Amongst all these happenings is a rather interesting footnote: Ser Aegor Rivers. Ser Aegor, the last wielder of the Valyrian steel blade Blackfyre, was killed in an unremarkable skirmish deep in the hills. A small group of Golden Company swords met a scouting party of the Second Sons quite by accident. There were no villages within twenty miles of the skirmish, and due to the unimpressive numbers involved, the conflict has no name and remains memorable only because Ser Aegor fell to the Second Sons.

Our only source on this matter is a diary written in shorthand by Irro Faeninos, a Volantene sellsword who joined up with the Company in 238AC. He reported the death of three of the fifteen Golden Company swords and estimated seven Second Sons deaths of their dozen or so men. According to him, the sword Blackfyre "vanished when we surveyed the scene." Many have concluded that the man who killed Ser Aegor stole before fleeing, because Faeninos does note the survival of Aegor's killer. But others question the veracity of this statement, as Faeninos's is the only account of this incident. They point out that he was later banished from the Golden Company's ranks following repeated skimming of coin which he used for personal benefit. Thus, Faeninos may not be a trustworthy source, they say, and he himself may have stolen Blackfyre. There is no way to ascertain the truth in this matter, but many have wiled away their hours in consideration of it nonetheless.

Yet, we return to the issue at hand, for this – while interesting – is not our main concern in this text…

Magister Gyllar Eranahan's book The Disputed Lands: A History of Conflicts lay open on my desk. I'd read this same passage countless times, but it gave no indication regarding the location of Blackfyre. In a tome of nearly a thousand pages, only two paragraphs of material were devoted to the sword, and this trend held true in most other histories I'd read. Even texts written on the Blackfyre rebellions contained no hint as to the sword's whereabouts, nor did one biography on Ser Aegor Rivers that I'd read.

This was the most I'd found. Blackfyre had been lost by Ser Aegon in a skirmish between the Golden Company and Second Sons in 241AC, and either some nameless Second Son swiped it off Aegor's body before fleeing, or some conman Irro Faeninos took it then lied about it in his own diary. It practically didn't matter which theory of events was true. Both left too many questions.

Had Faeninos taken the sword, what would he have done with it? The men of the Golden Company would certainly recognize Blackfyre if he casually wore it at his hip. So, unless Faeninos was an idiot, he'd have hidden the blade. Knowing where he'd hidden it, or whether anyone found it was simply impossible.

Simultaneously, the Second Son who took the blade was nameless. I'd not encountered any record of his name despite tracking down some tomes on the Second Sons. There was no mention of any of their men wielding a Valyrian steel blade. If I could find that this man did indeed exist, then I might have a chance of tracking down my ancestral blade. Until such a time, I could do nothing.

I groaned and rubbed hands over my face. There were other Valyrian blades whose locations I did know, and some I could guess at reasonably well. My namesake's blade Dark Sister likely lay north of the Wall. That was the last place it had been taken, by the Bloodraven Brynden Rivers when he disappeared in the tundra. The Lannister blade Brightroar was surely lost in Old Valyria, where Tommen II King of the Rock had gone missing shortly after the Doom. Yet, these lacked the symbology of Blackfyre.

A simple sword had sparked the downfall of a dynasty, and the Blackfyre rebellions were fiercely fought over its symbology. Many saw Blackfyre as directly representing the monarchy, and the right of House Targaryen to rule. It was the blade wielded by Aegon the Conqueror, which was passed to his son Maegor the Cruel, and was held by every Targaryen king through Aegon IV. The Targaryens, a people foreign to Westeros came to be its rulers by right of conquest. For a family of conquerors, a sword was a better symbol for a king than a crown, and when Blackfyre was passed to Daemon, the family lost its legitimacy.

Maesters suggested inbreeding as the main reason for the downfall of the Targaryen dynasty, as the kings slowly became madder and madder with time. That explanation was altogether too scientific for me. It was easy enough to research the Targaryen dynasty and find the old saying about coins and the gods to be false. Most Targaryens were shockingly normal, given the Maesters narrative about them. Other than in a few cases, Targaryen madness seemed to be a myth.

So what brought a once great house to its knees? The loss of legitimacy. The nobles of Westeros no longer believed in the Targaryen right to rule, and they began to recall subconsciously the historical manner in which they had lived, as independent kingdoms. Aerys II gave them every necessary excuse to rebel, and when a second opportunity arrived in the form of Robert Baratheon's sudden death, they reverted to type. They resumed their regional squabbles and took up the old Westerosi ways of war again.

If I wanted to restore House Targaryen to its former glory, I had to find Blackfyre. Its meaning extended beyond ancestral ties or its Valyrian steel makeup.

Sirina groaned and stretched behind me, and I turned in the chair to look at her. Her hair was splayed across the pillows like a curtain. She grasped at the air, then relaxed again and rolled over and cleared the hair from her face.

"Did you rest well?" I asked.

"I did, Your Grace," she looked at me from her side and smiled. "Thank you again for this."

"Well, you can repay me by helping to prepare me for the wedding."

"Of course, Your Grace."

I turned back to the desk, hovering over the pages of the books again. After a moment, Sirina stood over me, her fingers trailing along the back of my shoulder. I sighed and sat back, leaning into her touch. Seeing and sensing my pleasure, Sirina stood directly behind me and continued her action, turning her hand to use her knuckles. Her hand fluttered up my spine toward my neck and settled there, and she brought her other hand to the left side of my neck. She touched me more fully now, all ten fingers and her palms traipsing down my arms. She kissed me on the neck, just where the trapezius muscle extends from the spine. I shivered, and she continued down toward my right shoulder.

"What are you reading?" she whispered. "You must have a lot on your mind, Your Grace."

"Just some record on the Disputed Lands," I said, and Sirina started kissing her way back up my neck. "I've been looking for signs of Blackfyre."

"Oh," Sirina kissed behind my ear then just barely grazed my skin with the tip of her tongue. "I think Viserys told me about it once. That was Aegon the Conqueror's sword, wasn't it?"

I pulled one book from a stack on my desk and opened it. I left it open to a depiction of Blackfyre, the blade dark and smoky with dragon heads emerging on either side of the crossguard, a hand-and-a-half handle, a ruby embedded in the pommel. Sirina ceased her efforts just long enough to look over the picture, though she still stroked my arms through my thin nightgown.

"It's beautiful," she said, but I got the feeling she was not referring to the sword when she nipped at the tip of my ear.

"I hope one day," I spoke, breathing harder now as Sirina worked her magic on me. "To know this picture as a mere shadow of its beauty."

"You will find it one day, Your Grace," Sirina said, and she kissed the corner of my jaw eliciting a moan from my lips. "Perhaps I could grant you good luck on your search?"

I smiled and brought my hand to the back of her head, threading my fingers through her hair. It was so soft, soft like silk and smooth like liquid gold. It smelled of the sea breeze, salt and spray and the cool wind.

"But the wedding," I protested, but her touch was so soft, so warm.

"I'll dress you quickly," Sirina rested her chin on my shoulder. "Besides, it is early. You've plenty of time before festivities begin."

She did have a point, and I was getting more and more aroused by the moment if the growing slickness on my thighs was any measure. I hummed in thought while she kissed my down the back of my neck.

"Your Grace?" she asked.

"Say my name," I said. "Call me by my name, Sirina."

I felt her smile as she kissed me one last time, and she raised her lips slowly to my ear again, her breath leaving goosebumps across my skin. Her lips rested so close to my ear that they practically caressed it.

"Come to bed with me, Visenya," Sirina whispered, and I felt her lips against me while she spoke.

It was all too much.

I whirled about and snatched Sirina up by her thighs and growled deep in my throat. She let out a startled squeak, then I threw her back onto the bed. I attacked her lips, forcing my tongue into her mouth. Sirina resisted for only a moment, clutching at me with her fingers, wrestling with my tongue, but soon she melted beneath me. She relaxed back and moaned quietly as I worked my fingers beneath her shrift.

I broke our kiss long enough to tear the shrift from her body, and she gasped in sudden excitement. Now she was naked before me for the first time, and I took my time raking my eyes over her body. Sirina breathed heavily, her ample breasts rising and falling; a sheen of sweat already formed across her neckline. Down beneath her navel, she was perfectly clean shaven, and her skin sloped smoothly down to her core which opened like the wings of a butterfly.

"Do you like what you see?" she asked, her voice going a little lower, a little saucier.

I pounced on her, and she yelped again, reaching her hands instinctively upward. With grip like iron, I caught her wrists and pinned them over her head and kissed her again. Keeping control of both her wrists in my right hand, I reached down to clutch at her breast with my left. Sirina shivered beneath me, and I felt her shifting her hips back and forth, desperately rubbing her legs together in search of release.

My lips went to her neck, kissing her lightly now. Sirina hummed, and her eyelids fluttered closed in pleasure. I nibbled my way slowly down, marveling at her form as I took her other nipple into my mouth and swirled my tongue over it. Her back arched and were it not for her curtain of blonde hair, I'd have thought her to be Dany.

And somehow, that thought pushed me even harder, and I felt a sudden perfect drop of my stomach right down to my sex. I knew it was wrong to think such thoughts, not only to consider my own sister in that way, but also to neglect the radiant beauty beneath me who had offered herself so willingly into my embrace. They cheapened the act, those thoughts, lowered it to mere fantasy, pornographized it, when I should have been completely present in the moment. My own devotion to her body, and hers to mine, represented a union of souls, not in the same way as did a man to a woman and woman to a man, and perhaps it did to a lesser extent, but it was no less real, no less loving.

I clambered off her to stand on the floor again, and I kissed right between her breasts and continued down. Sirina anticipated my arrival between her legs with whimpers and shaking, but I continued past to trace my tongue down the inside of her thighs. She was quaking, and her fingers grasped feebly at the bedsheets by the time I hovered over her sex.

I flicked my tongue at her folds lightly, and she twitched with sudden shocks of pleasure. I continued lightly for a time until Sirina was bucking her hips up toward mine and biting her bottom lip while she reached for my head, trying anything to pull me down to her.

"Please…" she groaned, throwing her head back as I licked her again. "Please Visenya…"

Hearing my name fall so weakly from her lips drove me into a mad haze. I dove into her core, lapping at her like a parched dog lapped at an oasis in a desert. I jammed my tongue inside her, twisting it and scooping her juices from her walls until her fluids trickled down my chin. Sirina was crying out in pure ecstasy now, and she wriggled back and forth, arching her back and turning her head, and I knew she thought of nothing while the white fog of pleasure surrounded her mind.

She screamed even louder now. She was close, but I just kept chomping, my lips stimulating her clit while my tongue penetrated deep inside.

"Visenya!" her muscles spasmed, and her back arched toward the ceiling, subconsciously thrusting her hips further into my face. "I- g- gods!"

Words failed, and she moaned and whimpered and stuttered incoherently while she twitched and shook. Her legs clenched tightly about my head, her wet thighs getting my hair all slick with her juices, and I felt the muscles of her core clench tight about my tongue too. I kept licking. It was almost a minute before she fell back to the mattress with sharp exhales of breath. Sweat glistened on her brow.

I stroked lightly at her legs while she recovered, but Sirina urged me up with her hands behind my head to kiss her again. We went slower this time while she caught her breath.

"Your tongue is so long," she chuckled as we broke apart. "It's been ages since I finished that hard."

"Just wait 'til you feel my fingers," I kissed her on the cheek.

Sirina was already shivering in anticipation as I gently rolled her over to her stomach. Her ass poked up in the air, and I couldn't help but grab it with both hands, sitting there and kneading it a moment. I didn't spend long fondling her like an ape, and I trailed kisses up her spine. She sighed, folding her arms beneath her cheek. I raced my fingers up her sides toward her arms and grabbed her wrists while I kissed her neck.

I folded her arms behind her back, sitting up and clamping one hand over them, leaving her completely vulnerable to my whims. Sirina closed her eyes and moaned. I knew that one was performative, but I didn't care. She still drove me wild.

"Yes," said Sirina. "Take me, Visenya. Make me yours."

They sure knew how to teach them in Lys.

I held her down and drove first one finger, then two inside her. I worked in and out, knowing the strength in my fingers would bring her to climax soon, and I kissed her on her back and neck.

"Mm… deeper," she moaned.

I happily obliged, penetrating her all the way up to my top knuckles. I laid down beside her, pulling her toward me to pin her arms against my stomach. I wrapped my other hand around her neck, kissing her while I continued fingering her core from the new position. She leaned back into me, giving herself up completely.

"Choke me," she said.

"I want you to come for me," I said as I gripped tightly at her throat.

She nodded vigorously, building toward another orgasm. Sirina made no sound for half a minute or so, then she gave a strangled shout, and her walls clamped down against my fingers. Her gasps were ragged while she struggled for air. Her face was beet red.

"Good girl," I growled, thrusting even harder.

Sirina's face went tight for a split second, one moment of white-hot pleasure, then she collapsed into the bed, and her head fell against me. I released my hold on her throat, kissing her gently on her jaw, cheek, and neck while she gasped for breath.

"I told you," I whispered.

Sirina hummed, leaning into my arms. I kissed her on her golden hair.

"Help me out of this," I gestured to my gown.

I rose to my knees, and Sirina sat behind me and wound her arms around me. She pulled the gown from my shoulders and tossed it on the floor with a flourish. Her fingers lay light as feathers against my breasts, and she pinched and pulled my nipples. She kissed the back of my shoulder, working her way toward my neck just like she had before.

"Come," I said, turning and pulling her down to kneel over me. "Kiss me, Sirina."

She did, and our tongues tangled for a time. Her leg pressed up against my entrance, rubbing up and down seemingly without intention. Sirina intended her actions. This was her specialty, for she possessed no greater skill than her ability to make love. She had to be doing it on purpose.

"Wow," she said. "You're very wet."

I laughed. You laugh at the silliest things when you have sex. It must be the state of euphoria induced upon you.

She giggled and started kissing me on my neck, then down to my breasts. She ran her tongue over my abs, in between each muscle and around my navel, then in each of the well-defined gaps between my lower abductors and quads. My skin stretched over my muscles into a sharp V, and Sirina knelt with her face right at the center of it. She smelled me, tickled me with her nose.

I pulled her face in. With her tongue only first, Sirina began in earnest, and with each little lick I received a quick jolt of fire straight to the deepest part of my core, and the flames seized at my heart too.

"Add your fingers, Sirina," I said.

She looked up at me and brushed a bit of hair over her shoulder. What a smoke show, seriously. The buccal fat below her eyes made her appear happy always, and her eyes glimmered while my liquids splattered her lips and chin. Sirina rubbed my clit lightly with her left hand, and I bit my bottom lip, determined not to cry out in pleasure just yet. I wouldn't let her melt me so easily.

"Inside," I croaked, getting the word out between desperate breaths. "Put them inside."

My hips bucked, and I grunted. Little lightning bolts raced all the way down to my toes.

"I love watching your muscles flex," she said, still gently rubbing.

I was clenching down so hard, my abs stretched my skin, and I could see the outline of my ribcage each time I sucked in more air. Sirina ran her other hand over my abs, raking her fingernails across my skin. My face was getting hot as I restrained the moan yearning to escape me.

"Like Valyrian steel," whispered Sirina.

"Fingers," I ordered. "Now."

Sirina smiled, no doubt knowing what she was doing to me, but she maintained her grace and allowed me to maintain the appearance of leading. She got between my thighs again and plunged her middle and ring fingers deep into me. I stretched open for her, so slick I barely even felt her skin. I only felt the fulness she brought.

I moaned and exhaled with the sudden release. I rolled my hips up and down while she pumped her fingers in and out. It wasn't really a conscious action, just a natural one, seeking more pleasure, desiring every inch of my insides to be filled.

Then she brought her tongue to my clit again, and I was moaning loud now. I threaded my fingers through her hair and pulled her into my sex, unwilling to let her retract the pressure against me for even a moment. Sirina's fingers curled against my wall, and I almost screamed.

A flash of light crossed my eyes as I convulsed, thrashing about on the bed, pulling Sirina's face even harder against me. Like a thousand fires, the pleasure raced through me, and I was flooded with impossible warmth. My inner muscles squeezed against her fingers, but she just kept thrust in, deeper and deeper.

When I gave out at last, my mind had turned to mush. I closed my eyes, and Sirina kissed her way back up my body to my lips. We met gently, slowly lingering on each other's taste, her taste still on my tongue and mine on hers. It was nice, heartfelt even.

Soon, Sirina curled against me, and our legs tangled together. I drank in her scent, the sea breeze now mixed with sweat and sweet, sweet love. We kissed again one more time before I closed my eyes.


I groaned, not one of those pleasant groans from this morning either. Truly, Dothraki smelled awful. They were disgusting, and at every occasion where one man or woman came up to me, I found myself wrinkling my nose like a stereotypical highborn snob – which in a way, I supposed I was. I was raised a princess and welcomed into many a manor over the course of my childhood, and I was already by nature a bit snobbish in my previous life. You've got to possess a certain level of arrogance to become an academic of any sort, but that level is immense in the discipline of philosophy, which had been mine.

They cavorted about with practically no clothes at all, though not in a tasteful manner, how Sirina dressed. God, I was still thinking about her. They drank and fought and fucked like degenerates, not a single thought of dignity in their minds. They were also ugly, at least I thought so. Some girls might go for the hermit living in the wilderness look; I did not.

I sat beside Daenerys, my legs crossed and hands folded wearing the black dress with the gold dragon gifted to me by Magister Illyrio. When we'd awoken again, Sirina had done my hair for me, pulling the sides around into a braid which she then twisted into a bun. It was a nice look, I thought, elegant enough for high court thanks to the bun, but wild enough for a Dothraki wedding thanks to the majority of my white hair hanging straight down my back.

"So, sister," said Viserys, plopping down next to me with a glass of wine in hand. "Why is it I couldn't have my bed servant called to my room last night? It's rather interesting, I asked one girl where she was, and she told me she was with you. Is that true? If so, I'll be most displeased."

"She stayed the night," I said. "Yes."

"Stayed the night? Was she servicing you?"

"Not during the night, no."

Dany sighed from her seat next to the Khal. I could see her shaking even now. She didn't want to let him fuck her, and I didn't blame her at all. I knew she'd eventually fall in love with Drogo, but I couldn't see how. He was a tall man, broad shouldered and muscled, but his hair hung past his ass, and his mustache drooped sleepily, and his face looked like a brick. I sighed. She had to go through this on her own. It was the only way to build her strength.

"Then why, pray tell," said Viserys, leaning in close to me. "Was she there?"

"I asked for her," I said. "She needed a friend, I think."

"That's it? You deprived me of my best fuck because she needed a friend?"

"You weren't hers."

"Weren't hers what?"

"Best fuck," I said. "We fucked this morning, and she said she much preferred me."

It wasn't, strictly speaking, true. But, she had told me I'd given her an orgasm better than any she'd received in a long time. I smirked at Viserys. He looked at me slack jawed.

"You're lying," he said. "You're lying."

"Nope," I said. "She was wonderful, by the way. I can see why you like her. Though, I don't think you'll be taking her to bed anytime soon."

Viserys snorted and turned to Illyrio, who was busy talking to a dark bearded man in a green tunic. By the bear on his sleeve, I knew him to be Jorah Mormont, and he'd sworn his sword to Viserys during the feast now past. Jorah looked disinterested.

"Illyrio," said Viserys. "Can you tell my impotent sister she does not have permission to steal my bed servants?"

"You bedded one of my servants?" asked Illyrio, his drunkenness raising the volume of his voice.

"Sirina," I answered.

"Hah!" Illyrio pounded his belly. "She's a rare beauty. Did you enjoy her, Your Grace?"

"Very much so," I said. "She enjoyed it more than I, I think."

Illyrio laughed hardily, and Jorah gave me a look of thanks for my involuntary involvement in sending the bothersome man away. Soon, Dany was receiving her gifts, most of which were passed to Drogo, though a dragonbone longbow she passed to me. Drogo peered at me as if looking over my shoulders, perhaps judging whether I could shoot the bow. He sat back again with a shrug. I didn't know if he was satisfied.

Viserys had gotten up and was pacing about furiously. Jorah presented Dany with some histories, and Illyrio revealed the dragon eggs – not dormant dragon eggs, as I knew. Yet, there were only two of them. Why were there only two? What changed?

Not so long ago, a fortnight or so, I had sent an anonymous letter to Winterfell where I reported Jon Snow's parentage. I addressed the letter to him, hoping he would read it himself and learn of his heritage. I invited him to come east, to Qarth, to seek us out, assuming our paths might cross there. If he'd received the letter, perhaps events had altered in response. There was no cause-effect relation there, but I knew not how to explain this.

Hopefully he'd be coming this way soon, but I was quickly distracted by the arrival of an unexpected face. By her appearance I recognized her immediately, tall and graceful, hair kissed by fire, a scarlet robe about her shoulders, a shimmering ruby necklace tight about her neck. The red priestess Melisandre had arrived at Dany's wedding.

"Priestess," said Illyrio, but he leaned forward to watch her closer. "What has one of R'hollor's faithful to offer the new Khaleesi?"

"I've come for the princess," said Melisandre, her voice low and rippling like little wavelets on a quiet beach. "The Lord of Light has a purpose for her. I've seen it in the flames."

We all looked back and forth between each other. Drogo stood up and began a tirade in Dothraki, and a few riders approached Melisandre, getting slightly too near for anyone to be comfortable. Yet, the priestess just stood there, looking on serenely.

"Begone with you, witch," said Jorah. "The Khaleesi cares not for your foul tricks."

"I did not come for the Khaleesi," she said, then looked me right in the eyes. "I came for the princess."

Then everyone stared at me. Well, this just got interesting.