Jacaerys Velaryon

The world ceased to make sense the moment Sheepstealer hit Vermax. One heartbeat earlier, Jace had been fighting to keep control of the battle unfolding beneath him. The Gullet had become a vision torn from a nightmare: burning ships drifting through black water, shattered masts jutting from the sea like broken bones, dragonfire painting the smoke-choked sky in violent shades of orange and gold. Everywhere he looked there was chaos. Sailors threw themselves overboard to escape flames. Men screamed from sinking decks. Arrows rose in dark clouds only to vanish into the haze. Vermax was banking low over the fleet, fire spilling from his jaws as another enemy vessel erupted beneath them, and despite the terror of it all, despite the overwhelming scale of the slaughter, Jace had felt something dangerously close to certainty. They were winning.

Then something crashed into Vermax's flank with enough force to nearly tear him from the saddle. The dragon's scream ripped through the battlefield. Not a roar. Not a challenge. Pain.

Jace's head snapped toward the source of the impact and for a brief, disbelieving moment he could only stare. Through the smoke he caught sight of ragged brown wings, a massive body twisting erratically through the air, and a rider who clearly had no control over what was happening. Sheepstealer. Gods. Sheepstealer. Rhaena's dragon? The realization struck with horrifying speed. The dragon was frightened, confused, overwhelmed by the battle unfolding around him. Fire. Blood. Noise. Dragons. Ships. Men. He was reacting to instinct rather than commands, and Vermax had simply been unlucky enough to be in his path. Jace opened his mouth to shout, though he didn't know whether he meant to warn Rhaena, calm Vermax, or curse the gods themselves. Nothing emerged except a strangled breath before Sheepstealer slammed into Vermax a second time.

The impact shattered everything. Jace felt the saddle jerk beneath him. Felt leather straps snap. Felt his own body lurch sideways as the world suddenly tilted at an impossible angle. One hand lost its grip. Then the other. For a fraction of a second he remained suspended between sky and sea, weightless and helpless, staring at the battlefield spinning around him. He saw Vermax thrashing wildly through smoke and flame. Saw burning ships below. Saw fragments of timber tumbling through the air. Then gravity finally claimed him, and he began to fall.

The sea struck like stone. Every bit of air exploded from his lungs as darkness swallowed him whole. One moment there had been fire and screaming and sunlight filtering through smoke. The next there was only cold. Crushing, suffocating cold. Water surged over him from every direction, dragging him downward so violently that he lost all sense of direction. His eyes opened instinctively and found nothing except murky green darkness filled with bubbles and drifting debris. Panic arrived immediately. Not the distant fear of battle. Not the calculated fear of death that every dragonrider learned to live with. Pure animal panic. His body fought upward, desperate for air, but something yanked him back.

The saddle harness. Even before he looked down, he knew. A strap had wrapped itself around his leg. Jace twisted violently, trying to free himself, but the movement only tightened the leather. The remains of the saddle dragged behind him like an anchor. His armor suddenly felt impossibly heavy. His boots seemed filled with lead. Every attempt to swim carried him nowhere. The sea continued pulling him deeper while his lungs began to burn with unbearable intensity. He clawed at the buckle with numb fingers, but the metal refused to move. His chest convulsed. A desperate instinct demanded breath, yet there was no breath to take. Only seawater and darkness and pressure. His pulse thundered in his ears. His vision blurred around the edges. For the first time since the battle began, the possibility of death became terrifyingly real.

Not in battle. Not with a sword in his hand. Not beside Vermax. Here. Alone. Drowning in darkness while the war continued without him.

A surge of desperation flooded through him. Jace grabbed the strap with both hands and pulled with every bit of strength he possessed. The leather groaned but held. His lungs burned hotter. Black spots began dancing across his vision. Another pull. Another violent twist. Something tore. He wasn't even certain whether it was the harness or his own muscles. Then suddenly the tension vanished.

He was free. Jace kicked upward immediately. Every movement felt sluggish. Every second stretched into eternity. The surface seemed impossibly distant. He no longer knew how deep he had been dragged. The pressure in his chest became agony. His vision narrowed. His body screamed for air. For one horrible moment he genuinely believed he would never reach the surface. That he would black out only a few feet beneath it and sink quietly into the depths.

Then light appeared above him. Dim. Blurred. Beautiful. He surged toward it.

The moment his head broke through the waves, he inhaled so sharply it felt like knives entering his lungs. Air flooded into him in ragged, painful gasps while seawater poured from his mouth. He coughed violently, struggling to stay afloat as waves crashed against his face. The battle still raged around him. Smoke drifted across the sky. Flaming wreckage floated nearby. The sea itself seemed to burn in places where oil and fire mixed together. Everywhere he looked there was destruction. Yet none of it mattered. Not at first.

His eyes searched the sea. Searching. Praying. Begging.

"Vermax."

The name escaped him as little more than a whisper. Nothing answered. No familiar roar. No shadow passing overhead. No flash of pale green scales. Only smoke. Only fire. Only empty sky.

The realization settled slowly, sinking deeper than the sea ever could. The bond that had existed for most of his life was gone. Not distant. Not weakened. Gone. A hollow ache opened inside his chest so suddenly and so completely that for a moment it eclipsed everything else. The battle. The cold. The danger. Even his own survival. Vermax was dead.

Movement along the water finally dragged his attention away. A Triarchy galley. Far too close. Close enough to distinguish faces through the smoke. Close enough to see soldiers lining the railing. One of them pointed directly at him. Another shouted something he couldn't hear over the waves. Then an arbalest was dragged forward.

Jace's blood turned cold. The weapon settled against the rail while the crossbowman adjusted his stance with practiced calm. Around him, men continued fighting and dying. Dragons still wheeled overhead. Ships still burned. Yet the soldier seemed concerned with only a single target. Him.

Jace treaded water, exhausted, weaponless, stranded in open sea with nowhere to hide. The arbalest slowly turned. Followed him. Stopped. Its iron bolt pointed directly at his chest. And the crossbowman smiled.

At first there was only darkness. Not the gentle darkness of sleep, but something deeper. Heavier. A darkness filled with cold water and distant screams. Even unconscious, Jace could not escape the Gullet. His mind dragged him back into the battle again and again, forcing him to relive fragments of it in broken, shifting pieces that refused to fit together. Smoke swallowed the sky. Ships burned across black water. Men screamed somewhere beyond the haze. Dragonfire flashed through the darkness in violent bursts of orange and red before vanishing once more. The sea reflected every flame, turning the water into a field of liquid fire. Somewhere overhead dragons roared. Somewhere below men drowned. The entire world seemed trapped between fire and water, and Jace stood helplessly in the middle of it. Then he heard a familiar cry. Vermax. The sound cut through the chaos instantly. Relief flooded him so suddenly it nearly hurt. He turned toward it and saw his dragon circling overhead, pale green scales shining through the smoke. Alive. Whole. Uninjured. For one precious moment everything else disappeared. The battle no longer mattered. The arrows no longer mattered. The sea no longer mattered. Vermax was alive. That was enough.

Then the scream came. It was not the roar of a dragon going to war. It was pain. Pure agony.

Jace watched helplessly as Vermax's body twisted violently in the air. Flames spread across scales and wings. The dragon's cry echoed across the battlefield, louder than the crashing waves and burning ships combined. "Vermax!" Jace shouted, but his voice seemed impossibly small compared to the chaos around him. The dragon looked toward him for a brief moment, and the sight of it filled Jace with a terrible sense of dread. There was fear in Vermax's eyes. Confusion. Pain. Then the dragon began to fall. Slowly at first. Then faster. Jace tried to run. Tried to reach him. Tried to do something. Anything. But his legs refused to move. No matter how desperately he struggled, his feet remained rooted in place while Vermax disappeared into smoke and flame. The sea rose to meet the falling dragon. One final cry echoed across the battlefield. Then silence. Vermax vanished beneath the waves.

The world broke apart. The water that had been crashing harmlessly around his boots suddenly surged upward. It climbed past his knees, his waist, his chest. Cold. So cold. Jace staggered backward, but there was nowhere to go. The battlefield vanished beneath black water. The ships disappeared. The fire disappeared. Even the sky disappeared. Everything became ocean. He was drowning again. Saltwater flooded his mouth. His lungs burned. Panic exploded through him. He kicked desperately toward the surface, but there was no surface to find. Every direction was darkness. Every direction was water. The same crushing helplessness returned. The same terror he had felt beneath the waves after falling from Vermax. The same certainty that he was about to die. His chest screamed for air. His vision blurred. He could feel the ocean dragging him deeper and deeper into the darkness below.

Then shapes appeared. At first they were only shadows. Then faces. Luke stood several feet away beneath the water. Exactly as he had looked before Storm's End. No wounds. No blood. No sign of what had happened. Just Luke. Alive. Smiling. Waiting.

The sight hit harder than any wound. Guilt twisted through Jace's chest with such force that it felt impossible to breathe. He tried to swim toward him. Tried to reach him. Tried to explain. Gods, he wanted to explain. Wanted to tell him how sorry he was. Wanted to tell him he should have protected him. Should have been there. Should have done something. Anything. But the words never came. Water filled his throat instead. Luke's smile slowly faded. Disappointment settled across his features. Then he began drifting farther away, disappearing into the darkness while Jace watched helplessly. No matter how hard he struggled, the distance only grew.

Another figure appeared. His mother. Rhaenyra stood somewhere beyond the darkness, illuminated by distant light he could not reach. Her hand was stretched toward him. Calling him home. Calling him back. Jace reached for her immediately. Every instinct inside him demanded he reach her. Yet the distance between them never changed. He swam. Fought. Kicked desperately through the darkness. Nothing brought him closer. The sea continued pulling him downward while she remained impossibly far away. The realization struck with sudden horror. Did she think he was dead? Had word already reached Dragonstone? Was she mourning him now as she had mourned Luke? The thought hurt more than the drowning. More than the arrows. More than the loss of Vermax. He tried to call out to her. Tried to tell her he was still alive. The sea swallowed every word before it could leave his mouth.

Then voices began to bleed into the dream. At first they sounded distant and distorted, blending with the screams of battle. Gradually they became clearer. Real voices. Human voices. Close voices. The darkness around him began to fracture. Cracks spread through the sea itself. The water dissolved. The battlefield vanished. Luke disappeared. His mother disappeared. Everything shattered apart.

Jace's eyes snapped open. Pain arrived immediately. A sharp breath tore from his lungs as consciousness crashed back into him. His shoulder felt as though someone had buried a blade inside it and left it there. Every muscle in his body ached. His throat burned from saltwater. His head felt heavy. For several long seconds he simply stared upward, struggling to separate dream from reality. Wooden beams crossed the ceiling above him. Sunlight filtered through somewhere nearby. The smell of smoke, herbs, and old wood hung in the air. None of it made sense. None of it was familiar. This was not Dragonstone. This was not a ship. This was not the battlefield.

The realization struck him all at once. He was alive. And he had absolutely no idea where he was. Alarm surged through him immediately. Jace pushed himself upright far too quickly, and agony exploded through his injured shoulder. The room spun. His vision blurred. He nearly collapsed back against the mattress. Somehow he managed to remain sitting, breathing heavily while panic threatened to overtake reason. His eyes darted around the chamber. Every detail felt foreign. The furniture. The walls. The blankets covering him. Whoever had brought him here had removed parts of his ruined clothing. Fresh bandages wrapped his shoulder beneath a loose linen shirt. Someone had treated his wounds. Someone had pulled the bolt from his flesh. Someone had carried him here after the sea left him for dead.

But who? The question settled heavily in his mind. Who had found him? Who knew he was here? Did they know who he was? Did they know he was the heir to Dragonstone? Or was he merely another wounded survivor dragged from the wreckage?

His voice emerged rough, hoarse, and barely recognizable after days of unconsciousness.

"Where am I?"