Chapter 181: Dragon Egg
"Uh," Rol raised an eyebrow. "The lord hasn't gotten up yet. Yesterday's events have left him exhausted. Of course," he said deliberately, "if Your Grace needs him, I'll wake him immediately."
"No!" Daenerys blurted out, then realized her lapse. After an awkward smile, she quickly regained her composure. "I'm not in a hurry. Since Lord Darry is tired, let him rest. Have him come to me when he's awake."
"As you wish, Your Grace," Rol replied, then went to fetch Daenerys food.
Breakfast was specially prepared for her: fine bread and a standard fish stew. Compared to the lavish feasts at Illyrio's manse, it was utterly plain, but Daenerys didn't complain much, simply eating the food in small bites.
Although she lingered in the mess for a long time, she still didn't see Ian arrive.
Reluctantly, she returned to the deck, intending to get some fresh sea air. But as soon as she reached the stairs, she saw Ian and Celia coming down together.
"Lord Darry," Daenerys greeted first, "Lady Celia."
"Your Grace," Ian immediately bowed.
"Your Grace," Celia returned the bow.
"What's going on here?"
"I just met Priestess Celia in the corridor and asked her some questions about High Valyrian. I plan to study the language with her in detail later," Ian explained with a smile.
"I can teach you too," Daenerys said instinctively.
"Your Grace?" Ian feigned confusion, inwardly thinking, No, you can't. Learning from you would be too... distracting.
"No," Daenerys said awkwardly, bowing her head, "I just wanted to say that I'm also fluent in High Valyrian. If you have any questions, Lord Darry, you can ask me."
"More importantly," Ian didn't want to dwell on the topic of learning languages, "I found something in Illyrio's gift that I think you'll like."
"What is it?" Daenerys's attention was immediately drawn.
"Come with me." Ian beckoned, then led Daenerys and Celia down the stairs. Soon they arrived at a small cabin guarded by two knights.
Seeing Ian's arrival, the guards opened the door. Since this storage room inside the ship had no windows, one guard went in and lit the oil lamp inside with a torch before stepping back out.
Ian entered the cabin and was immediately greeted by a faint musty smell.
Enduring the stench, Ian walked to the wall and pulled a cedarwood chest from among the many crates. He had earlier taken the dragon egg from his system inventory and placed it in this chest.
The other ten or so crates contained gold and jewels worth over seventy thousand gold dragons—this was the haul after Rol and his men had only looted one of Illyrio's vaults and part of the chambers, leaving behind no large items.
If Rol and his men had been given half a day to search thoroughly, or if they hadn't had to worry about being ambushed along the way and had taken the bulk of the treasure, Ian might have already achieved the "Master Thief" achievement.
Now was not the time for idle thoughts. Ian stopped daydreaming, placed the chest on the ground in front of Daenerys, and opened it.
"Oh!" Daenerys exclaimed immediately. In her eyes, the magnificent dragon eggs were the most beautiful things she had ever seen.
"These are dragon eggs from the Shadow Lands beyond Asshai," Ian relayed Illyrio's description directly. "They've been fossilized over the ages, yet they remain beautiful and vibrant."
Although some said that these three eggs were stolen by Elissa Farman from Rhaena Targaryen in 54 AC and later sold to the Sealord of Braavos, Ian felt that a mere two hundred years might not be enough for dragon eggs to fossilize.
Of course, it was also possible that dragon eggs would quickly turn to stone once they lost their magical essence, but Ian needed to investigate that claim further in the future.
"You are of dragon blood, so I think you should like them," he continued.
Daenerys didn't answer Ian, for at that moment, she was completely captivated by the three dragon eggs.
One was deep green with burnished bronze flecks, another was pale cream streaked with gold, and the last was black as a midnight sea, yet alive with scarlet ripples and swirls.
They were so rich in texture and color that Daenerys initially mistook their shells for sparkling gemstones.
She held one of the eggs in her hands and examined it closely. She thought it looked like fine porcelain or enamel, or blown glass, but the dragon egg was much heavier than any of those, its weight like solid stone.
The surface of the shell was covered with tiny scales. She turned the egg, the light from the oil lamp shining through her fingers onto it, making it shimmer with a polished sheen.
Suddenly, Daenerys felt a jolt. She looked up and found that the egg in her hands was gone. She looked around frantically, but Ian was nowhere to be seen.
Darkness enveloped her all around, except for a faint glow emanating from the space before her. Once again, she heard the sound of roaring flames, and looked up toward the source of the sound. A pillar of fire shot into the sky, momentarily blinding her.
Then the pillar of fire vanished, and the light around her disappeared. The last thing she saw was the colossal black shadow that had loomed over her just moments before the light faded.
It was a dragon, she knew.
"Your Grace? Your Grace? Daenerys?" Ian's voice pulled her from her reverie. She realized she had been staring blankly at the torch in Ian's hand.
"What happened to you?" Ian asked, wiping the sweat from Daenerys's forehead with a handkerchief. "Was it too hot in the cabin? Why are you sweating so much?"
"Yes, I'm a little hot," Daenerys replied, then registered Ian's gesture.
This is presumptuous! I am your Queen! she cried out inwardly. You shouldn't treat me like a child!
But how should he treat me then? Like he treated Viserys? So respectful, so trembling with fear? No, no, no! The thought of that scene sent a chill down Daenerys's spine. It was too terrible, too unbearable.
Even after Ian finished his ministrations, Daenerys was still struggling with whether or not she should have stopped him.
"Your Grace, did you just see something? Was it a dragon?" Just then, Celia suddenly interrupted Daenerys's thoughts.
"How did you know?" the young Queen exclaimed, startled.
"Because I showed it to you," Celia smiled, "because I saw it too. It was a vision from the Lord of Light. He told me that you will use these eggs to bring dragons back to the world."
Daenerys quickly turned to look at the dragon eggs. In an instant, a thousand thousand crimson sparks flashed before her eyes. She blinked, and they all disappeared.
"Stone," Daenerys whispered, "just stone."
Dragons were long extinct. Viserys had told her that when the Doom came to Valyria and the Lands of the Long Summer, sorcery vanished from the west. Enchanted swords, weathermages who could divine the winds, and dragons themselves were all powerless to avert it.
The Targaryens were the only dragonlord family to escape the cataclysm, and with their dragons, they conquered all of Westeros. But the last Targaryen dragon had died about a century and a half ago, during the reign of Aegon III, who was thus known as Aegon the Dragonbane.
"Just stone," Daenerys repeated, yet she still found herself reaching for the dragon eggs, something within the stones calling to her.
(End of Chapter)
Author's Note ✍️
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