Shireen knew rifling through soone else's belongings was improper — yet curiosity tugged at her too strongly.
Since Drogon had given permission, she gently opened the backpack.
Inside she found a bundle of dried grass, then a gray-white firestone, and at the very bottom a small pile of gold and silver coins.
"You… you know how to make fire?"
She lifted the flint and asked in astonishnt.
Drogon nodded.
"These coins are strange… I've never seen them before. Do you… spend money?"
Drogon hooked a wing tip toward his own mouth — stuffing food in.
"Ah! So you use it to buy food?"
Shireen's eyes widened. With that many coins, one could buy mountains of delicious things.
"Oh— I forgot to introduce myself. My na is Shireen Baratheon. What's your na?"
Drogon, of course, could only stare back silently.
"You really can't talk… what a sha," she sighed to herself.
After putting the flint back into the pack, Drogon slipped the straps over his neck, stepped onto the windowsill, and glanced toward the sky.
He had to leave.
"You're going already?"
The disappointnt in Shireen's voice was soft but unmistakable.
Drogon raised a wing in a little wave.
"C-could I… touch you? Just once?"
He paused — then nodded.
Shireen reached out, her small fingers trembling, and gently brushed the smooth black scales on his back.
Then she touched the crimson mbrane of his wings, reverent as if she were touching a relic of the gods.
Only when she pulled her hand back did she look satisfied.
Drogon lingered a mont, then beat his wings and rose.
Shireen stood on tiptoe and leaned half out of the window, trying to glimpse him once more.
That was when she noticed — he wasn't leaving.
He was flying upward, toward a higher tower.
Shireen frowned in confusion.
What was he going to do?
—
At the tower's height, Drogon's eyes shone.
There — a wide open terrace, supported by pillars, with a large chamber beyond.
Perfect.
He tucked himself against a protruding stone ledge and listened for sounds.
Silence.
He crept forward and peeked inside.
A massive wooden table in the shape of Westeros dominated the center of the room, mountains and rivers carved with exquisite detail, the borders marked with runes and a precise scale.
Miniature figurines — wolves, lions, stags, dragons — stood where the major houses ruled.
It was even more vivid than the sand table in his mories.
Drogon flew inside cautiously and scanned the hallway one last ti before turning to the map.
He located Dragonstone, then the island beside it — so the land he saw earlier had been Driftmark.
He found King's Landing — southwest of Dragonstone, beside Blackwater Bay.
Piece by piece he cross-checked what he rembered.
As a dragon, he carried not only inherited combat instincts, but also knowledge of language and writing — and an ironclad mory.
In less than ten minutes he had morized most of the table.
Just as he prepared to examine the scale again, footsteps approached — quickening from distant to near.
Drogon shot out of the tower room and flattened himself against the terrace wall.
"I swear I heard sothing," a sultry female voice said as a woman in a crimson robe entered. Her eyes fell on a carved stag figure that was still faintly swaying.
"There's no one here. Likely a seabird," a man replied, dismissive.
But the woman was not convinced. She stepped to the edge of the terrace — her head inches from where Drogon hid behind stone — and peered down.
Seeing nothing, she finally turned back toward the great table.
"My king," she said, "I must leave for a while. When I return, I will serve you again."
"You would abandon to seek a greater master?" the man growled — anger and wounded pride tangled in his voice.
Drogon recognized them instantly — Stannis Baratheon and the Red Priestess, lisandre.
lisandre's voice softened, dark and seductive:
"You are the chosen of the Lord of Light. Why would I forsake you?
But your power alone is not enough to win this war. I must go — to seek a way to strengthen you. When I return, you will rise renewed."
Her gaze swept across the map — hungry, fevered.
"And one day, everything marked here will be your kingdom."
Stannis stared into the Red Woman's eyes, trying to read truth or betrayal in their depths.
lisandre rely held his gaze, lips curving faintly, calm as still water.
At last, he yielded.
His shoulders slumped, his eyes softened, and he leaned down to kiss her smooth cheek — breathing her in as if trying to trap her scent inside his mory.
Silence lingered.
Then footsteps — slow at first, then fading into the distance.
---
Drogon knew perfectly well lisandre would never abandon Stannis.
If she was leaving Dragonstone, it could only an one thing:
She was going to seek King Robert's bastard sons — to steal their love, drain their blood, and use them as conduits for the curse that would kill the "Three False Kings."
A lurid and terrible ritual was about to unfold.
This ti, Drogon would not be there to witness it.
He no longer needed the map.
He would learn the land of Westeros by wing and fla — by flying it, not morizing it.
With the shape of the world already burned into his mind, Drogon dug his claws into the stone, launched himself from the castle wall, and powered westward toward King's Landing.
—
THUMP–THUMP–THUMP!
The mont he vanished into the clouds, lisandre burst back into the map room, racing toward the terrace.
She craned her neck upward, staring after the shrinking black speck.
"What happened?" Stannis demanded, following her inside with a scowl.
"It was here," she said coldly. "I know it. Sothing entered this chamber."
"Probably a seabird."
Stannis waved the concern away.
"That was no seabird. Sea-birds don't move that fast. And… I saw red light on its body."
Stannis's eyes narrowed.
"Could it be… a skinchanger?"
"Perhaps." Her voice grew heavy with aning. "I need a sign — a revelation."
Stannis stiffened. He knew what that ant.
"Bring one Dark Servant to the square," he ordered the guards.
lisandre's eyes flashed.
"One will not suffice. I felt great power in that red light. Bring three."
---
A short ti later, on the stone clearing near the beach,
three battered n were tied to three wooden crosses, firewood piled high at their feet.
The wind howled.
lisandre stood before them like a high priestess of judgnt, her crimson robe snapping in the salt air.
She closed her eyes, whispered her prayers, then motioned for three guards to ignite the pyres.
Flas roared to life.
Screams tore across the shore — raw, animal, unending.
Soldiers nearby flinched and turned away.
Stannis did not move.
lisandre did not blink.
She stared into the inferno, muttering faster and faster, waiting for a vision.
Waiting for the Lord of Light to speak.
Nothing happened.
The flas continued to climb — no symbols, no figures, no whispers.
Her lips tightened.
Perhaps this sacrifice had—
ROOOOAAAAAR!!!
A colossal black dragon's head erupted from the fire — fangs bared, eyes burning like molten gold — and lunged straight at her.
"AH!"
lisandre shrieked, stumbling back.
Blood sprayed from her lips as she crumpled onto the sand.
Stannis rushed forward, catching her before she collapsed.
"It… it was a dragon," she gasped weakly. "A black dragon…"
Then she fell unconscious.
---
At that exact mont, far across the Narrow Sea, Drogon faltered in mid-air.
A cold sensation had rippled across his scales — as if soone had been looking through his eyes.
He slowed, scanned the skies, tilted his wings to search the sea below.
Nothing.
"Strange," he muttered inwardly.
With a twitch of his wings, he surged forward again — toward King's Landing, toward destiny.
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