Book I: The Golden Storm
Prologue – The Storm and the Flame
The walls of Storm’s End shook that night, as though the castle itself feared what it was about to witness. Lightning carved the black skies, thunder roared like the drums of war, and waves the height of towers battered against the fortress’s ancient stones. The storm was one of the greatest ever to lash the Stormlands, but within its heart, a child was born.
Princess Rhaenyra Daeragon, last daughter of a proud Valyrian line, cradled the babe swaddled in crimson cloth. His tiny fists clenched, his cry fierce enough to rival the thunder outside. Beside her stood Lord Duncan Baratheon, broad and stern, though his dark eyes softened as he looked upon his son.
“He was born of the storm,” Duncan said, voice rough.
“And of fire,” whispered Rhaenyra, her silver-gold hair wild from sweat and wind. She bent low, her lips brushing the child’s brow as she whispered words in High Valyrian.
“Āeksion perzys, vīlībāzma zaldrīzes.”
(Golden flame, born of dragons.)
At that moment, a bolt of lightning struck the sea so violently that the horizon blazed white. The midwives crossed themselves in fear, murmuring prayers to the Seven. But Rhaenyra only smiled.
“He will be more than a stormlord’s son,” she said. “This one is meant to shake the world.”
Chapter One – The Children of Storm’s End
Storm’s End bred strong children, and none more so than those of Lord Duncan and Princess Rhaenyra.
At seven-and-ten, Randall Baratheon, heir to Storm’s End, was already a master of words and schemes. Tutors praised his keen mind and steady composure. Lords who visited left remarking he would one day make a Hand to rival Tywin Lannister.
Princess Marianne “Mary”, two years younger, was called the Jewel of the Stormlands. Her beauty was said to rival that of the most fabled Targaryen maidens, her manners impeccable, her kindness remembered by smallfolk who adored her.
Then came Richard, third son, twin to Rosalia. From his earliest years, he bore the wild energy of the storm and the sharp wit of Valyria. He fought fiercely with wooden swords, studied politics with eager hunger, and was always the one to break quarrels among his siblings with words as quick as his fists.
Rosalia “Rose”, Richard’s twin, was his mirror in ferocity. With a spear in hand, she bested boys twice her size, and no septa could tame her will. Richard called her “his other half,” and none doubted the truth of it.
The youngest, Lucas “Luke”, was bold and impetuous, a boy who laughed in the face of danger. He had his father’s brawn and his mother’s daring, though his temper often drew him into trouble.
They were a brood of stag and dragon both, each bearing the storm’s strength and the fire’s pride. Yet even among them, Richard shone with something different.
It was not beauty, like Mary’s, nor cunning like Randall’s. Not raw ferocity like Rose’s, nor Luke’s reckless charm.
Richard bore a balance of them all — storm tempered by fire, fire steadied by storm.
And when his mother placed a dragon’s egg of shimmering gold into his cradle, the course of his life was sealed.
Chapter Two – The Golden Egg
The egg was unlike any other in the castle’s possession. While the Targaryens had long kept eggs as tokens of their fading glory, most were pale, dead things—stone rather than living fire. But the one that rested in Richard’s cradle glowed faintly even in the dark, a shell of shimmering gold veined with streaks of crimson, as though molten fire ran beneath its surface.
“An heirloom of Valyria,” Princess Rhaenyra whispered when she first laid it beside him. “Or perhaps a promise.”
Richard grew with the egg always near. Servants swore that when the boy cried, the egg pulsed faintly, heat seeping from its surface. When he laughed, sparks danced across its shell. Maesters dismissed such tales as fancy, but the smallfolk whispered that the child and the egg were bound.
On the eve of Richard’s tenth nameday, the storm came.
It was not the rolling thunder that Storm’s End knew well, but a tempest fierce enough to tear trees from their roots and batter the keep’s stones with waves higher than its walls. The castle shook, and many prayed in the sept for deliverance.
In the chamber of the prince, lightning split the sky so bright it cast the egg in firelight. Richard, restless, sat beside it, his hand upon the shell. It burned, but he did not pull away.
“Come forth,” he whispered in the tongue his mother had taught him. High Valyrian words, clumsy on a child’s lips. “Zaldrīzes… gevives.”
(Dragon… live.)
The shell cracked.
First a line, thin and sharp, then a web of fissures spreading like veins of fire. Steam hissed, smoke curled, and then with a sound like thunder made flesh, the egg burst apart.
From it crawled a creature unlike any seen in Westeros for centuries.
Its scales were molten gold, its eyes burning red as coals. Smoke curled from its nostrils with every breath, and its wings, though small, shimmered with light as if spun of sunlight itself. The hatchling fixed its gaze upon Richard, hissed once, and then clambered into his lap.
Richard laughed, unafraid, though his skin blistered where the dragon’s heat touched him. “Caesarion,” he named it, the word springing unbidden from his tongue.
The dragon answered with a shriek so fierce it drowned out the storm itself.
By dawn, when the storm had passed, the castle was abuzz. Some spoke of sorcery, others of omen. The maesters recorded it dutifully, though even they trembled as the hatchling clung to Richard’s shoulder, smoke rising from its tiny jaws.
The boy who was stormborn had become something more.
And from that day forth, whenever the lords of the Stormlands visited, their eyes were not only on Randall the heir, nor on Duncan the stern father. They lingered on Richard, the third son, and the golden-scaled beast that followed him.
For all knew the truth, though few dared speak it:
The dragons of Valyria lived again.
And they had chosen him.
Chapter Three - The Dragonlord of Storm’s End
Caesarion grew swiftly. Within a year, the hatchling that perched upon Richard’s shoulder was too large to fit in the boy’s chambers. Within three, he had filled the dragonpit beneath Storm’s End, his wings spanning wider than two longships laid end to end.
Gold as hammered sunlight, with streaks of crimson fire lacing his scales, Caesarion was unlike any dragon the maesters had records of. His size defied nature, his growth relentless. By the time Richard reached his thirteenth nameday, the beast was already larger than Caraxes or Vhagar had been in their youth.
The smallfolk feared him. The lords whispered of doom. But Richard loved him with the fierce loyalty only a Baratheon could summon. Day and night he tended to the dragon, feeding him from his own hands, speaking to him in the lilting tongue of Valyria, stroking his molten scales even when they burned his skin raw.
Lord Duncan forbade the boy from attempting to ride. “Too young,” he thundered. “A dragon is not a destrier to be broken. He is fire made flesh. If he chooses to kill you, he will.”
But Richard would not be denied.
On a gray dawn thick with sea-mist, Richard slipped away from Storm’s End, his twin Rosalia at his side. The siblings descended into the pit, where Caesarion awaited, restless and shrieking at the confines of stone.
“He is not meant for cages,” Richard said, his hand pressed against the beast’s hot flank. “Nor am I.”
Rosalia grasped his arm. “You could burn.”
“Then I burn.”
With that, he clambered up the dragon’s side, fingers finding purchase between scales hot as forge-iron. Caesarion twisted, wings half-spread, testing the boy’s will. For a heartbeat, Richard hung there, one mistake from death. Then he bellowed, voice raw and defiant:
“Fly!”
Caesarion roared, the sound shaking Storm’s End to its foundations. His wings unfurled like golden sails, and with a thunderous beat he leapt skyward.
The castle stirred to chaos as servants and lords rushed to the battlements. Some screamed, some fell to their knees, others wept with terror or awe. Above them all soared Richard Baratheon, barely a man grown, clinging to the neck of the largest dragon Westeros had ever seen.
Higher and higher they climbed, the wind tearing tears from his eyes, the salt spray of the Narrow Sea whipping against his face. Below, the Stormlands stretched green and gray, the waves shattering against cliffs in white plumes.
For the first time in living memory, a dragon soared above the Stormlands.
Richard whooped, exultant, as Caesarion banked and roared, flame spilling from his jaws. The stormborn prince had become dragonlord in truth.
When at last they returned, the courtyard was filled. Lord Duncan’s face was white with fury—and pride. Rhaenyra wept openly, her silver-gold hair plastered to her cheeks by the sea wind.
“Madness,” Randall muttered. “Or destiny.”
Rosalia alone met Richard’s eyes with a grin. “You did it, brother. Gods help us all.”
From that day, there was no longer doubt. Richard Baratheon was no ordinary son of Storm’s End. He was the Dragonlord of the Stormlands.
And with Caesarion’s shadow darkening the skies, all of Westeros would one day learn it.
Chapter Four – Trials of the Stag
The years that followed Richard’s first flight upon Caesarion were not years of idleness. Lord Duncan, proud though he was of his son’s triumph, knew well that dragons alone did not win kingdoms. Steel, strength, and the wisdom to wield them—those were the tools of a king.
Thus Richard was set to trial.
At dawn he drilled with the men-at-arms of Storm’s End, first with blunted swords, then sharp steel. By the age of fourteen he had beaten squires thrice his size and disarmed hedge knights twice his age. By sixteen, he bested Ser Harwyn Fells in the yard, a seasoned knight who had fought in Robert’s wars. His blows were as fierce as the storm, but his footwork—measured, precise—spoke of Valyrian grace.
“Baratheon brawn with dragon’s blood,” the soldiers whispered. “The Stormborn Prince is a warrior born.”
But strength of arm was not enough for Richard. While his brother Luke delighted in tourneys and Rose sought the clash of sparring steel, Richard studied tomes of war in the library of Storm’s End. He read the campaigns of Nymeria, the stratagems of the Dornish princes, and the legacies of Aegon the Conqueror. At night, he bent maps before the hearth, shifting carved stags and dragons as pieces in his own silent games.
Randall, the eldest, watched with approval. “He thinks like a general,” he told their father. “And fights like a champion.”
Yet it was not only war that tested Richard.
Storm’s End was no stranger to hungry winters and discontent smallfolk. Richard rode Caesarion across the Stormlands not only as a lordling, but as a protector. He visited fisher villages battered by gales, saw millers cheated by their liege, and courts where justice bent to coin. Where he could, he righted wrongs. Where he could not, he remembered.
It was said that once, when a storm shattered the harbor at Weeping Town, Richard descended from the skies with Caesarion to haul broken ships to shore. “The Golden Dragon and the Golden Prince,” the smallfolk called them, and songs of the deed spread across the Stormlands like wildfire.
But trials came from within as well.
His siblings each tested him in their own way.
Rosalia, his twin, sparred with him in the yard, matching his fury with her grace. “You fight like the storm,” she teased, “but a storm can be turned aside. Learn to strike like lightning—swift and unseen.”
Luke, bold and brash, challenged Richard in every hunt and joust. “One day I’ll best you, brother,” he swore, “and when I do, the bards will sing of me.” Yet even in his rivalry, Luke’s admiration was plain.
Marianne, their sister, tested Richard not with blade or wit, but with counsel. “You are strong, Richard. But strength makes men reckless. Remember that power without mercy is only cruelty.” Her words stayed with him longer than many victories.
And always, looming over all, was Caesarion. The dragon grew mightier by the day, wings darkening the skies, fire scorching cliffs to black glass. With each flight, Richard’s bond deepened. He felt the beast’s fury and hunger in his own heart, a mingling of storm and fire that no maester could name.
But to ride such a creature was trial enough. Twice Caesarion threw him, once nearly killing him in the fall. Yet each time Richard rose, bloodied but unbroken, climbing back to the saddle.
When he was seventeen, Richard stood before his father in the great hall of Storm’s End. His sword hand was calloused, his shoulders broad, his gaze steady as steel.
“You have passed your trials,” Lord Duncan said, voice proud and weary. “You are no longer merely my son. You are a stag of Storm’s End. A prince of the Stormlands. And one day… perhaps more.”
Behind him, Caesarion roared, shaking the hall, golden fire lighting the banners of House Baratheon.
The storm had forged its champion.
Chapter Five – The Gathering Storm
Word of Caesarion spread far beyond the Stormlands. Songs carried on the tongues of sailors to Oldtown, King’s Landing, and even across the Narrow Sea to Pentos. Lords whispered of it in their halls, and maesters wrote in cautious ink: A dragon greater than Balerion the Black Dread lives again, and he is bound to a Baratheon prince.
For some, it was wonder. For others, it was fear.
King’s Landing grew uneasy. King Robert, once famed for his own might, grew sour at the thought of his nephew eclipsing him in glory. Stannis, ever stern, mistrusted the power of dragons and warned of their return. Only Renly smiled, seeing in Richard a figure who might unite the storm and fire in ways none before had.
Richard himself remained at Storm’s End, but he could no longer remain untouched by the realm.
When he was eighteen, envoys came from across Westeros. The Reach sent Ser Loras Tyrell with gifts of gold and fruit. Dorne dispatched a Martell cousin, offering peace and trade. Even from the Eyrie came falcons, tokens of good faith. Yet the most intriguing were whispers from Essos: Daenerys Stormborn, last daughter of the Targaryens, had hatched three dragons across the sea.
Three dragons, and one Golden Dreadlord in Westeros.
The old lords muttered of prophecy. The song of fire and storm.
It was not long before Richard’s trials moved from the yard to the council chamber. Lord Duncan took him to parley with marcher lords who muttered of rebellion, to hear disputes between landed knights and smallfolk, to treat with merchants from Braavos who spoke in riddles. Here, Randall shone brightest—measured, calm, a master of words and compromise. Yet Richard listened keenly, and when he spoke, he did so with clarity that silenced rooms.
“Storms do not beg,” he told a quarrelsome lord once. “They break, and leave only truth behind.” The man yielded.
Still, politics were shadows compared to the fire of his bond with Caesarion. The dragon now rivaled the size of Visenya’s Vhagar at her height, his wings blotting out the sun, his roar shaking the earth. Lords who came to Storm’s End bent the knee less to Lord Duncan than to the prince and his beast.
It was in these years that Richard first dreamt of more. Not of rebellion, not of conquest—but of unity. He saw the cracks in Robert’s realm: lords feuding, kingdoms restless, the Iron Throne growing brittle beneath a drunken king. Richard did not yet seek a crown, but he knew the storm to come.
And then, fate placed him upon its path.
A raven came from Dragonstone. Daenerys Stormborn had landed in Westeros. Her three dragons were young still, but their fire burned bright, and her claim was sung by exiles and broken men alike.
Richard stood in the courtyard of Storm’s End as the raven was read. His siblings gathered—Randall frowning in thought, Marianne pale, Rose with a warrior’s gleam in her eye, Luke already boasting of challenge.
Richard only looked skyward, where Caesarion wheeled, golden fire trailing from his jaws.
“Three dragons,” he murmured. “And one greater than all. The storm and the fire must meet.”
The storm was gathering. And with it, Richard Baratheon’s destiny.
Chapter Six – The Golden Bond
The storm that lashed the coast that night was the fiercest in a generation. Winds howled like wolves at the walls of Storm’s End, and waves shattered against the cliffs with a fury that shook the castle’s ancient stones. The keep groaned beneath the tempest, and even the bravest knights crossed themselves at the thunder that cracked the heavens.
But Richard was not in the hall with his kin. He was in the sky.
Caesarion soared above the storm, wings vast as mountains, golden scales flashing in the lightning. Richard clung to the saddle strapped between the beast’s shoulders, hair whipped by the gale, face cut by the salt wind.
Every beat of Caesarion’s wings echoed in his chest. Every flare of fire was as if his own blood had ignited. They did not merely ride together—they breathed as one, storm and flame bound by fate.
Below, the lords of the Stormlands looked up in terror and awe. To see a man fly such a beast, not cowed but exultant, was to see the power of gods reborn.
When Caesarion roared, the storm seemed to falter. When Richard raised his sword to the skies, lightning struck, and for a heartbeat the storm bent to him.
He was the storm. He was the fire. He was both Baratheon and dragonlord.
When at last they descended, landing upon the wet stones of the courtyard, the storm broke behind them. Rain poured, thunder rumbled, but the skies seemed lesser, dimmer, compared to the brilliance of the Golden Dreadlord and his rider.
Lord Duncan watched with wet eyes, pride plain upon his face. Rhaenyra Daeragon whispered prayers in the Valyrian tongue. Randall bowed his head in respect. Marianne curtsied low, like a lady before her king. Rosalia clapped her brother’s shoulder, laughing through her tears, and Luke bellowed that no knight in the realm could ever match him now.
But it was the smallfolk who first named him truly. From their lips came the words that would echo in halls and villages alike:
“The Golden Bond.”
No man and dragon since Aegon and Balerion had been so joined, not in fear or in mastery, but in something deeper—trust, loyalty, love.
Richard Baratheon was no longer merely the Stormborn Prince. No longer merely the Dragonlord of Storm’s End.
He was the rising storm of Westeros, the boy who had forged a bond that would shake kingdoms, topple thrones, and one day forge an empire.
And thus ended the first song of his youth.
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