Ice and Fire: Reign of the Dragon.

Chapter 406 The prophecy should respond to me

After the banquet, Dragon Nest City fell silent, with only the night wind carrying the smell of charcoal fire lingering through the corridors.

"Mother?"

Maggie stood in front of her mother's bedroom, which still looked like Daenerys Varese's teenage years: the sword marks on the wall had not been erased, the leather armor hanging on the bedside still had the luster of maintenance oil, but there were exquisite silver laurel perfume and embroidered gloves on the dressing table. The girl's silver hair was loosely draped. She held a half-eaten cinnamon apple roll in her hand, and icing sugar stained the corners of her mouth, like a child who had not grown up.

Daenerys had her back to the door, her silver hair pouring down like moonlight on her dark blue velvet nightgown. She was combing her hair in front of an ancient bronze mirror, but the reflection in the mirror was not the elegant lady she was today, but the young knight who had charged on horseback and shot down three knights in the arena twenty years ago.

"Your father always said that this mirror has magic." She didn't turn around, and her voice seemed to come from far away, "It can reflect a person's truest appearance."

Maggie approached and found that her mother in the mirror was wearing military uniform and a sword at her waist. In reality, Daenerys' fingertips were unconsciously stroking the faded bronze scale in her dressing box, which was a gift from Igor.

"What do you want to say?" Maggie asked bluntly. The blood of the northerners was running through her body, and she hated the euphemisms of courtly speech.

Daenerys finally turned around. In the candlelight, the fine lines at the corners of her eyes looked like the folds of a dragon's wings, but they could not hide the fire in her eyes.

"You are marrying Igor."

Maggie didn't scream or resist. She just watched her mother take out a roll of burnt yellow parchment from the ivory box. The words written in the ink condensed after the dragon's flame melted the ancient mysterious black stone glowed dark red in the candlelight.

"When your grandfather Ringol was young, he traveled around the world and performed a blood sacrifice under the fish beam tree deep in the haunted forest outside the Great Wall." Her voice seemed to come from far away. "The blood and flesh brought him a prophecy - about you."

Written on the parchment in a mixture of First Men runes and High Valyrian was the following:

"When the ancient blood of the direwolf merges with the crown of the ancient dragon, the terror of the long night will end in fire."

Maggie frowned and took a bite of the apple strudel, sugar grains falling on the parchment. "So I have to marry my uncle? Just because of a bunch of weird signs?"

"This is the prophecy that your great-grandfather confirmed. Even your grandfather rarely mentioned it." Daenerys suddenly grabbed her daughter's hand, which was stained with sugar residue, and pressed it on the prophecy. "Ringol used the dragon fire of Starsong to forge the black stone that Dan brought back to make ink. He used it to cover the prophecy written by the Children of the Forest with the sap of the weirwood. Look."

The parchment suddenly became hot. Maggie watched in amazement as her palm lines emerged on the paper with silver veins, interweaving with another set of unfamiliar palm lines - those were Igor's. She recognized the callous marks on his knuckles left by training.

"This is the destiny of my family. We have tried all combinations." Daenerys' voice was filled with a long-lost fighting spirit. "Your great-grandfather Ringol married a Tully. Your great-grandmother's family bloodline can be traced back to Garth Greenhand, the common ancestor of all the kings of the First Men in the legend. Your mother married your father, an orthodox Stark. After Lady Black Yali left, Lord Cregan married his cousin. Basilone is the child of Lord Cregan and Lady Lyanna Stark - but only when your blood is mixed, the Black Stone Ink will shine."

"Does Igor know?"

Daenerys smiled bitterly: "He has been preparing for it all his life. From the day you fell from my belly, he has been learning how to be a husband who can make ice and fire coexist, and how to accept this responsibility." When Maggie pushed open the door of Igor's study, he was wiping the dragon saddle of Wormithor. The Valyrian steel armor hung on the rack, polished to a bright shine.

"So," she said bluntly, "do you want me to move into your bedroom tonight, or do you want me to wait until after the wedding to fulfill my 'prophetic duty'?"

Igor's hand paused. He put down the flannel, and when he turned around, Meggie saw for the first time the struggle in this man's eyes. It was not resistance to marriage, but anger at fate.

Although intermarriage is a tradition of the Dragon King family and Igor was prepared for it, it was normal to hesitate when it really came to the point, especially since Maggie and Jonnell were both children he had raised.

"You can refuse." His voice was like sandpaper grinding bronze. "Prophecy is just words on paper, people are the hands holding the pen."

Maggie suddenly smiled. She took off the hairband she had made herself, and the silver bell rang in the silence.

"You are wrong, uncle. I am not here to listen to your choice." She smiled at Igor. "I am here to tell you that I will be a better warrior than my mother and a wiser wife than my great-grandmother, because I don't need to hide my true self. Children of wolves and dragons don't need to hide their unrestrainedness."

When the morning light dyed the spire of the Silver Blood Tower in Dragon's Nest red, Maggie stood in the center of the training ground. She took off her gorgeous banquet dress and put on Daenerys' old leather armor - a little loose, but after tightening the belt, she looked even more heroic.

Igor threw a training sword: "Last chance to regret."

"Forget it, uncle." Maggie caught the sword easily, and suddenly thrust forward, forcing Igor to stagger back. "When I was six years old, I could beat Luciris with a stick and make him cry. What you should worry about is whether you can save your face in the competition after you get married."

The sand of the training ground was heated by the morning sun, and Maggie's wooden sword flew out of her hand, spinning and piercing into the straw target in the distance. Her knuckles were numb, and her palms were burning with pain, but her back was straight, and her purple eyes were burning with the fire of not giving up.

Igor stood with his sword sheathed, the bronze gauntlet gleaming coldly in the sun. He had expected to see tears of frustration, after all, Maggie was still a little girl, and his swordsmanship had been praised by his grandfather.

But the girl just shook her sore wrist and walked straight to the weapon rack, switching to a heavier two-handed training sword. "Another time."

The dull sound of wooden swords colliding startled the ravens perched on the wall. Maggie's attack was haphazard, but it was full of the wildness and bravery of the direwolf bloodline. Every slash seemed to cut off the chains of fate. When Igor backhanded her weapon away, she even tried to hit his chest with her shoulder, but he pressed his forehead with one hand and froze her in place.

"Brute strength." He commented, but then he let go of his hand, and the corners of his mouth rose slightly, "But better than those guys."

Maggie panted, sweat dripping down her silver braids into the sand. She bent down to pick up the wooden sword and suddenly smiled:
"The prophecy says we need to be together." Maggie drew a crooked dragon on the sand with the tip of her sword, and added a wolf's head, "but it doesn't say who must obey whom." She looked up, her eyes burning, "I don't need to respond to the prophecy, the prophecy should respond to me."

(End of this chapter)