Of the Blood of the Dragon

Prologue

Not many people know the true history of House Valar.

House Valar also hailed from Valyria along with House Targaryen and House Velaryon. House Targaryen ruled the skies, House Valar protected them, and House Velaryon ruled the seas. Valar's cannot bond with a dragon although some of House Valar possess the power to shift into a Dragon, others possess the power of dragon fire. Instead of bonding with Dragons, House Valar instead bonded with dragon riders. Once bonded, a Dragon rider and a Valar couldn't be separated from one another.

For years, being a Valar was a death sentence. Always upholding the crown and protecting the realm. Every member of House Valar was a slave to something. Whether it be love, duty, or power, they all died the same. Victims of their loyalty to House Targaryen.

Valaria Valar who was the sworn protector of Aegon the Conqueror and his two sister wives Visenya and Rhaenys was the first Dragon Shifter to come to Westeros. Valaria who was mated to Aegon was killed in 37 AC when Maegor the Cruel ordered for her to be drowned in Blackwater Bay shortly after his father's death.

Since Aegon's Conquests no Valar has possessed the power to shift into a dragon.

That was until Valaena Valar was born.

In 88 AC, both Princess Alyssa Targaryen and the daughter of Sir Valerion Valar, Vaelys Valar went into labor, however only Princess Alyssa survived. Prince Daemon Targaryen and Lady Valaena Valar were born on the same day.

So it is that Daemon and Valaena grew up together, while the cruel shadow of her Grandsire hanged over them... weary of the Targaryen Prince's intentions from his granddaughter.

Only a Valar could truly love a Targaryen. Valaena had grown up reading stories of Valaria and Aegon, stories of which you couldn't deny the great love they had for the other nor the way they just fit like two puzzle pieces.

She wanted a love like that and longed for the day she would meet her Targaryen mate.

"I'll train her not to have the same faults as her mother. She will be a loyal protector." Valerion muttered to the King, nursing his goblet of wine.

"She's only six, Valerian. Beating her will not make her loyal."

"No, but it will break her. It doesn't matter her age... she is the Dragon Shifter, nothing more."

Seeing the love blossoming between the two, on Daemon and Valaena's ninth name day, Valerion sent Valaena to Braavos for training in order to become the Protector of King Jaehaerys.

Even years after the death of her Grandsire and the Old King, Lady Valaena never spoke of her training or the things she endured. She no longer was a lovesick fool like her grandsire scolded her for being, she was a loyal servant to the God of Death.

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As the first century of the Targaryen dynasty came to a close, the health of the old king, Jaehaerys, was failing. In those days, House Targaryen stood at the height of its strength with ten adult dragons under its yoke. No power in the world could stand against it.

King Jaehaerys reigned over nearly sixty years of peace and prosperity. But tragedy had claimed both his sons, leaving his succession in doubt. Baelon had sired three sons by his sister Alyssa. Two, Viserys and Daemon, still lived. Had Baelon ever taken the Iron Throne, Viserys would have followed him without question, but the crown prince's tragic death at the age of four-and-forty muddied the succession.

Moreover, King Jaehaerys still had one surviving son: Vaegon, an archmaester at the Citadel, holder of the ring and rod and mask of yellow gold. Known to history as Vaegon the Dragonless, his very existence had been largely forgotten by most of the Seven Kingdoms after he left abruptly before the scandal of Lady Vaelys was revealed. Though only eight-and-thirty years of age, Vaegon was pale and frail, a bookish man devoted to alchemy, astronomy, mathematics, and other arcane arts. Even as a boy, he had never been well-liked except for Lady Vaelys Valar. It is said that Lady Vaelys and Prince Vaegon shared a love for the arcane arts and that she was the only one who ever truly knew him.