Beneath the Seven and the Dragon's Shadow

In the final years before the Dance of the Dragons, when the realm still pretended at peace and the blood of Valyria still whispered beneath every crown, there existed a girl who prayed more faithfully than septons and sinned more quietly than saints.

They called her Vaella Waters - bastard, courtesan, curiosity of King's Landing - yet none of those names could explain the way dragons lingered in her shadow, nor why princes found themselves returning to the same forbidden places where she knelt before the Seven.

Aegon Targaryen believed himself a man beyond virtue, and Aemond Targaryen believed himself a man beyond weakness.

They were both wrong.

And in the city where everything has a price, even devotion becomes dangerous when it begins to look like obsession.