Chapter 26.2- The Seadragon's Roar

She heard mother let out a choked sob. She turned away as the flames began to die. She could not imagine seeing it. Her brother’s charred corpse. She wanted to lash out. Lash out at the stupid fucking dragon. That was why Vhagar never liked it. Stupid lump of fire and scale. But all she felt inside was numb, cold, unfeeling. Laenor had been her other half in every way that mattered. No one would ever be able to understand her like he had. And she would never be able to understand anyone like she understood him. He was her twin in every way that mattered. They had been raised as two parts of a whole, and she would never be complete again. She should have taken him to the Maester and said fuck it to his ideas.

“Seven hells” She heard Ser Ben’s words as the sound of the fire disappeared. Fuck. The body looked back didn’t it. She heard Mother let out a gasp. Why did the gasp sound excited?

“That’s impossible” It was mother again. Laena turned, unable to contain her curiosity. Strangely, there was no smell of burnt flesh. She looked down at where Laenor’s charred corpse should have been and instead found him surprisingly intact. Even better his chest was rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Almost like he was asleep rather than dead. She heard a soft sound. It couldn’t be. She practically dove at him as she heard it again.

She placed her ear over his mouth. It was a snore. He was snoring. He was alive. Her brother was alive! She turned to the dragon then. “Thank you, Igneel” She said.

The lump of scale just had the audacity to snort at her like he had been able to hear her earlier admittedly less than charitable thoughts about him. In her defence, she’d thought he’d just killed her brother.

“The unburnt” She heard mother whisper as she approached.

“What?”

“There is a myth around our family. I only know about it because Father had been obsessed with such things. The idea of the unburnt. A person in whom Valyrian blood magic runs so strongly that even dragon fire fails to burn them. They didn’t ever occur more than once a century. But they were said to be so blessed with magic that they inevitably became a blood mage. Their blood demanded it of them” She explained, leaning over Laenor’s body as well.

“What does this mean for Laenor?”

“I don’t know. It might not even mean anything. Valyria is gone now. What is the use of a blood mage without the fourteen flames to swear himself to. What I do know is that what happened here can not ever be known to any but us four” She said, looking straight at Ser Ben as she said so.

“My sword and life are sworn to your son, my lady. If any of his secrets leak, then it shall not be from my lips.” He said.