Chapter 34: The First Flight
The Golden Dragon Theocracy was entering its golden age. Fifteen years of peace, secured by the crucible of war and the cunning of its leaders, had allowed the empire to flourish. The five provinces, connected by Hesh's immaculate Wyrm's Roads, operated as a single, cohesive unit. The Golden Covenant was the law, the Golden Wyrm was the currency, and the Golden Dragon Church was the soul of their civilization. The god, observing the steady, profound faith that emanated from his creation, knew that he had built a nation that was stable, prosperous, and secure.
But this security was built upon a secret of such magnitude that its continued concealment was becoming a strategic liability. Deep beneath Lysaro, in the magnificent, hidden world of the Vault, thirteen divine dragons were approaching maturity. Their adolescent restlessness, their growing power, and above all, their immense, insatiable appetites, were straining the Theocracy's resources to the breaking point. The greatest secret in the world was also the greatest logistical challenge.
Lyra, the Prophet of the Mind, laid out the crisis to the High Council in stark, undeniable terms. Her ledgers, once a source of pride, were now a ledger of impending disaster.
"We are buying entire herds of cattle from as far as the Dothraki Sea and shipping them here under a dozen different pretenses," she said, her voice tight with the strain of the immense operation. "The cost is becoming ruinous, but that is the lesser problem. The greater problem is the attention it is attracting. We are creating food shortages in the towns we buy from. Rival trading houses in Pentos and Myr are tracking our commodity purchases, trying to understand why a single city-state requires more livestock than the entire Ghiscari region. Our agents report that spies are no longer just watching our borders; they are investigating our supply chains. The secret is eating us alive from the inside out."
Hesh, the Prophet of the Hand, nodded grimly. "The Vault itself is reaching its limit. It was designed as a nursery, not a permanent habitat for thirteen beasts that will one day rival the size of this chamber. The geothermal vents are working at maximum capacity to process their waste. The sound-dampening measures are being tested daily by their roars. We cannot expand it further without risking geological instability."
"They are bored," Elara added, her voice full of a keeper's worried affection. "They are creatures of the sky, and we have kept them in a cave. Their power, their Thu'um, needs release. To keep them contained is to stifle their very nature. It is… cruel."
"Then let them fly!" Jorah boomed, his frustration evident. "Let the world see them! Let them hunt for themselves! A dragon is not a pet to be penned up."
"And what then?" Lyra countered sharply. "Thirteen dragons appear in the sky. What do you think the world's reaction will be, Jorah? Awe? Or terror? Every king and magister from here to the Sunset Sea will form an alliance to destroy what they perceive as an apocalyptic threat. A full-scale war, one that would make our trial against Volantis look like a border skirmish."
The council was trapped. The logistics of secrecy were becoming impossible, but the consequences of revelation seemed catastrophic. They were being crushed by the weight of their own greatest asset.
Kaelen, who had felt this crisis approaching like a gathering storm, knew that only his god could provide a path through this paradox. The problem was no longer one of military or political strategy; it was one of divine public relations.
The whisper he received was a vision of profound simplicity. He saw a great eagle's aerie, hidden high in a mountain cleft. Inside, a young eagle, grown powerful and sleek, was beating its wings against the confines of the nest, its strength threatening to shatter its own sanctuary. The parent eagle did not try to strengthen the nest. It nudged its child to the edge. The young eagle tumbled out into the open air, falling for a terrifying moment, before its instincts took over and its great wings caught the wind. It did not fly off to attack. It soared high above, circling its own mountain, its majestic silhouette a clear and powerful warning to the lesser predators below—the wolves, the jackals—that this territory was protected.
The god's message was about the transition from a hidden asset to a declared deterrent.
A hidden sword is a forgotten sword. A guardian who never shows his face protects nothing. The time for the nursery is over. It is time for the patrol. Let the world see the shields of my church, so they will not dare to test its swords.
"We will reveal them," Kaelen announced to the council. "But not as weapons of war. Not as a threat. We will reveal them as what they truly are: the divine guardians of our Theocracy, the holy protectors of our faith."
The new plan was not a military strategy, but a carefully orchestrated theological and political event. They would not unleash their dragons; they would unveil them. They would control the narrative from the very first moment, framing the revelation not as a threat to the world, but as a sacred blessing for their own people.
Elara's role was paramount. As the high priestess of the church, she began to prepare the populace. She declared a great holy festival, the "Festival of the Unveiling." She preached a series of powerful sermons in the First Temple, drawing upon the Draconic Verses she had introduced years before. She spoke of the god's ultimate promise, that when their faith and their works had proven them worthy, he would reveal the sworn protectors of the Covenant, the children of his own divine essence. She whipped the entire population of Lysaro into a state of fervent, messianic expectation. They were not about to witness an act of war; they were about to witness the fulfillment of a prophecy.
Hesh, meanwhile, undertook a final, secret project. The Vault had been built with multiple contingencies. One was a massive, hidden sea-gate, built into the cliff face a mile south of Lysaro's harbour, designed to one day allow the dragons access to the ocean. For fifteen years, it had been sealed and disguised as a natural rock formation. Hesh and his engineers worked to ensure its great mechanisms were flawless.
And in the Vault itself, the thirteen young Dragon Riders, now men and women in their prime, prepared for their first true flight. They had spent years training in the vast cavern, learning to ride their draconic partners, their minds linked in a bond that transcended language. Rhaela, the lead rider, her bond with the golden Aurorion the strongest of all, felt the restless energy of her mount. "He wants to feel the sun, the real wind," she told Kaelen. "He yearns for the open sky."
The day of the Unveiling arrived. The city of Lysaro was a single, massive congregation. Hundreds of thousands of people, dressed in ceremonial white and gold, lined the city's sea walls and cliffs, their faces turned towards the ocean, their hearts pounding with anticipation.
The five Prophets stood on a great balcony of the First Temple, overlooking the sea. Kaelen stepped forward. He did not speak in the common tongue. He spoke in the resonant power of Dovahzul, a language the people now recognized as holy.
"Fen du hin, Dovah-Zeymah!" he cried out, his voice rolling across the city. (Will of your god, Dragon-Prophets!) "Kos fin pahlok, kos fin paal!" (To be the enemy, to be the foe!) "Hi los fin vokun, hin kogaan!" (You are the shadow, your blessing!)
Lyra translated for the masses, her voice clear and strong. "The world outside our borders is filled with chaos and shadow! But you, people of the Covenant, are blessed!"
Kaelen raised his arms to the sky. "Today, that blessing is made manifest! Today, the promise is fulfilled! Today, our god reveals the divine guardians who will protect our shores forever! Zeymah, Dovah-Zeymah! Zeymah!" (Reveal, Dragon-Prophets! Reveal!)
He slammed his hands down on the balcony's stone railing. Miles away down the coast, a deep, grinding tremor shook the earth. The crowd gasped as the face of the cliff began to move. A huge section of rock, a hundred feet high, slowly receded inward, revealing a dark, cavernous opening: the Sea-Gate of the Vault.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of the sea and the collective held breath of a city.
Then, from the darkness, a shape emerged. It was Aurorion the Golden, his scales glittering like a thousand suns as he tasted true daylight for the first time. On his back sat Rhaela, her face set with fierce determination. One by one, the others followed. The sapphire-blue dragon bearing Vorion. The black-iron beast with Valerius. The emerald, the pearl, the bronze. Thirteen dragons, their riders seated proudly, walked from their long confinement into the light of the world.
A wave of pure, terrified awe swept through the crowd. This was no myth. This was no statue. These were living, breathing dragons, magnificent and terrible, their very presence warping the reality of the day.
They did not roar or threaten. With a grace that defied their immense size, they spread their wings. And with a sound like a tidal wave of tearing silk, they launched themselves into the air. The crowd cried out, a mixture of fear and ecstatic joy. The dragons flew. They formed a perfect, disciplined V-formation and circled the city of Lysaro once, a great, protective patrol. Their shadows fell upon the people below not as a threat, but as the shadow of a divine shield. Then, with Rhaela and Aurorion in the lead, they turned as one and headed out over the open sea, flying south.
Miles out at sea, a Pentoshi merchant galley, its captain a paid informant for Lyra, slowed its pace. Its crew pointed to the churning water ahead. They had been tracking it for days: a massive kraken, one of the legendary horrors of the deep, its tentacles thick as ancient trees, had been menacing the shipping lanes.
From his spyglass, the captain saw them first as specks in the sky. Then the specks grew, resolving into the impossible shapes of dragons. He and his crew watched, paralyzed with fear, as the thirteen beasts descended upon the kraken.
What followed was not a battle, but a hunt. A coordinated, terrifyingly efficient display of divine power. The dragons did not attack randomly. They moved with the tactical precision Jorah had drilled into their riders.
Aurorion and two other dragons dove first, breathing concentrated blasts of golden and white-hot fire that boiled the sea around the kraken's great head, driving it to the surface in a rage of steam and thrashing tentacles. As a great tentacle lashed out, the sapphire dragon, flown by the quick-thinking Vorion, unleashed a focused Fus Ro Dah—a shout of pure force that hit the limb like a giant's hammer, shattering its bone.
The other dragons harried its flanks, their riders using the Dovahzul not just as a weapon, but as a language of command, their shouts coordinating their attacks. They were a pack of wolves, and the great kraken was their prey. The final blow came from Valerius and his black-iron mount. They dove from a great height, and the dragon unleashed a single, sustained torrent of black and red fire that incinerated the creature's massive head, silencing it forever.
The hunt was over. The great beast was dead. To the horror and amazement of the watching sailors, the thirteen dragons then landed upon the floating carcass and began to feast.
The message to the world, carried back by the Pentoshi captain and a dozen other terrified eyewitnesses—including a very pale and shaken Targaryen agent watching from a black-sailed ship miles away—was unambiguous and devastatingly effective.
The dragons of Lysaro were real. They were numerous. They were controlled by riders and fought with tactical brilliance. And, most importantly, they could sustain themselves. They did not need to burn cities for food. They were a force of nature, preying on other forces of nature. They were not a conventional army to be fought, but a new and terrifying part of the world's ecosystem.
That evening, as the sun set, the thirteen dragons returned, their bellies full. They did not re-enter the Vault. Instead, they settled into the network of sea-caves and high ledges along the cliffs near the Sea-Gate, their new, natural aerie. Their First Flight was complete. They were home.
In Lysaro, the city was in a state of continuous, ecstatic religious celebration. Their god had fulfilled his promise. Their guardians had been revealed. Their security was absolute. The faith that poured into the god was a tidal wave of pure, triumphant, and unshakeable belief.
The news exploded across the known world. In Volantis, the Triarchs looked at their fleets and knew, with a sickening certainty, that they were useless. In Pentos, the magisters saw their trade advantages evaporate. In the Red Temple, the priests of R'hllor spoke of a great golden demon, a rival to their god, and were afraid. And on the windswept island of Dragonstone, the last Targaryens heard the tales of thirteen new dragons, divinely born and commanded by a new power in the east, and they understood that they were no longer the only dragonlords in the world. The game had changed forever.
In his domain, the god felt the faith of his people and the fear of his rivals. He had solved his logistical crisis, and in doing so, had created the ultimate strategic deterrent. His empire was now unassailable, shielded by the wings of his divine children. The long, patient, secret work was over. The Golden Dragon Theocracy had finally, and fully, unveiled itself. It was no longer a rising power. It was a superpower. And the world held its breath, waiting to see what it would do next.