keep was nearing completion, a grim sentinel overlooking Shadowport. The port itself was thriving in its isolated way, its shipyards (crewed by house-elves and trained Legionaries) already capable of repairing and even constructing small vessels. The Shadow Legion maintained its iron grip, its numbers bolstered by a new generation of Skagosi-born youth now entering training, their loyalty to the Shadow Lord absolute. The hidden sanctuary deep within the mountains was expanding, its chambers being carved out and warded with ever more complex enchantments. Aelyx had even begun to send small, heavily guarded shipments of his transmutated gold to Skagos, creating a hidden treasury there, independent of Valyria.
As the days shortened and an unnatural stillness fell over Valyria, the signs of the impending Doom became unmistakable, at least to Aelyx. The Fourteen Flames, the colossal volcanoes that were the source of Valyria's power, rumbled with a new, ominous cadence. Minor earth tremors, dismissed by most as common occurrences, became more frequent, more violent. The ambient magic of the peninsula felt… frayed, stretched taut like an over-tuned harp string. Dragonlords grew more irritable, their beasts more restless. Some whispered of dark omens, of priests of R'hllor preaching of a cleansing fire, but their voices were drowned out by the arrogant certainty of Valyrian invincibility.
Aelyx made his final preparations. He ensured his personal ship, the Shadowmere (as he had mentally named it), was always ready, stocked with provisions and disguised as a simple Velaryon trading vessel, but with powerful enchantments for speed and stealth woven into its hull. He subtly influenced his father to send several key Velaryon ships laden with valuable (but replaceable) cargo on extended voyages to distant ports, away from the peninsula. He couldn't save House Velaryon, nor did he truly intend to try – his loyalty was to his own future, his own line. But minimizing his father's immediate losses might provide a useful smokescreen or minor asset later.
His most crucial preparation was for the Philosopher's Stone. He knew the Doom would unleash an unprecedented torrent of death, of raw psychic energy. Flamel had created his Stone over decades, feeding it with carefully controlled alchemical processes. Aelyx intended to gorge his Stone on the death throes of an entire civilization. He spent weeks in his hidden workshop within the trunk, subtly attuning the Stone, modifying its receptivity with rituals drawn from Voldemort's darkest arts and Flamel's deepest understanding of spiritual matrices. He was preparing it to become a psychic siphon of unimaginable power. The Elixir it would produce afterwards would be beyond anything Flamel had ever dreamed, capable of granting true, unshakeable immortality not just to him and his inner circle, but to his dragons, ensuring their eternal companionship and power.
He also prepared the Resurrection Stone. Not to bring back the dead – he knew the folly of that path – but as a potential tool to communicate with or glean knowledge from the recently departed, if the opportunity arose amidst the chaos. It was a dark, dangerous thought, but Voldemort's pragmatism urged him to consider every asset. The Elder Wand remained an abstraction, its power dormant within him until he could craft a physical focus for it, something he planned to do once in the security of his sanctuary.
In the final days, an eerie calm descended. Aelyx walked the beautiful, doomed city of Valyria, a ghost at the feast. He saw the hubris, the casual cruelty, the breathtaking artistry, and felt nothing but a cold, predatory anticipation. He was Aelyx Velaryon, scion of a dying world. He was the Shadow Lord of Skagos, harbinger of a new order. He was the inheritor of Voldemort's ambition and Flamel's wisdom, armed with magic from worlds beyond their ken.
The Fourteen Flames were beginning to smoke with a new, baleful light. The ground beneath his feet trembled with a silent promise. He was ready. Let the fires fall. He would rise from the ashes, stronger than ever imagined.