27. Ready to Hiss

Daeron POV

Daeron soared through the skies atop Caraxes, a concentrated frown creasing his brow. The wind howled around them, but his mind was louder—focused, calculating. He was attempting maneuvers he had seen other dragonriders perform in his dreams. Dragon dreams—or whatever they truly were—had a habit of creeping into his sleep now and then since the last ritual he performed. Thankfully, they bore no omens of doom, unlike those of Daenys the Dreamer, whose visions had once saved House Targaryen from annihilation.

But perhaps that was only because he received so few dreams that hinted at the future. The only one that ever did had come in Winterfell—a fleeting vision of Ser Arthur’s arrival. Since then, nothing.

With a soft sigh, Daeron blamed the brief bond he and Caraxes had shared. They were still learning each other, after all. Reluctantly, he gave up on the intricate maneuvers and leaned forward, steering Caraxes toward Old Wyk at full speed. They had left the Twins before the sun’s first light, and judging by the sun’s height now, Daeron had clearly lost track of time. Not that it mattered—on dragonback, returning would be no great challenge.

Still, the thought tugged at him. He had half a mind to return by way of Riverrun. If memory served, the Lannisters had joined forces with the Freys and rebellious Riverlords to lay siege to the Tully stronghold. But he couldn’t be sure. Too much time had passed in the North, then their forced marches south had eaten up weeks. Even though they tried to make haste as much as they could to reach the Twins.

He weighed the thought carefully. If Riverrun was conquered by Lannister and Freys by the time he reached there, then flying over it—and perhaps setting it ablaze—would make for a fine announcement. A bold declaration that King Daeron Targaryen had entered the Game of thrones.

With that, he narrowed his eyes against the wind and commanded,
“Aderī, Caraxes.”
(Quickly.)

The dragon roared in response, wings slicing through the clouds as they surged ahead—toward the holiest place of Ironborn.

Old Wyk

The wind off Ironman’s Bay was harsh, salt-laced, and sharp, but Daeron hardly noticed as Caraxes descended through thick gray clouds. His violet eyes narrowed as the jagged silhouette of Old Wyk emerged beneath them—a place as dark and dreary as Maester Luwin had once described.

This was no lush cradle like the Riverlands or the Reach, only cruel, ancient stone. A crag of blackened rock jutted from the sea like a broken fang, battered endlessly by waves that crashed and foamed white at its base. The shorelines were steep, narrow strips of slick black stone, broken here and there by tide pools and gull-covered boulders.

Further inland, the island rose into a spine of cliffs and barrows, crowned with twisted ironwoods and standing stones, each blackened by centuries of salt and time. Despite Old Wyk’s grim aura, Daeron found it preferable to the blinding, endless expanse of white he had once known. Perhaps a little green would’ve been better—but only a little.

His focus shifted, sharp as a falcon’s, to the island below. Near the center stood the remnants of the oldest altar to the Drowned God, where the sea had once carved its blessing deep into the stone. Even from the sky, Daeron felt it—an echo of sacrifice and chanting lost beneath waves, a subtle but primal warning: You are small. You are a speck in this world.

He would not land there.

Caraxes circled once, then again, wings slicing the air as Daeron searched for something more secluded. His eyes caught it—a jagged cleft carved into the eastern cliffs, hidden between folds of sea-mist and stone. Perfect.

Caraxes landed hard, talons cracking stone, wings folding with a leathery rustle. He lowered a forelimb for Daeron to dismount.

The place was quiet—no birds, no beasts, only the crashing of waves below, steady and thunderous like a slow, ancient drum. And there, rising from the earth in a solemn curve, were the bones Daeron had come for.

Bleached by time. Salted by countless storms. Massive. White. Unmistakably magical.

Nagga.

Even half-buried and broken, her residual power pulsed faintly in the air. They said the Grey King had slain her and built his hall from her bones. Daeron knew better. These weren’t the remains of some mere sea beast. This was something powerful—perhaps something greater than dragons. Dragon bones, even the oldest, did not hold this much magic after thousands of years.

He smirked. More than I hoped for.

He stepped forward, boots crunching over broken shells and the shattered remnants of ancient offerings. Reaching out, he ran his hand along one rib-bone, feeling the tingling hum beneath the surface—the ancient residue of deep, primal magic.

Perfect. The vessel for his ritual had already been waiting.

Caraxes approached, his gaze fixed on the bones, as if appraising them himself. Daeron smiled and walked toward his dragon to retrieve the supplies strapped tightly to the saddle. Caraxes shifted subtly, positioning himself just right, as if sensing the need before being asked.

As Daeron pulled the last bundle free, Caraxes tensed. Daeron felt it in the change of posture, the tilt of his dragon’s long neck. He turned and placed a hand on Caraxes’s flank, running it up toward his head. The dragon stilled under the familiar touch.

“I want you to stay here,” Daeron said in High Valyrian, voice calm but commanding. “Watch over me while I’m unconscious. Be alert. If anyone comes too close... burn them.”

His Valyrian wasn’t perfect yet—he still had to think before speaking, still leaned on the mental guidance Aether sometimes provided—but the words came easier now. Clear enough for Caraxes to understand.

At first, the dragon looked disheartened for reasons Daeron couldn’t place. But the moment he heard the word burn, Caraxes perked up. He plopped onto the ground with deliberate heaviness, coiled tail twitching, eyes scanning the cliffs and skies for any threat foolish enough to appear.

Daeron snorted in amusement and gave his companion a fond pat before turning back to the flattest stretch of stone nearby. It only took a few minutes to drag all the materials over—scrolls, bones, sigils, and sacrificial offerings. And then, Dark Sister.

He drew the blade from its scabbard, the Valyrian steel gleaming like moonlight over obsidian. With practiced precision and considerable strength, Daeron brought the edge down against Nagga’s rib. The ancient bone cracked cleanly. It resisted, but not enough.

Valyrian steel had done its work. The fragment he cut was flawless.

Holding the shard, Daeron exhaled slowly, then looked skyward.

Aether, he called out silently. Tell me where I begin.

{Line Break]

The wind whispered low as twilight settled like ash over Old Wyk. Beneath the broken ribs of Nagga, Daeron knelt upon a flattened slab of black stone, crusted with salt and dried moss. Around him, the bones of dead serpents had been arranged in coiled patterns—each species placed with careful, deliberate hands: copper-scaled vipers, thick-necked constrictors, water-adders with translucent fangs.

All these snakes had been caught during their journey south. Most—if not all—came from the swamps and bogs of the Neck. Arthur had given him strange looks when Daeron began collecting them, but he had ignored his guard’s concerns and gathered them anyway. 

He exhaled slowly. His breath fogged in the chill air before vanishing into the dusk. Below, the sea crashed and hissed against the cliffs—an appropriate chorus.

Daeron drew in a deep breath.

After this, he would get the ability he liked most from his old world. Parseltongue. A gift he'd use in silence and shadow. One he hoped to master, twist, and wield like a blade. It was his favorite—and he knew exactly how to make it his again.

His eyes turned toward the ritual ingredients laid out before him:

– The crushed fangs of a Neck-dwelling shadow asp.
– The forked tongue of a green-scaled blood adder, pickled in brine.
– Strips of vocal plant bark, soaked in snake oil and bound with weirwood paste.
– And lastly, a splinter of Nagga’s rib, carved with spiraling runes that shimmered faintly in the firelight.

A small fire crackled nearby, blue-green from the herbs he’d tossed in earlier. Smoke curled upward—slow, thick, and sinuous—clinging to the bones overhead like creeping vines. The air smelled of scorched brine and something older, rawer. Like breath on stone in a cave forgotten by time. Or so Daeron thought.

He opened his palm.

The weirwood paste glistened in the low light, dark and viscous like fresh blood. With steady fingers, he smeared a line down his throat, from just below the jawline to the hollow of his collarbone. It pulsed cold.

As always.

Next, he picked up the preserved serpent tongue. He placed it on his own and swallowed. Bitter. Metallic. It clung to the roof of his mouth as if trying to fight its own consumption. His jaw clenched, but he did not gag. No time to waste.

He reached for the shard of Nagga’s rib, still faintly warm from the recent carving. Pressing its sharp end into the base of his neck, he drew blood.

The ritual circle responded.

No blinding light. No eruption of fire. But the edges of the snake bones began to glow—faint green, steady, unnatural. Each scale exhaled a shimmer of breathless magic. The runes pulsed. The serpents whispered.

Daeranyx began the chant, his voice low and steady:

“Sleep of scale, slide through dark,
Bind my voice, sharpen the mark.
Spirit serpent, hiss my breath—
Tongue of coils, rise from death...”

His voice cracked midway through the first verse. Not from fear. Not weakness.

From resistance.

Something was moving inside him—curling around his throat like a live wire. His tongue prickled, then burned. His eyes rolled back briefly as the second verse slithered from his lips, thickened by sibilants that no longer felt entirely his.

The snakes were dead. Their spirits harvested. But their magic... it lingered.

He could feel it burrowing deeper with each word, scraping his throat like dry scales. And yet, the more he spoke, the more natural it felt. As if this language had always been waiting for him to remember it.

By the third verse, the runes on the bone shard flared. The fire pulsed once. Twice.

Then died.

Silence fell.

The world seemed to wait.

Then, a whisper.

A hiss.

It didn’t come from his mouth.

It came from somewhere deeper—from behind his teeth, from the hollows of his bones, from the marrow.

It spoke inside him.

Daeron’s lips parted, ready to answer in kind, to speak the words that wanted out.

But before a sound could leave his throat, darkness rushed in.

His knees gave out.

And he collapsed onto the cold stone floor—unconscious, motionless, and silent beneath the dead serpent bones.

{Line Break}

Daeron awoke with a raw, aching throat and a dull throb in his jaw. Each breath rasped like it passed over gravel. Groaning, he pushed himself up from the stone slab, swaying slightly as the world tilted. The sky above was bruised with the last shades of sunset—he had been unconscious for over an hour.

Despite the pain, a grin split his face. He could feel it—that foreign, serpentine presence still coiled in his chest, a language not of lungs or throat, but of instinct and bone.

He’d brought one live serpent with him for this very reason.

But before he could turn to the coiled test subject, his gaze snagged on Caraxes.

The dragon lay nearby, observing him with that familiar, sleepy stare—half-lidded and exasperated, like a parent indulging a foolish child. Daeron’s smirk widened. Ignoring the pain, he tilted his head and obeyed the urge crawling up his spine. He didn’t speak. He hissed—words born not of breath, but of something deeper.

“Can you… undersssstand me?”

The sound was... intoxicating. It wasn’t like in the movies back home—it was better. Each syllable slithered, cool and sharp like silvered smoke, as though a second voice had awoken inside him.

Caraxes’s neck lifted from the ground, golden eyes narrowing. The great beast stared at him, unblinking. Ten seconds passed. Then twenty. Daeron began to think the dragon’s silence was his answer. 

But then came the answer, sluggish and gravel-thick, like a mountain waking:

“Yssss… Hw…Ho…How?”

Daeron’s heart hammered. The smirk returned—feral now.

It worked.