The Red Dragon
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30. Disappointment and Frustration
🕑 Added 2025-06-06 17:59:47 +0000 UTCBloodstone, Stepstones
Laenor, under the silver moonlight, watched as his father stepped forward toward the bloodstone. After taking a deep breath, Corlys made a small cut on his palm and squeezed blood onto the black-crimson dragonglass, gazing at it with focused intensity. Laenor didn’t know what was going through his father’s mind, but he, along with Prince Daemon and his father, kept their eyes fixed on the bloodstone, waiting to see if it would ignite.
And it did. The fire lit, though not in Laenor’s sea-blue hue—it began as a murky green and shifted through several shades, including sea-blue, before settling into a crystal-clear flame. The fire looked otherworldly, almost ethereal to behold. But sadly, its size and intensity were only slightly more than half of Prince Daemon’s.
Not that it seemed to sadden Corlys. He gazed at the flame with a proud, self-satisfied grin on his face.
“So, the blood of Velaryon does possess magic,” Daemon murmured, half to himself.
“Of course it does. Laenor is living proof,” Corlys replied smugly, pride swelling in his voice.
“Come now, Corlys,” Daemon said with a raised brow, “sure, the Velaryon bloodline holds magic—but if fire intensity is any indication, Laenor’s overwhelming magic clearly stems from his Targaryen blood.”
That was all it took. The two men began arguing, escalating quickly into a heated debate over bloodline supremacy. Ancestors were named, histories cited, and soon Corlys was reminding Daemon of House Velaryon’s contributions to the birth of Valyria—and just how minor House Targaryen’s role had been in comparison, at the time.
Laenor decided he had to step in before Daemon’s infamous temper led to something irreparable.
“Enough,” Laenor said, his voice like steel. “We have too many enemies to waste time flaunting superiority. Infighting only reveals weakness and foolishness—not the supremacy of our race. Cool your tempers. Velaryon and Targaryen blood has intermingled so many times that you both carry both in your veins. Badmouthing one insults the other. The hour of the wolf is near—let us retire for the night and face the morning of the day after.”
Both men grunted but took deep breaths and fell silent.
“Father,” Laenor added, turning to Corlys, “I want you to take the bloodstone and test our cousins and kin. See if any among them possess the magic to activate the runes.”
Corlys nodded, picked up the bloodstone, and after a respectful farewell, made his way back to camp.
“Prince Daemon, would you help me strap the other piece of dragonglass onto Embaryx?” Laenor asked.
Daemon nodded, and the two of them secured the dragonglass to the saddle on Embaryx. The dragon turned his neck, sniffed at the dragonglass, and let out a satisfied purr and grunt. Odd and curious behavior—but Laenor filed the thought away for later.
“What do you plan to create with that? Are you considering making the 'bombs' you mentioned this morning?” Daemon asked with curiosity, pointing at dragonglass.
“What do you think?” Laenor asked with a smug, bloodthirsty smirk.
Daemon returned it with a chuckle. “Oh, I’m eager to witness your next feat of magic, Laenor.”
He paused, then added in a more serious tone, “I know some of the Valyrian glyphs and can read their scripts—my brother helped me learn them,” he admitted in a low voice. “But I want you to teach me. What do you say? Of course, it won’t be for free. If you want gold, or training with the sword—or even dragonriding lessons—I can provide them. I’ll remind you I’m no less skilled a dragonrider than your mother, though she was a natural, like my own late mother, Alyssa Targaryen.”
~*~
Laenor was staring at the small, square pieces of dragonglass—each barely half the size of a brick, with crimson veins running through and around them. They looked deceptively harmless, lacking even sharp edges. Only, they weren’t harmless. These were magical bombs—the very ones Laenor had been working on, hoping to end this war as swiftly as possible.
But alas, things rarely go as one hopes. While there had been no issues in crafting the bombs—and Laenor had even underestimated the amount of magic saturating the dragonglass—he had expected an explosion the size of a standard Bombarda spell. What he got instead was the force of Bombarda Maxima.
He could thank the Fourteen Flames for that unexpected surprise. But the next surprise was not as good as the first one. The experiments with ritual-empowered dragonglass had led him to a crucial discovery: the dragonglass couldn’t absorb ambient magic. That revelation had been eye-opening. With that limitation, Laenor would now have to rely on sacrifices whenever he or his family wanted to enchant something— and even that would only continue to work by pouring their own blood or offering up the lifeblood of others.
Therefore, Laenor concluded that what he had created, in the end, was a battery—one filled with magic, but finite. Once drained, it would be empty and would have to be powered again by blood sacrifices. The bloodstone he crafted functioned on the magic of the person who provided the blood, so at least it wouldn’t run out over time. Still, the realization left him bitter. He had allowed himself to hope—only for that hope to be crushed by realities beyond his control.
His frustration grew when his father jubilantly informed him that only two or three Velaryons lacked magic in their blood—aside from the seven family members present. But what use was teaching them runes if they couldn't power them without human sacrifice? Laenor had not been a wizard in his previous life, so he wasn’t sure whether the concept of "light" or "dark" magic held any weight. Nor did he want to find out.
What he feared was that both his families—Targaryen and Velaryon—might walk the same path as the Valyrian sorcerers of old: keeping human lives as fuel for magic. That was not a future Laenor could stomach. He wanted magic to be something cherished—not feared. But how could anyone cherish it when it required blood to function?
Laenor knew mass killing wouldn't sit well with him—but for Daemon? He’d do it with a smile.
So Laenor resolved to find another way. A method to use magic without constant blood sacrifice—before this war ended. It had been a full moon since their last ritual, and in that time, they had endured many attacks from the sea by the Triarchy. Yet not once had the men hiding in the caves come out.
Laenor, Daemon, and his father were waiting for that moment. They have low numbers of bombs, and if they wanted to cause maximum damage, they needed to strike when the ambushers emerged—or when they fired arrows from the cave mouths to bring down dragonriders. When that happened, Laenor’s Velaryon cousins—those with magic—would hurl the bombs, activating the runes with their blood. Their goal: kill as many as possible and seal off as many cave entrances as they could.
With a frustrated sigh, Laenor covered the dragonglass bombs with a cloth and made his way to bed. It was the hour of the bat, and he intended to sleep—come morning, he would be helping the Velaryon men build fortifications.
He had made it a habit to assist the loyal men of his house, though he didn’t have to. One more pair of hands didn’t make much difference—but to Laenor, it did. It grounded him. It reminded him to be grateful for his privileges—privileges many of his men could only dream of. More importantly, it kept him humble. He’d started to feel the creeping arrogance and pride that came with the power he wields and Daemon’s influence, and working beside his subjects helped him stay in touch with reality. Helped him "touch the grass," as he liked to think.
He was about to consider a third reason when a commotion rose outside. Laenor had barely thrown the covers off when Edd—one of the guards stationed outside his tent at night—burst in.
“What is this noise, Edd? What’s happened?” Laenor asked sharply, tying his belt and fastening his sword to it.
“Lord Laenor, the cowards have finally come out of their caves. They’re firing flaming arrows at us. Hurry—Prince Daemon is already in the sky with his dragon!”
