MY SISTER AND THE DRAGON (Episode 3)

We hastened across the small field towards the patch where the three dragons lay in the sun. The strong sea wind, smelling strongly of salt, blew Daenerys’ hair behind her. I struggled along the rocky terrain after her, my ice-blue robe billowing behind me, several shades lighter than my silver-blond curls.

Tyrion tottered on after us with difficulty on his stunted legs, calling after us.

“You can’t! The most important people in the world cannot both fly off to the most dangerous place in the world!”

“Who else can?” Daenerys shot back at him, her tone rich with irritation.

“No one!” The wind whipped Tyrion’s exasperated words to us. “They knew the risks when they left!”

We ignored him.

“You can’t win the throne if you’re dead! You can’t break the wheel if you’re dead!” The Hand of the Queen sounded really desperate as he beseeched my sister with his counsel. “Your Grace–”

I mounted Viserion as Dani wheeled around halfway through climbing Drogon’s scaly back.

Tyrion extended his hands, pleading, and for a moment I felt pity for the little man. “If you die,” he beseeched, “we’re all lost! Everything… Everyone…”

“My brother can stay back. That way, there’ll be a Targaryen in Dragonstone.”

“I have no interest in the Iron Throne,” I snarled at Daenerys. “And if you think I’ll just let you fly off alone into the unknown…”

Daenerys gave a tiny frustrated jerk of her head.

“Do not argue with me, Dany,” my voice came firmly.

“Please, Your Grace…” Tyrion pleaded.

“What would you have me do?” Daenerys shot at him, and for a moment, I saw how young she really was. For a moment, the steel left her soul and all that was left was the girl.

“Nothing! Sometimes nothing is the hardest thing to do!”

Upon Tyrion’s answer, a cold determined mask stole over my sister’s pale face. Her words were back to the cutting steel when she spoke. “You told me to do nothing before and I listened to you. I’m not doing nothing now.”

Turning, she mounted the dragon’s scaly back, and with a lurch, we were launched off the face of the cliff at the same time the wings of the three beasts began beating furiously.

***

I could feel the wind growing steadily colder as we flew north. For a while now, the dragons had been flying in a straight line. I sensed we had to be approaching our destination, wherever that was. Snow-covered mountains flashed passed under me as Viserion’s leathery wings flapped strongly under me.

I thanked the stars for the ice-blue fur robe I was wearing. No wonder these Northerners were so stubborn; the weather up here was enough to harden any man.

“I see something!” Daenerys pointed, while clutching Drogon’s scales tightly in one hand.

I squinted over the mountainous terrain. Slowly it took shape. A swarm of ants, a circle really, with a smaller circle grouped in their middle. The larger swarm was slowly closing ranks. The image didn’t make sense. And then –

“Faster, brother! Faster!” Daenerys screamed.

Suddenly, the image before me took form. The form of an army bigger than any I had ever seen in my life, pouring through the mountains, slowly closing in on the smaller circle that was surely the King in the North and his companions. They looked doomed.

Without pausing to think, I sent Viserion into a steep dive and bellowed, “DRACARYS!”

The river of flames burst forth at the same time that both Drogon and the unmounted Raeghar sent forth theirs. The combined flames for a moment drove away the cold around me as the swarming men – no, not men! My heart dropped as I caught sight of their faces – let out unearthly wails and toppled through the disintegrating ice into the lake below.

Roaring his displeasure, the massive Drogon moved to land next to Jon and his companions and continued scorching the monsters as they tried to get to them. A great horde was headed straight for Drogon’s unguarded flank and I steered Viserion in another steep dive, burning them in one smooth, sweeping motion.

I landed Viserion next to Drogon and reached for the hand of the nearest man, a wild one with tousled ginger hair. He clasped my hand and with great strength, I helped him mount Viserion.

“Jon!” I heard Daenerys call, and looked up.

The King in the North was not climbing to the safety of Drogon’s back. Instead he was fighting off the advancing army of the Dead with a manic strength, hacking and sawing at the creatures and giving his companions the chance to mount Drogon.

Then an unearthly wail came from above, a wail so strikingly familiar though seemingly impossible. I turned sharply, and at the same time, Viserion and Drogon let out heart-wrenching screeches, their heads turned skywards. I looked up in time to see Raeghar struggling to stay airborne, as fire spurted from him and blood poured in torrents from his throat, drenching the icy earth beneath him.

My heart froze and my body locked down, as with an earth-shaking crash, he fell on the frozen floor, skidding and sliding for what felt like forever till he came to a stop at the foot of a mountain. He lay for a while, the blood shooting in spurts from his impaled throat, where an ice-blue spear was buried almost hilt deep. Then the frozen lake upon which he’d landed splintered and he sank slowly into it.

For a moment, I couldn’t move. The world was silent. Surely the world had ended. How could it not have…?

For a moment, all I could hear was the ragged, laboured breathing of my sister metres away from me. And then, Jon’s roar, like an enraged tiger, cut through our twin devastation.

“LEAVE! GO NOW!”

I turned just in time to see him plummet into the frozen lake with half a dozen of the hideous-looking creatures snarling over him.

Then for no discernable reason, my anguished gaze turned northward, and I saw the glint, the flash of a deadly spear, so like the one that I’d seen buried in Raeghar’s throat.

“Dany, go!” I bellowed. “GO!”

I pulled and felt Viserion launch himself into the sky as the fierce-looking redhead behind me grabbed hold of my waist. Viserion’s wings beat furiously as he shot higher into the sky, Drogon at his tail, stumbling a bit before taking flight. We were half-level with the east mountain when I heard it, a sinister whistle cutting through the air behind us. Without pausing to think, I pulled on Viserion’s scales, screaming incoherent words as the beast launched himself sideways at the same time that the great spear whistled past. It’d be so close. I felt a chill as the spear hurtled on. My hair blew into my face for a second, and then we were flying, farther and farther away.

Then I began to sob, my heart splintering beneath my ribs, the image of Raeghar fallen and broken searing through my mind’s eye.

Written by Kainene